There are gardeners, and then there are GARDENERS — the passionate, dirt-under-their-fingernails types who pour blood, sweat, tears, money and most of their spare time into creating the gardens of their dreams.
They don’t just plant; they design, dig, prune, cultivate and even push the boundaries of what’s possible in their climate to create breathtaking sanctuaries in their own backyards.
Meet five LI gardeners who are raising the stakes — and the trellises — to take home gardening to the next level:
CONTROLLED NATURE
Over the past 29 years, Walter Becker has created a serene refuge of varied vistas in his Mount Sinai backyard. Garden plants like hydrangeas, roses, rhododendrons and daylilies grow in beds alongside tropical houseplants that he plants into the ground every spring, only to dig up and repot them as the sun sets on another growing season.
Winding paths reveal a surprise around every corner: exotic plants, a pond, sculptures — all set to a birdsong soundtrack.
When the electronics consultant moved into the house with his wife, Ann, their builder had cleared only 20 feet of the 1-acre property. The remainder was a thicket of wild roses, Russian olive trees, weeds and broken concrete that Becker said took almost a year to clear.
During the first few years, he planted purple beech, elderberry, linden, dogwood and honey locust trees, aiming for what he calls “controlled nature” by pruning some of them and deliberately leaving others unpruned. “I also plant very close together, making sure that every garden bed has every plant in it,” he said.
Walter and Ann Becker’s backyard oasis in Mount Sinai. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
“My original goal was to have every season bring different colors and different character,” noted Becker, 67, who cofounded the Mount Sinai Garden Club in 2005. “I wanted tranquility, so you can feel like you’re getting away from it all and almost hide and not see any of the neighbors’ houses.”
That took time. “I expanded it each year,” Becker added, “but it took almost 10 years to have a complete garden in the backyard.”
At last count, Becker said his garden includes 180 types of perennials, which he lifts and divides every year, and 80 shrub and tree species, including evergreens, golden chain trees, crabapples, white flowering fringe trees, crape myrtles and yellow and red varieties of smoke bush.
Then there are the transient plants. “I have about 60 pots of tropical and houseplants in the house. Some go dormant over winter, and others grow under lights in the basement,” Becker said. “Each spring, I remove them from their pots and plant them, then reverse it all and bring them back in each fall.” The twice-annual migrations each take about a week.
Becker said he initially started using houseplants in the garden because, at the time, he couldn’t afford to buy plants.
Walter Becker relocates paths and flower beds annually. “It’s like a new painting every year,” he said. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
These days, Becker plants the houseplants in different spots every year, which “keeps things interesting,” he said.
He has also moved every shrub at least once, and he relocates paths and flower beds every year. “I like change because it’s like a new painting every year, but I make a lot of work for myself,” he said with a chuckle.
As far as that work is concerned, Becker said he doesn’t really consider it work at all. “I could weed all day long, move things, cut grass. It’s just something that I enjoy,” he said, adding that gardening helps him “forget about things.”
One thing Becker doesn’t forget, however, is where each plant came from. “Every plant, for me, is a memory,” he said. “I can remember who gave it to me or where I got it and know when I walk by that my mother used to love it or my mother-in-law [did],” he said, adding that he remembers which plants his daughters planted when they were little and thinks of his father when he sees the old varieties of bee balm and daisies he gave him years ago.
“My grandchildren will have those memories, too, because I’m giving old roses to my sons-in-law that my father had given to me,” he said.
Walter Becker’s Mount Sinai garden will be included in The Garden Conservancy’s 2025 Open Days tours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 24. Visit gardenconservancy.org for tickets and information about his and other Long Island gardens on the tour.
Derek Scolpino holds a planter with a wax begonia and an orchid that reside among many other plants at his East Hampton home. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
PLANT-BASED MINDFULNESS
Entering Derek Scolpino’s East Hampton living room feels like stepping into an award-winning magazine spread. Sunlight streams through floor-to-ceiling windows to illuminate the modern space, as crisp, white walls and furniture create the perfect backdrop for more than 200 houseplants.
On the floor, a towering 12-foot cactus adorns the fireplace and a blooming bird of paradise sits near the grand piano. Begonias and a Chinese money plant call the coffee table home. You’d be hard-pressed to find a flat surface that isn’t hosting a blooming plant.
