Strike one: a house in need of a major renovation. Strike two: a garden in need of love. Strike three: a remodel that left the surrounding landscape decimated. Such were the conditions that Emilia and Anna DeMauro, the sisters behind DeMauro + DeMauro Landscape Design & Gardens, encoutered when they first met with their client in North Haven, a hamlet north of Sag Harbor, New York. “When we came on the property, it was essentially a construction site,” remembers Emilia. “It really was just exposed earth—just dirt. And further back it was so overgrown in some areas it was difficult to even walk.”
With a main house, a barn, a pool and a pool house, the two-acre property was not quite a blank canvas. There were also mature oaks dotted across the property, which abuts both woodland and wetland. In addition to repopulating the landscape with native plants, the client, an avid cook and gardener, hoped to add vegetable and cut flower beds (she also wanted to keep the peach trees planted by the previous owner). Last, the client wanted to highlight several sculptures by her late husband.
To tackle the large project, the DeMauro sisters created distinct gardens within the property, including two pollinator gravel gardens close to the house, a wildflower meadow near the wetland, grassy meadows on either side of the driveway, three cut flower beds, and fourteen vegetable beds—plus, on-site composting and even a chicken run.
Take a tour of the revived and diverse bayside landscape:
Photography by Doug Young, courtesy of DeMauro + DeMauro.
Before
Above: Before the landscape redesign, the land surrounding the house was nothing but compacted, post-construction dirt. Anna saw the sunny spots between the two house wings as the perfect opportunity to create a dry gravel garden inspired by Beth Chatto’s celebrated garden in Essex.
After
Above: Two years after DeMauro + DeMauro’s installation, the pollinator gravel gardens are coming into their own.
Above: “I knew this was a location where a dry garden would flourish and thrive,” says Anna. “There’s really great air circulation and it’s hot with bright light reflected from the glass near the water. Then you add the gravel, and heat-loving plants just love it.”
Above: The gravel garden is planted with bayberry, Magnolia virginiana, native grasses (Molina ‘Strahlenquelle’, Briza media, and Sporobolus heterolepsis), lavender ‘Phenomenal’, monarda, eupatorium, pycnanthemum, agastache, all of which support pollinators. DeMauro + DeMauro aligned the gravel path and the mowed path just beyond to draw the eye through the meadow to the pond in the distance.
Above: A wide ribbon of turf grass, where kids can play, separates the back gravel garden from the wildflower meadow beyond, clearly separating the two.
Above: DeMauro + DeMauro created several meadows on the property using a mix of seeds and landscape plugs. This meadow, which sits between the house and the pond is a focal point with many flowering species including yarrow, milkweed, blue vervain, and Joe pye weed, mixed in amongst native grasses including little blue stem and panicum. “It’s very wild and eye-catching,” says Anna, who notes the other meadows are more green.
Above: Inspired by the work of Italian landscape designer Luciano Giubbilei, Anna conceived of a strategically mown design around some of the mature trees. DeMauro + DeMauro instructed their maintenance teams to leave circles of tall, unmown grass around each tree, which creates softer landings and protects the trees roots.
Above: The designers used a similar strategy to incorporate the client’s sculptures into the garden, creating a circle of grasses and shrubs as a “shadow” around each sculpture.
Above: DeMauro + DeMauro placed the food production on the backside of the property, behind the existing barn. A more freeform bed between the vegetable beds and cut flower beds is planted with raspberries and rhubarb.
Above: The vegetable beds have Corten steel edging, which allowed DeMauro + DeMauro to bring in high-quality soil for the food growing operation. Ten rectangular beds are laid out along an axis line that meets a quadrant of four larger square beds that are home to more unruly crops like squash and tomatoes.
Above: The ample cut flower beds are set directly into the ground in an area that was formerly turf grass. DeMauro + DeMauro collaborate with their client each year to decide which flowers to grow.
Above: A profusion of blooms.
Above: DeMauro + DeMauro added onto existing mature peach trees, planting more fruiting trees to create an allée leading to the vegetable gardens. Other fruit trees, including pear, apple, and plum are dotted throughout this back area.
For more Hamptons projects, see:
