SEARINGTOWN, N.Y. One of suburbia's premier commandments is: You shall not fail to display a lush, green, grassy lawn.
As with the original 10 commandments, not everyone obeys. And sometimes, that's a good thing. Take, for example, the yard of Marian and Alvin Gladstone's gray-shingled split-level in Searingtown.
Their 71-by-109-foot piece of landscape is edged in evergreens and bamboo. Marble paths and dry rivers of stone meander through shrubs and flowers. And a waterfall splashes gently into a plant-and-rock-fringed koi pond.
But, no lawn of mowed green grass. "I see no beauty in grass," says Marian Gladstone emphatically. "Grass is blank.
It has no soul. It's just a nothing. To me, you have to have plantings.
" "And we never owned a lawn mower," Alvin, a semiretired certified public accountant, adds. "It's like being in a park, secluded," says Marian, a retired interior designer who raised three children in the house. "You're anchored where you are, and it's beautiful, very comfortable, peaceful, calming.
" Her favorite perch - with her little white Havanese dog, Max - is the chaise on the raised deck outside the kitchen. Baskets of orchids hang from the wisteria-covered pergola overhead, and red and white blossomed mandevilla vines grow from pots. Birds twitter in the shade and sun beyond, as the stands of bamboo rustle and the waterfall purrs.
The garden envelops and surrounds the tall trees and specimen plantings. The Japanese plum yew and the Japanese ilex pagoda and the golden hinoki cypress, the nandina and viburnum, the dwarf rhododendrons, creeping azaleas and phlox, the pure yellow honeysuckle, the rose bushes, Russian sage, hydrangeas, peonies, cacti, daffodils, exotic annuals, an elegantly twisting Japanese maple. There are contrasts and decorative touches.
Soaring evergreens, and delicate rocks and pebbles. Here and there, small statues of acorns, a rabbit, a duck. Potted plants on pedestals.
"This is different, this is me," says Marian. "I didn't copy from anyone. It all evolved.
It was just what I wanted." The property has evolved in collaboration with a succession of gardeners and landscapers. The Gladstones, the home's original owners, had the pond installed as the split-level was under construction nearly 50 years ago.
Their first landscaper laid down the irregular slabs of green marble to form a wandering pathway around the little pond, laid a patio and added decorative features. Since 1999, Marian has worked with Eric Hagenbruch, owner of Finesse Landscape Design of St. James, on developing and maintaining the garden.
He added tall bamboo to the rear property line for privacy, smaller bamboo and flourishing evergreens along the sides. In front, he planted yellow roses to complement the rust-colored underleaves of the magnolias. He's added numerous plantings to meet Marian's wish for a more massed effect, and comes with his crew at least 15 times a year to prune, plant unusual annuals and new plants, trim, cultivate, fertilize, mulch and clean.
The koi pond has been updated with heaters, filters and aerators over the years. Hagenbruch says Marian hadn't been happy with the waterfall, so he "listened" to his client and rebuilt it with a slight turn so it would offer one view to the kitchen and another to the den. He says he felt a little stone bridge spanning the waterfall interfered with the visual balance, so he moved it to a pebbled spot under the Japanese maple, where it's partially hidden in summer, and adds an element of surprise and charm all year round.
"People don't realize what you can do in a small space," says Hagenbruch. "Flat is boring, so you try to create different levels. It can be a step or two but it creates a different dimension.
" Shrubbery that blocks the view of what's hidden behind "invites people to walk further and pulls you into another area. In an ordinary backyard, you turn to the right, you turn to the left and you say, 'OK, I'm done.' " Here, he says, visitors say they feel they're on an estate.
Marian spends her time removing dead blooms from the rose bushes, tossing coffee grounds around the acid-loving evergreens, planning changes. "It constantly changes. I love changes.
It's an ongoing, living thing." And she sits on the chaise: "I hear the waterfall, I see my mandevilla, I have all my orchids hanging out, and the passionflowers, big purple flowers with an aroma. And the wisteria has a beautiful aroma.
"Right, Maxie?" She snuggles the little dog cradled in her arms. "We like it here.
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