Scolpino, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology who splits his time between East Hampton and the Upper West Side of Manhattan, has embraced biophilic design, which integrates plant-based mindfulness into the home.
“I won’t sacrifice design for a plant if it doesn’t work,” Scolpino, 35, said. “I think about every single thing I put into my house. I don’t want it to look cluttered. I want it to feel like you’re walking into an open space.”
He said some of his visitors actually have gotten confused, leaving without their coats in the middle of winter because they’d forgotten they were indoors.
Scolpino has loved plants since he was a child growing up in Bethel, Connecticut. “In third grade, I’d rush home to work on a path I was making in the woods. I didn’t know it then, but I was already gardening,” he said. “I wanted to be surrounded by plants.”
Walls of windows blur the boundary between home and garden, as oleander, zinnias, hydrangeas and myriad perennials and tropical plants growing outdoors are visible from inside the house, which he shares with his partner, Ron Lense. Even Lily, the couple’s Labrador-Jack Russell terrier mix, enjoys sunbathing on the patio, surrounded by flowers.
When they moved in, the property was a veritable forest — no deck, no pool, just woods and a rundown tennis court, Scolpino said. With the help of a landscape designer, they removed hundreds of trees and built a private sanctuary, layering native plants to create the illusion of seclusion. “There’s actually a street behind us,” he said, “but you would have no idea.”
Lily, a Jack Russell terrier-labrador mix, enjoys lounging among the blooming potted plants in Derek Scolpino’s garden. Credit: Derek Scolpino
After that initial input, Scolpino took the reins, slowly adding hydrangeas and perennials but leaving plenty of room to weave in about 300 tropical and annual plants from his greenhouse every spring.
Seasonal transitions are a major effort. The couple spends two days prepping for winter, moving tropicals inside, storing dormant plants in the garage and deciding which should go in the greenhouse. Spring takes a full week, and by the end, Scolpino said, he “can’t move.”
Like the house, the garden is overflowing with colorful plants. Scolpino’s favorite is an angel’s trumpet with 8-inch flowers that blooms alongside carnivorous pitcher plants, a pair of rare yuccas and a black bat flower.
A kaleidoscope of potted zinnias imparts to the lounging deck the vibe of a high-end wellness resort. Treasure flowers and China roses grace the patio table. And giant elephant ears lend elegance to a seating area under a pergola.
Scolpino’s garden has attracted the attention of the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons, which occasionally runs tours of the property. “It’s a great opportunity for folks to come and view the gardens and learn while also raising money to support native wildlife,” he said.
“Working in [the mental health] field can be really taxing, and being engaged with plants is my way to escape everyone else’s problems — and my own problems,” he said. “When I see the beauty in my plants, it’s a reflection of my own self-love coming back to me.”
The Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons will organize two summer tours of Derek Scolpino’s garden in July and August. Dates and details have not yet been announced but will be available at hahgarden.org later this month.
ARTFUL ABUNDANCE
Shivani Singh starts each day with a stroll around her garden. Depending on the season, she may be walking among large-scale plantings of early spring bloomers like hellebores, dozens of rose bushes, hundreds of daylilies, or tropical and uncommon plants with dramatic contrasting colors and textures.
Her days end with a spectacular view of the sunset as it transforms the sky into a canvas of pink, purple and golden hues that mirror the colors of the deep purple smoke bushes, yellow daylilies and pink blossoms below.
The artistry is no accident. Singh, 46, an accountant and stay-at-home mother of three, competed in drawing and painting contests as a child growing up in upstate Middletown. “I brought those design principals to the garden,” she said.
When she moved to her Melville home 12 years ago, Singh did not like the landscaping. “There was a lot of bare land, a lot of azaleas, a lot of evergreens,” she said.
Shivani Singh with her giant canna lilies at her home garden in Melville. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
At first, her husband would gift her a small tree each year for Mother’s Day, so she planted the magnolia, ornamental cherry and Eastern redbuds as they arrived. Before long, she said, “I started ordering plants online, and I filled my garden.”
