Homeowners share landscape passion on LBI Garden Club Tour

Who wants to attend a garden tour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a day when the forecast calls for 100-degree weather? Well, maybe not everyone. But the select few who did show up for the tour were happy they braved the blistering sun.

The annual Tour of Gardens, hosted by the Garden Club of Long Beach Island, was held on Thursday, June 21, the hottest and most humid day so far this year. But club members and tour-goers didn’t seem fazed by the heat one bit. Besides, several of the houses featured on the tour supplied cold drinking water with wedged lemons and limes in cute little drinking pitchers.

“We’re not canceling the tour because of the heat; there’s definitely a breeze,” Garden Club member Cathy Sutton said optimistically.

Every year, the Garden Club showcases a handful of different gardens throughout the Island and sometimes on the mainland. With nearly 175 current club members, there are more than enough new gardens to explore each summer.

Photo by Kelley Anne Essinger

Equipped with water bottles and sunscreen, representatives of The Beachcomber began the tour at Gretchen and John Coyle’s bayfront home in Beach Haven. Island-native plants such as beach plum, rugosa rose and rose mallow surrounded a vintage, white playhouse with green shutters, built in the mid 20th century by Nat Ewer, who in 1948 famously towed the schooner Lucy Evelyn to Beach Haven, where it was used as a gift shop until it burned down in February 1972. The anchor and ballast rocks from that vessel are also on display in the courtyard, underscoring the Coyles’ love of Island history. (They have long been active in the LBI Historical Association.) A small portion of the brick pathway even featured a piece of the old Baldwin Hotel that stood many years ago in the center of town.

The property’s other native features included lush beds of vegetables and annuals, alongside other fruits and flowers.

“I don’t know a petunia from a daffodil. I work for my wife,” said John Coyle. “She tells me to prune this and prune that. So I prune this and prune that. And I still have to make my own lunch,” he said with a chuckle.

“It’s been a lot of fun. We have to fight the erosion on the water, but it makes things interesting. It makes my wife happy, and when your wife is happy, life can be eternal,” he added, grinning.

The Beachcomber’s next stop was a few blocks north, on the ocean side of Beach Haven. Award-winning artist Pat Morgan and established writer Richard Morgan boasted a creative garden that was both colorful and environmentally sound. The first thing we noticed was the pinecone mulch, which Pat said helps suppress weeds and lasts throughout the year.

Rounding the back, we found a shade garden covered with pine needles, which we learned helps deter slugs from the garden’s hosta lilies. A vegetable garden sprinkled with rose canes to keep bugs away sat near a slew of potted herbs. Flowers of all kinds, including euphorbia and coreopsis lead the way to a half-shaded chair, where Pat Morgan said she enjoys her mornings.

“It’s very peaceful. It’s like a little sanctuary, separated from the vegetables and herbs and other useful stuff. It’s my pride and joy,” she said, beaming with delight.

The Beachcomber was greeted by Necola, a friendly Manx cat at the home of Michael and Nancy Davis on 2nd Street in Beach Haven. Michael Davis affectionately told us, “Every garden needs a cat.”

Add in Pinkie (a no show during our stop), and this garden has two.

Photo by Kelley Anne Essinger

The old-fashioned layout, filled with hydrangeas, roses, butterfly bushes, hybrid honeysuckle and more went perfectly with the house’s history. It was the fourth of the town landmark “seven sisters” matching houses with cedar shake siding, built by Floyd Cranmer in the 1920s.

A small, trickling pond filled with goldfish and sunbathing toads kept the peace, surrounded by Leyland cypress and trumpet vines. A large bayberry bush and herb garden completed the picture-perfect courtyard.

“It’s mating season, so the toads are very noisy. But they sing you to sleep,” said Davis.

Stealing the show, on the other side of the house, was a colorful “bottle tree,” put together, explained Davis, with wooden stakes found lying amiss on the beach. It was the centerpiece of an adventurous garden segment with images of all kinds of creatures.

