Against Odds, Pines Gardeners Create Green Havens
Story and Photos
By Ariel Blandino Ramerez

A picturesque garden is the beauty that arises from continual hard work, comprised of years of toiling in the sand to create a sense of inner peace and tranquility. At times, it requires converting swamp and dry soil into an enriched, nurturing home for roses, daisies, petunias, hostas, marsh maragos, irises, ferns—which thrive with water—or blue atlas cedar, blue spruce and yellow finoke that are not indigenous to the island nor beach terrain.

Ask Sumner Freeman about the joy of gardening and he will tell you of the painstaking hardships and endless work necessary to achieve the aforementioned joy. He will also tell you that his garden is “the garden God would have created if she had the time.” A joke? Perhaps not.

Upon entry to the property, his winding sanctuary commences with a woodland garden. Fusing miniature replicas of Claude Monet’s bridges in Giverny with Japanese, French, and West Coast arts-and-craft California themes, his garden brings together many elements. Freshwater ponds and waterfalls meet trellises and gazebos. A pink granite wishing bench invites you to make a wish—but you must face east. Interspersed throughout is artwork, including a commissioned Ceramica Bambuza Fire Island Dances sculpture by Donahue, a West Coast artist paying homage to his summer respite. Described by Jack Schlegel as “spectacular,” the flowers include a hybrid tea and Abraham Darby climbing rose section reminiscent in color to costumes worn in Balanchine’s “Vienna Waltzes.”

These are deliberate touches meant to keep guests company on their journeys along his pathways. “Those cement figures are ‘The Boys in the Band,’” he states, introducing our companions as we leisurely stroll the walkway.

Freeman’s multi-lot haven is both the envy and pleasure of horticulturists across Fire Island, and with obvious reason. However, with the changing seasons comes more work. “Most of the [plant life] dies over the winter and is annual, and some go to winter camp, just like children; you have to care for them,” he explains.

Ron Perkov and William Hayden’s work equals Freeman's arduous battles in a quest for serenity. “This [land] was filled with sand, lots of briar and poison ivy; it hadn’t been touched for fifty years, so we started from scratch [with] the garden before the house was even finished,” Perkov says, but “it never ends; for eight years, it’s a twelve hour a day job.” For Perkov and Hayden gardening is an evolutionary task of incorporating neighbors’ techniques and a little bit of excavation and rock landscaping to offset the environment and keep it fresh. “You learn what to do and not to from your neighbors,” he says, dispelling any notion of competition. Perkov and Hayden even find inspiration from awe-inspiring structures like the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Perennial Garden Design’s Rob Breckenridge also borrows from his past mentors to reflect on his talented architectural approach to landscaping.

“People [seemingly] over-romanticize the end product, without considering the full journey. I’ve walked by [Freeman’s] lot and peeked in through the gates—I have so wanted to visit, it’s breathtaking,” he divulges.

For his own aesthetic, he says, It’s about fluidity.

“Most homes on the island are right-angled, hard lined, but unifying to soften the structure became more important” he said describing his job for John Biando and Tim Horman.

“There is a love affair that [people] fall into with gardens and gardening that fuels a project. [Biando and Horman’s] garden is the first room to really hit you; you are immediately forced to deal with that foyer to the house. We found it in really lamentable conditions,” he reflects.

When you walk into the space, you get a sense of what the place is really all about, he says. His jump-off point started with “the idea to simplify and clarify the lines, not with a lot of materials but with one unifying theme,” he adds. His meticulous approach resulted in an entryway that nearly renders a visit inside the house itself unnecessary.

These Pines’ gardeners demonstrate the fruitful gains of a lifelong journey, selflessly shared to enrich the beauty and magical aura of their communities.