Summer Entertaining & Installing a Water Garden Fountain in time for a family party

Nothing says summer like a big family party – made all the better by celebrating more than a few Leo birthdays.

Did you know there are more Leo’s than any other zodiac sign? 

Hmmm, let’s see.  Counting back nine months, it must be that woozy, Thanksgiving food coma or its key nutrient tryptophan or snuggly cool November nights!

All the more reason to pause and indulge in enchanting Summer entertaining because we can celebrate outdoors – with nature. In the garden.

The only thing disrupting this Eden-like utopian dream for us was that our garden was a lot less verdant; pre-party.

The sad reality was it was still more of a modified construction site. 

In fact, we just had the front walk I designed installed for Independence Day. 

The newly-installed turf had taken, it was true, despite no irrigation system, and all was a vast improvement.

But there was that hard to ignore, pesky blob of sand, weeds, wood planks, and useless plastic protecting this junkyard, er, our yard.

Regardless, family was in from Arizona, with their extended family; to celebrate the 80^th birthday of my dear cousin’s mother/my aunt/my late father’s last surviving sister. 

Got that? 

Whew!

Take away? 

It was a special family event that begged for an elegant menu to celebrate and honor my beloved father’s sister. 

I naturally collaborated with my cousin for the celebration and while he attempted to keep it “simple and not a big deal or fancy – truth is that any really special, memorable party indeed cries out for a glamorous, delicious, homegrown menu.

Seriously. 

If everyone serves hamburgers & hot dogs from the supermarket (with all its attendant corporate, disease-laden frights – not only is it Boring!  (

Recognize this communication: “Ok, you bring the potato salad and noodle salad and I’ll get the dogs and burgers and steak.”

Voila—there is the weekend menu. 

No.  That is code for: “I don’t really know what to make and am scared to serve my guests something else – and I daresay, much like politics and its code, learning and trying and making more than the average menu is not “Code” for “fancy.” 

I have listened to too many people say, “I don’t do fancy.”  “I’ll just have burgers and dogs and….” 

Sigh

How utterly boring.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a Wimpy.  I LOVE, LOVE, Love a burger more than most.

I could eat my way through any region just on burgers.

But the key -- moreover the point that I share with my Hamptons and Long Island Homegrown Cookbook fans and anyone else who is committed to good food --  is that if one is hosting a party, let’s PLEASE make it as special as the guests you’ve invited and the reason for the party to begin with 

Yes, it takes work to come up with a menu.

Yes, it takes work to make the food.

But food is love – just a four-letter word spelled differently. J

The code for “I don’t know what to do or to serve” or “I don’t do fancy” really means no one wants to take the time to lovingly produce a menu they can make, or at least one that a local caterer can make. 

How to remedy this ill?

Take a deep breath. 

Inhale the beauty of family, love, and spending time with those you care most about. 

And if you don’t want to cook and prepare the food – no problem. 

You who are all things glamorous and homegrown – can produce the menu.

You can have a local caterer or local garden center foodie court prepare the food.

I am so trying to encourage you to move away from the fear of having more than a few people over for dinner or lunch or brunch – and just serving “Safe Food”

The honest to god’s truth is that that stor-

 bought corporate stuff is waaay less than safe in the long run. 

Burger patties already cut?  Yikes. Who knows where that came from.

Hot Dogs that are predisposed to icky and only more so when the corporate scraps are swept up.

Don’t do it.

You who wouldn’t give your family any less than the best shouldn’t feel intimidated by the honor of producing a family dinner or lunch party that is Homegrown, delicious, local and seasonal.

Here is my menu for my aunt’s 80^th birthday party. 

Aunt Anne Birthday Dinner

5:00 pm cocktail: Beer, wine, martini, garden-harvest mint iced tea.

Nuts, pretzels

Club Sandwiches – w /flag toothpicks

Cherry Tomato Gazpacho from my Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook from The Lake House: Chef Matt 

Antipasto 

Grilled BBQ Pizza  - my idea

Tzatziki Yogurt Spread: low fat yogurt, cucumber, garlic, dill, olive oil, salt

6:00 pm to 9 pm Dinner followed by Birthday cupcakes

Entrees

·      Pretzel-Onion Crusted BBQ Chicken with Pretzel Latkes, Corn, and Mustard – Chef David Burke 

    Cookbook

·      Meatloaf Bundt Cake – Chef David Burke Cookbook  

·      Potato Salad with Dill – Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook

·      Butternut Squash Saltimbocca with Burrata Cheese – Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook   from Kitchen A Bistro, Chef Eric

Dessert

Aunt Jeanne desserts

Homemade ice cream – Garden State peaches (wooahh!)

Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes  - Martha Stewart recipe- Mother made and lucky strike extra?  Niece and budding pastry talent, Tara, made her version for the big birthday surprise party two days later.

See how good food inspires and begets yet more good food?!

Menu

The menu was sourced from my just-released book: “The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook”  and from my soon to be released New York City Homegrown Cookbook that features David Burke and recipes from his cookbooks, plus my own favs, such as classic club sandwiches. 

I do my own twist on servings too –so I encourage you to do the same.

The classic club sandwich I do is morphed into the BLT --  one of my favs. 

I make the homemade mayo with our homegrown garlic. 

We use the fresh bread from my mother’s weekly baking and use The best bacon, our garden fresh tomatoes and lettuce and punctuate with an American flag toothpick!

I tier these on those Martha green ascending cake plates.

Guests can breezily indulge from the moment they arrive!

All garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, mint tea were sourced and made from our gardens and “farmette.”  

Chef David Burke recipe for American Classic bunt baked meat loaf

Mixing up gazpacho with Homegrown just picked ingredients

The Kitchen A Bistro butternut squash planks ready for cooking up

Kitchen A Bistro's Butternut Squash Saltimbocca recipe: our homegrown squash & sage

The Fountain Springs Forth

And once again, just like the front walk installation, the landscape design transformation for the water garden, was complete just as our guests were arriving! 

“Move that truck!” joyfully echoes in my head. 

I always work with Burke Honnold’s team for me and for my clients because they are artisans and do the very best work. 

It is precise, accurate, and well-- beautiful.

Due to cost, Burke had wisely suggested I go with a pre-made fountain rather than having the team make it, as we’d done for other clients.

And like magic, a fountain came into my life.

I found a tinkling fountain while on a nursery shopping trip for my client’ – filling in some container plants. 

Even now I’m not sure if the fountain was really for sale. There was no price tag.

I asked the sales person, Blanche --who was finishing up with another shopper there -- how much for the fountain, whereupon the shopper whipped her head around and quipped, “I’m going home with you!”

Ha.

After some back and forth, listening to the fountain – (my husband hates that full-on waterfall sound vs. a lovely trickle of water.)

And my garden design fountain was destined for outside the dining room so that the lovely, soft, sensual sound of water would be soothing. 

Further, I wanted to provide a garden destination for cocktails where we could walk around the fountain, sit on the side, float candles….

And listen to the sound of water while dining.

On the less dreamy side, there were also more than a few chips in the fountain foundation. But for the right price, I could work with it.

We were in negotiations…

I readjusted the water garden design, made the parterres work and called to say “yes.”

Within a few days, it was being installed.

First the space for the circular base was measured, and dug.  

The fountain was then placed within the space and very delicately, the fountain was assembled.

The fabric liner was placed over the space.  

The fountain piece were locked into place like a puzzle.

The rubber mallet tapped it together.   

Then the metal was cut and bent for the parterre borders.  

It was amazing to watch.  

The water plants were put in:  

and the Fountain started up: 

The water garden will be bordered by Skip Laurels, box and winter blooming camellia and micro buxus.

The parterres should be filled with easy, fragrant lavender border by box; the variety as recommended by Earthy Delights.

In the meantime, I asked that mulch be put in the parterre beds.

Further, the side garden walk was installed with the same decomposed granite that is the walkway around the fountain and on the side of the front walk and the transition walk.  

I like it very much.  It complements our home look. The DG is the walkway in Paris’s Tiuilleries gardens and Chicago Botanic Gardens and featured in Garden Design Magazine. 

What’s not to love?  

It's a great first start and bones to a good garden design/foundation....

Next up: getting the border skip laurels in and the plants for the parterre planting…

Paradise Found at Metro Hort Garden Lecture

Social networking has its green scene. 

Laughter and chatter and welcome back hugs, along with a few air kisses, greeted Metro Hort members at the wine and cheese party that was abuzz on the garden rooftop of the Arsenal, overlooking New York’s majestic Central Park.  Skyscrapers perched liked distant sentinels frame the world-class oasis. 

