A Visit to Carolyn Summers’s Garden
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- October
- 26
I’ve been hearing for a couple of years what a nice garden Carolyn Summers has around her Hastings-on-Hudson home. It’s almost all native plants. Here’s Carolyn with a floppy stand of rudbeckia.
She has a book on native plants due out next year from Rutgers University Press. Here’s the jacket—that’s Pru Montgomery’s house and garden in Hastings on the cover.
Carolyn and her husband, David, live in a charming Dutch Colonial with an Arts and Crafts interior. Officially it dates to 1926, but they think it may be older. It sits on just one-third of an acre, but the property reads much bigger because of all the old plantings. Lots of ferns in her garden.
The rock garden — she replanted the center of it last spring.
Dicentra eximia, a native bleeding heart that likes shade.
“This garden really shines in spring,” she says. “That’s when these dogwoods are so beautiful.” The fall berries are pretty great, too.
White woodland asters — “They just came in from the hillside woods,” Carolyn says.
Lobelia cardinalis (Cardinal flower).
Phlox ‘David,’ one of my favorites.
I did not know there was a lilac-colored version of ‘David.’
Big, tall rudbeckia.
More native asters.
The mini-meadow in the front yard, right by the street.
Lots of peaceful shady spots in her garden.
A big pink-headed Joe-pye weed, with yellow-flowered rudbeckia.
I did not know of this white Joe-pye weed. Isn’t it great? It’s called ‘Bartered Bride.’
I think this is a purple-leaved redbud tree, called ‘Forest Pansy.’
Sound-emitting deer repellents from Deer Tech; they also spray.
Not much lawn is left, as she’s been pulling out the flower beds into formerly grassy areas.
Native goldenrod scattered here and there. I love the informality of her garden, with lots of native wildflowers, the sort of plants we associate with woodlands or meadows along the road.
A sweet little pond in the back yard.
… with lots of tiny bright-green duckweed.
Beautiful stonework. Carolyn is also a landscape architect.
Look at this big slab, right near the house.
A bunny!
This entry was posted
on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 8:08 am by Bill Cary.
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Bill Cary grew up in Louisville, Ky. His gardening was limited to growing parsley and impatiens on the windowsill of Manhattan walkups until the mid-1990s when he bought a rundown old chicken farm on 8 acres in the Hudson Valley. Now he spends his weekends chasing deer, hacking away at invasive shrubs and vines and wondering why he doesn`t have more meadow and less lawn.
Carolyn’s garden is indeed beautiful, and even better, it’s interesting! The book should be great, too.
Thanks so much for sharing these pictures, Bill.
Thanks for writing, Brooke. Hope you’re well.