Sustainable Garden Tour 2022

June 18, 2022
10:00 a.m.

Meeting Place: ReWild Garden at Dodge, 58 Harbor Road

Click here to see the 2023 Sustainable Garden Tour

Garden Tour Stops and Descriptions:

Meeting Place and Start Time:

ReWild Garden at Dodge
58 Harbor Road
Port Washington, NY 11050

June 18, 2022
10:00 a.m.

Receive a map of the tour with parking instructions

This garden is an emerging sustainable space on the historic grounds of the 300-year-old Thomas Dodge Homestead garden along the shore of beautiful Mill Pond. It is being designed by a core of dedicated volunteers as a community showcase for sustainable landscaping, featuring native perennials, organic fruits and vegetables, composting, and water conservation.

Garden 1: Annemarie Ansel
Feature: Incorporating Phlox and Sunflowers

  • Long time gardener with vegetables, fruits and flowers
  • Native plants for pollinators and to reduce water usage
  • Fully organic with greenhouse and almost year-round interest
  • Driveway converted into a vast container garden
  • Shade gardening

Quote from the host:
“Every year I took out another piece of lawn and replaced it with a native garden.”

Garden 2: Margaret (Meg) & Charlie Desiervo
Feature:  Creating an Elegant Landscape that is Sustainable and Attractive

  • Thyme lawn and lots of colors, berries, bees, and birds
  • Small property that delights pollinators, homeowners, and their dog
  • Composting with small barrel system
  • Rain Barrel and Drip Water System

Quote from the host:
“You can do a lot with a small space, and yet make it look good. We have attracted a lot of attention on our street with curious neighbors, who are now starting to rewild their yards!”

Garden 3: Growing Love Community Garden in the Manorhaven Preserve
Feature: Connecting Nature to People

  • No lawn. Vegetable garden beds, trees, perennials, ground covers
  • Bluestone patio and seating for community interaction
  • Composting demonstration
  • Children’s garden, pollinator garden, memorial garden, and vertical garden
  • Soil regeneration
  • Elbow grease irrigation
  • Mulch
  • Brambles

Quote from the host:
“I think of the garden in terms of function. Picking the right plant for the right place. I try to put plants together that cooperate well.”

Garden 4: Peggy Maslow
Feature: How to Attract Birds to Your Garden

  • Sun and shade flowering plants for all seasons
  • Predominantly native plants
  • Habitat and food for birds and pollinators
  • Low water garden with water reuse
  • No pesticides
  • Composting and Bokashi

Quote from the host:
“As a long-time member of North Shore Audubon, I try to look at my garden with the eyes of a bird. Birds can’t resist a pretty yard with plenty of delicious native seeds and caterpillars, as well as places to hide and forage.”

Garden 5: Raju Rajan
Feature: A Radical Backyard Meadow

  • Front yard with flowering trees, lawn and a well-controlled native planting, demarcated by bamboo edging
  • Backyard is a wildflower meadow and vegetable garden
  • Demonstration of composting, smart and drip watering systems

Quote from the host:
“Native plants, just like any other plants, can be used in a variety of ways from formal landscapes to wildscapes. We just love how our gardens feed our soul with surprise and delight each week.”

Garden 6: Joanne Strongin
Feature: Landscaping that Barely Needs Water

  • Mix of garden and turf in a tiny front yard
  • Doing a lot with little space and yet attracting plenty of pollinators
  • Lush and elegant, yet biodiverse and low-maintenance
  • Thyme path

Quote from the host:
“We love our little front yard where there is always something new happening. Our native plant-based design is very low-maintenance. Plants will thrive with just occasional watering.”