The Gardens at Half Moon

THIS IS NEW Garden owner is a nursery stock broker who also operates a small nursery specializing in grafted conifers. In calling on the trade, I was exposed to a wide variety of unusual trees and shrubs and fell easily into the habit of collecting them. We purchased this property 40 years ago which included the stone farmhouse, a tenant house, and the ruins of a large barn, but other than a lovely old 'Suffruticosa' boxwood hedge, now gone, was almost completely devoid of any landscaping. Our gardens grew and evolved over the years and are now populated with those plants collected in my travels in combination with selections of other compatible trees and shrubs. There is also a conifer garden which resulted from a long association with the Iseli Nursery in Oregon, and includes quite a few 40-year-old specimens blended with newer additions. Throughout the property, keep an eye out for rare and unusual plants that are everywhere and can pop up unexpectedly! Deer found our hostas last year (about 200 of them) that had gone unmolested for years. This spring we replaced them all, changing the aspect of the garden considerably. We hope the garden will, in time, be more interesting and deer resistant, but we'll see!