But no grass grows under Singh’s feet. Just as an artist may shift her style, she, too, has a penchant for change. “If I see something or read about something, I’ll swap what I have. I take plants out. I move them every season, and I keep adding more,” she said, adding that she’s always on the lookout for “unconventional” plants. This year, she’s planning to add asparagus ferns and sunflowers.
Gleaning inspiration from nurseries, flower shows and the botanical gardens she has visited around the world, Singh also has incorporated multiple sculptures into her garden. Her favorite, a statue of the Hindu god Lord Shiva that she bought in Udaipur, India, takes center stage in a floral bed beside the pool.
The garden provides a rainbow of colors. Massive dark-leaved cannas with bold, red blooms rise in summer above a mound of cream petunias, commanding attention in large boxes at the front of the house. Elsewhere, elephant ears, crape myrtles and purple, green and yellow shrubs provide intense visual interest.
A statue of Lord Shiva sits among Singh’s daylilies and whopper begonias.
Although Singh hires landscapers for weekly maintenance, she does all the designing and planting with her children, aged 14, 12 and 8. “I like to teach my kids because kids today are so tied to their electronics that their ties to nature are kind of lost,” she said. “They love to pick their own fruits and vegetables off the plants.”
What’s in it for her? “Serenity,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t need to leave my house and go to a resort because I have everything I could want in my backyard. Gardening is so therapeutic, and the fact you did it yourself and it’s your own creativity that you’re seeing makes it so special.”
WOODLAND WONDER
In Laurel Hollow, Tsuneo Yoshizawa has dedicated most of his adult life to constructing a Japanese-style garden planted in carefully planned layers. Large trees stand behind smaller trees, which stand behind large shrubs, smaller shrubs and perennials.
The resulting landscape, which appears to have naturally sprung up in a forest, was more than 45 years in the making.
When Yoshizawa, 90, designed the contemporary-style house in 1978, the now-retired structural engineer and his wife, Yoshino, 89 and retired from Japan Airlines, collaborated on its design. They settled on an L-shaped plan to accommodate an attached atrium for their plants, and Tsuneo Yoshizawa got to work hauling lumber and building the house himself.
The couple and their daughter moved in before the house was completed, and the work continued for 10 years. Meanwhile, Yoshizawa began clearing the yard, which, the couple said, was completely wild.
It was an incredible undertaking. But a downturn in the construction industry at the time meant Yoshizawa could spend three-day weekends in the garden in addition to hours after work each day.
Tsuneo Yoshizawa, 90, in the Japanese-style garden he built over more than 45 years in Laurel Hollow. Credit: Howard Simmons
His first move was to plant the 300 azalea cuttings he brought from their former home in Smithtown. The pink-, purple- and white-blossomed shrubs still line the driveway.
Next, he planted shrubs and Japanese cherry, flowering quince, magnolia, peach, plum, crabapple and wisteria trees.
Yoshizawa installed a fish pond in the front yard and a swimming pool in the back. Edged with rustic stone and surrounded by pine trees that he meticulously maintained in bonsai forms, the pool area looks like an oasis in the woods.
“I tried to do a Japanese style,” said Yoshizawa, who grew up in the mountains of Nagano, Japan, where he helped his grandparents farm the land.
After retiring 20 years ago, Yoshino Yoshizawa said, her husband began spending “all his waking time” in the 2-acre garden. “Once he went out, he stayed out. I had to call him in for lunch; I had to call him in for dinner. I could not find him, so I just kept calling his name louder in the yard.”
The couple also planted vegetables, starting seeds of Japanese eggplant, Japanese cucumbers, shishito peppers and other crops in their greenhouse every year. When the weather warmed, they would transplant the seedlings into buckets and set them around the pool, moving them to chase the sun.
In spring, a harmonious palette of pinks, whites, reds and purples fill curved beds that meander through the property. A large bonsaied pine with a twisted trunk is a focal point, surrounded by blooming azaleas in various colors. And pink peonies with yellow centers complement the towering lilacs and forsythia growing nearby.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of daffodils (the couple has lost count) bloom at the front of every bed and border, while 12-foot-tall rhododendrons rest their bowing branches on the soil nearby.