Eager to see what gardeners on the other end of the Island had in store, The Beachcomber jumped ahead to Judy and Marc Lipman’s house in Barnegat Light, Central Avenue at 5th Street, five blocks from the north end of the Island. The eclectic garden had it all: plants, trees, flowers, vines, bushes, fruit, vegetables and even quirky yard ornaments. Some of our favorites included a flowerbed made out of an old wooden grill and a rainbow-painted table in the shape of a fish, alongside a representation of Barnegat Lighthouse painted on a wooden fence slate.

Because the homeowners happened to be out on the tour themselves, a listed inventory left open next to the water cups described everything to see in their backyard. There was even a blueprint for those who needed more of a visual map.

“We only had a few bushes and trees when we first moved in,” said Marc Lipman, when we caught up with him later on the tour. “It was a slow process. Sometimes we trade plants with other people. And now our garden has come a long way.”

Directly next door, The Beachcomber took a heat break at the Edith Duff Gwinn garden at the Barnegat Light Museum, which is the premier showcase maintained by members of The Garden Club of Long Beach Island. Sitting upon a bench beneath the shade, surrounded by playful butterflies, chirping birds and winding nature paths, we almost forgot about the 100-degree weather and the fact that we were working.

“To me, this is what the epitome of a garden is all about,” said Neal Roberts, editor of The Beachcomber. “Conversation is fine. But sitting in a peaceful garden is the highest appreciation of solitude I can think of,” he expressed.

After stirring ourselves from that brief meditation, we made our way to Wendy and Bill Clarke’s seasonal home in Harvey Cedars. Maintained by David Ash Jr. Landscape Contractors, the stunning shade garden consisted of daylilies, hydrangeas, holly shrubs and a delicate fern patch. Sun-loving peonies, roses, lavender, thyme and rosemary sat happily near the property edge on Kinsey Cove – a view Wendy Clarke said she loves admiring from her living room windows.

“I’ve been here such a very long time – since I was 2 and a half. I feel right at home,” she remarked. She said that because she is active in a Princeton garden club near her primary home, she prefers to let a professional landscaper care for the vacation home where she wants to relax.

Our next stop was in North Beach at Dee Muoio’s house, where she graciously gave a couple of tour goers an up-close and personal look at a piece of just-pulled elephant garlic – just one of the many interesting species the garden offered. A large cold frame used for growing plants in chilly weather, a 100-foot row of strawberries, three kinds of cucumbers, four types of squash and four different kinds of beans were just some of the other wonderful ingredients Dee said she uses for cooking. More vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers were also on the menu.

Photo by Kelley Anne Essinger

“I plant a lot, and I hate when things get messed up. So I divide everything with wood and other barriers,” she said. “I’m thinking about donating to St. Francis (Parish), and I also give stuff away to my neighbors and to my son,” she said, handing this reporter a basil plant. “From my garden to yours,” she said with a smile.

Georgia and Dick Doyle’s oceanfront oasis in Surf City was The Beachcomber’s next stop. The garden was chock full of bayberries and bayside beach plums, which Dick Doyle had a passion for even as a child. Driving around the Island with local gardening legend Martha Mack, looking for plants to relocate onto the dunes, is one of his fondest early childhood memories. Now award-winning members of the Wissahickon Garden Club, the Doyle's have created their own beautiful beach retreat.

The garden tour ended for The Beachcomber at Mary Ann and Jim O’Neill’s house on the mainland, in the small development east of Manahawkin affectionately known to locals as Mud City (because of its vulnerability to high tide flooding). Sitting close to the bay, the colorful scenery boasted many saltwater-tolerant plants, including October daisies, rugosa roses and “Island hibiscus,” a rare variety uprooted from the surrounding marshes.

Raised beds kept plants away from looming flood waters. Everything in sight, including the planters, cold frames and patio furniture, were designed and crafted by Jim himself.

If you missed out on this year’s Tour of Gardens, or you just can’t wait to attend next year’s event, feel free to stop by one of the many grounds maintained by the Long Beach Island Garden Club, including the Barnegat Light Borough Old Coast Guard Station (now restored as the town hall on Seventh Street); the Beach Haven Public Library, Beach Avenue at Third Street; and the Community Gardens at the Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church, Marine and Pearl streets in Beach Haven. To learn more, visit thegardencluboflbi.com.

This article was published in The Beachcomber.