The Summer Season is Underway 

Bridge Gardens Gets a Buffer-Lift!  

Thank you to Steve Mahoney of Mahoney Farm and Declan Blackmore of Summerhill Landscapes who donated incredible time and materials for the upgrade to the Bridge Gardens entrance and the landscape buffer along Mitchell Lane.

As many of your know, the Trust has been working with the Town of Southampton on a special exception variance to operate Bridge Gardens officially as a public garden within a residential neighborhood. As part of the application process, the Town requires the Trust to upgrade the entrance and landscaping along Mitchell Lane, which will also allow for better signage at the gardens entrance! (Coming Soon!)

Additional contributions are needed from those who love Bridge Gardens to help us cover the balance of the costs involved in this effort. For more information on how you can help, please contact Pam Greene at our Southampton office at 631.283.3195 or PGreene@PeconicLandTrust.org. 

Our Partnerships are Blooming: Southampton Rose Society

We've enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership with the Southampton Rose Society -- and had two very educational programs at Bridge Gardens this spring: a photography lecture with famed photographer Dency Kane and a talk on growing the perfect rose with Peter Bertrand. Next up with the Society is a special Garden Tour! 

Not to be Missed! The Southampton Rose Society's annual Garden Tour is on Saturday, June 27 (details below). This is a perfect opportunity to see some of the special gardens in our area and take away ideas for your own home landscape. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://southamptonrose.org/ or call 631.740.4732. 

Around the Gardens . . . 

• Community Gardens: We have a wonderful group of community gardeners with us this summer -- planting everything from arugula and tomatoes, to beans, peas, kale, beets and flowers like lilies and gladiolas. 

• Reminder: Paul Wagner Offers Free Lawn and Landscape Advice on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 pm. For that extra bit of help, Paul of Treewise Organics and Soil Foodweb NY is available to answer questions in person at the gardens. Or, you can email him at
  LawnExpert@PeconicLandTrust.org 
   
• Sustainable Landscape Workshops: We are offering a full season of workshops on a variety of subjects including composting, fertilizers, pests in the gardens, native plants for beneficial insects, irrigation and water management, and more. See our listing below or visit our online calendar for more programs and dates.
   
• Demonstration Lawns: In the fall, with assistance from Paul Wagner, Sean O'Neill and Tamson Yeh, we installed three demonstration areas for turf -- Full Sun, Part Sun, Shade -- which each featured four seed types and two types of fertilizer. The lawns are coming along, and now is a great time to check them out, ask questions, and see what might work best at your home! 
   
• Music: Music at the gardens starts next month! We have two shows planned with perennial favorites: 
• Friday, July 17 with Charles Certain and Friends and 
• Friday, August 21 with Joe Hampton and the Kingpins

Check Out News 12 Long Island

News 12 Long Island's Mary Mucci came out for a visit with Paul Wagner for some lawn advice. See her interview with Paul and her visit to the garden on this week's edition of Long Island Naturally. Watch now online!

What's Blooming in June and July 

We have many exciting flowering shrubs and plants coming into bloom throughout the gardens -- from the roses to the vegetable garden, herb beds and perennial beds. One of the first plantings to greet you as you enter the gardens is the spectacular Clematis montana Alba, which is climbing into an oak tree. This breath-taking, mature plant has been at Bridge Gardens for over 10 years, and is gorgeous right now in full bloom! 

Rosa Golden Wings and Homerun also greet you at the entrance, and are a great preview for the Rose Garden at the southwestern portion of Bridge Gardens. The next two weeks is peak season for roses at Bridge Gardens and on the East End. Established by the garden's founders, Harry Neyens and Jim Kilpatric, the rose garden is a beautiful rondel and also features climbing roses on tree arbors -- providing a beautiful place to view the rose rondel at the northern edge of the Outer Garden. 

In the Inner Garden, the medicinal bed in the herb garden is nearly in full bloom with foxglove, poppies and feverfew among the stars of the bed in June. The wisteria arbor outside the Garden House provides, as always, wonderful shade for afternoon lunch -- bring a picnic basket and take some time with us! Also, stop inside the Garden House to pick up literature and details

 about the Lawn Demonstration areas. 

In the next couple of weeks, be on the lookout for bear's breech -- Acanthus spinosus -- which will be in bloom right at the entrance to the Inner Garden (by the white gates).  

Call for Volunteers 

 The new plantings along Mitchell Lane require a lot of watering for them to take root. Please contact me or Kathy Kennedy at the Trust if you can spare a few hours during the week to help us! There are lots of volunteer opportunities at the gardens -- from weeding to helping us collect entrance fees at the gate. Our schedule is flexible -- so let us know what works for you. 

I hope that you will visit us often this summer -- there's so much to see and experience. And this is for certain, the gardens are always changing!  
 

Wishing you a bountiful season,

~~~~~~~~ 

Bridge Gardens Notecards

Last season, photographer Jeff Heatley spent the year documenting the changing seasons at Bridge Gardens. The entire portfolio of images from Jeff is on his website, Art & Architecture Quarterly, starting with April 2014 through January 2015.

We've taken 8 of Jeff's images from the season and created a gorgeous gift set of note cards. What a wonderful way to share Bridge Gardens with your friends and family!

The notecards, $12 for a set of 8 cards, are available on our website or call 631.283.3195.