When Tsuneo and Yoshino Yoshizawa bought their 2-acre Laurel hollow property, it was wild. Among his first plantings were 300 azalea cuttings. Credit: Tsuneo Yoshizawa
Yoshizawa’s favorite plant, a pink crape myrtle, makes “babies” that the couple would dig up and share with friends, including members of the now-defunct Nadeshiko Japan Garden Club, to which Yoshino Yoshizawa belonged for 30 years.
This past November, the couple sold the house with dreams of returning to Japan. But as they were preparing to move, Tsuneo developed unexpected health issues, so, for now, at least, they are staying with their daughter in Westchester while he undergoes treatment.
The move meant giving away or selling their potted plants, including 300 orchids, but the couple also left some behind for the new owners.
“I have no regrets,” Yoshizawa said. “I grew up with nature and enjoyed the nature. It brought me satisfaction.”
His wife agrees: “We really had a wonderful life, and we really miss the garden.”
AN ANNUAL AFFAIR
Stephanie Mione spends every Mother’s Day planting annuals in her Centereach garden, a yearly labor of love that begins during the last week of April and continues through the first week of June.
“I’m out there by myself, listening to country music and getting it how I want it to be for the year,” she said of the garden.
That means planting sunflowers, cannas, floss flowers and Blackfoot daisies under an 80-foot bed of black-eyed Susans, peonies and hydrangeas that runs along the driveway and creating colorful displays of purple and green sweet potato vines, yellow hibiscus and 600 to 800 New Guinea impatiens around the property, which cover a third of an acre.
An oversize planter of tropicals — elephant ears, banana plants, hibiscus, majesty palms and gardenias — surrounds the pool, where a 100-foot-long retaining wall brims with tricolor dappled willows and other perennials.
The tropical plants are stored in an off-site greenhouse over winter, but the annuals are replaced every spring at a yearly cost of roughly $6,000 to $10,000, Mione said.
Stephanie Mione is the queen of her garden. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
“People may like a vacation or a certain pocketbook, but this is my dream,” she said, admitting that “it costs a fortune.”
Mione, 48, and a mother of two who owns an electrical contracting company with her husband, Peter, said he fully supports the expenditure. “He told me, ‘If you have 180 days to enjoy it, the daily cost is $33, and if it costs $33 [a day] to make the most special person in the world happy, then it’s worth it,’” she said.
When the couple moved into the house 24 years ago, Mione said her father-in-law “always made a point to come into the backyard and plant a little something.” First, it was tomatoes and peppers, “and each year, the vegetable garden just got bigger and bigger,” she said.
When the family was in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, “We were all home and not working, so we put in 800 square feet of raised beds, working 12-hour days in the snow in March,” she recalled.
Mione grows peppers, beets, onions, zucchini, cucumbers, string beans, five varieties of eggplants, and 15 types of tomatoes. The day’s harvest determines summer dinners, she said.
Each day, Mione said she spends three to seven hours deadheading, weeding and tending to other garden chores. “It’s 100% me working on it and sweating. The garden is my happy place.”
A plaque dedicated to Mione’s Grandma Mary adorns one of her many raised beds. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
Mione said sharing her knowledge and love of gardening also makes her happy, so she started the “Gardening Lovers Group!” on Facebook in 2016. There, she shares advice and how-to videos with members from around the world and invites them to spend a day in her garden every July.
“Everybody brings a dish, some people go in the pool and take pictures for inspiration, and we do a Q&A,” she said.
Over the years, Mione has befriended Michael and Christine Pazienza, the owners of Bloomin Haus Nursery in Holtsville, which stores her tropical plants over winter and delivers her purchases of annuals to her house every spring. “They pull up with a truck filled with plants to give away to members that attend” the annual get-together, she said.
Aside from the yearly addition of annuals, Mione said her garden is complete. However, she’s considering adding a greenhouse to store tropical plants and grow fruits and vegetables over winter.
“My plants bring me so much joy, peace and relaxation,” she said, “and when I’m [in the garden], I don’t have to worry about politics or what’s going on in the world.”
Visit bit.ly/3GrQROM to join Stephanie Mione’s Gardening Lovers Group! on Facebook.