It was a sublime soiree. 

In conversation bubbles that formed, dissolved, and connected, the group’s professional horticulturists eagerly shared their summer work project stories: garden travel, garden design, park renovations and the tribulations and triumphs of horticulture work during what has been noted as the second hottest summer recorded.  There were a lot of stories to tell.  

This year’s growing season had its share of climate change mood swings, that’s for sure – from hot to rain to storms of the century. 

But horticulturists and gardeners prevail!

Metro Hort’s premiere lecture greeted the new series’ season with Emil Kreye & Son’s talk and picture show about their work constructing rock and water landscapes. (www.emilkreyeandson.com)

Luke Kreye, Emil Kreye & Son

I think it’s safe to say that Luke’s presentation about the challenges and problems of building their gardens left the members a bit breathless. (One rock garden project is 400 feet long and 23 feet high.) The scope and scale of their work is beyond what most members’ typical projects consist of. 

These are rock gardens for the dinosaurs.  

No dainty screes or diminutive blossoms here. 

These landscapes are colossal. They require heavy, massive technology to move the boulders from the Pennsylvania quarry to their clients’ yards.   

Er, estates. Or compounds. 

See, the Kreye’s client list is happily upscale.  Keeping up with the Larsen’s – of Long House Reserve – and Frank Cabot’s Stonecrop -- and the family who started Bed, Bath & Beyond takes them, well, beyond more than curb appeal. 

When the question of how much a garden design like this might run, the answer was “a lot.” When pressed, Luke said a suite of steps might run $50,000. 

And believe me, these landscape designs were comprised of more than a few stairways to heaven.

The awed members expressed true admiration and respect for the work.

There is palpable pride that four generations of Kreyes know their craft and design with nature. The family tree must surely possess a family garden god or goddess that imbues them with garden power to design ravines, cascading waterfalls to rival national parks, and moats fit for a king – or hedge fund manager.

The feature water gardens or “water installations” circulate water all year long. Water flowing around frozen ice sculpture in their design work is a construct of engineering that creates a living work of art. Some of the waterfalls grades were 150 feet high and the landscapes embrace more than 10,000 pounds of rock.

They’ve created bird sanctuaries.  The water builds microbial colonies, the shrubs are planted to contain waste, rocks and other plants especially ferns, too.  Koi are used in all the ponds they create.

The Kreyes change the topography. The create ecosystems. Designed filters and EPDM rubber linings – so no leaching Luke claims -- support the infrastructure and operation. Overflow water is directed back into the drainage system.  They heavily compact the earth. They use native plants and the result is a landscape tableau that looks likes it’s always been there. 

Alternatively, some gardens have no plants.  It’s rock and water.  And the landscape is a “staged installation.”

Luke describes the design process as visiting the landscape and getting a feel for the site. I couldn’t help think of the mise en place, or spirit of the place, speaking to the family.

Quarry

They then go to the Pennsylvania quarry and select the stone. 

Then they reassess on site before moving the rocks to create that ideal sense of realism.  “We don’t want to be moving around rocks that can weigh more than 200 pounds, “ Luke pointed out…

“And I personally know every rock in every design,” he states with confidence and pride. So while the designs are outsized, the personal, customized oversight permeates every project. 

Luke and his father design the landscapes, His father – who was in attendance at the talk – details the work.  Each project takes about a year to build, according to Luke.  Technology has allowed the family to create more landscape fantasies.  

A completed installation in the Kreye portfolio was just manic over the top – a real conversation starter. 

A Old Westbury, Long Island family visited the Atlantis island resort and came home determined to build a water slide like the one there. (and here all I got was a t-shirt!)

Kreye’s landscaped or manipulated the yard to make way for not only a water slide but a pool and other impossible water works that would make Poseidon blush. They used cherry laurels to hide a lot of the slide structure so one has the sense of sliding through a forest glen.

Luke dutifully displayed the work at his own home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  He even invited Metro Hort members to visit for a tour.  “We give three to five garden tours a year,” he noted.   It is sensational to say the least.  “We use as many plants as we can,” he said while showing Eden-rock like images of waterfalls and moats. 

Paradise found…     

If you are a horticultural professional interested in becoming a Metro Hort member, contact the association at:

www.metrohort.org