We East Enders, whether we are here year round or just for the summer, love our gardens. The rich blue flowers of hydrangeas are summer icons, their lovely blossoms echoing the sky above. And fall brings masses of Montauk daisies...

Perennial flowers are favorites of so many gardeners and landscape designers for good reason. Unlike annuals like impatiens and geraniums, perennials come back year after year to bring their lovely colors to the garden. Better yet, many..

Surrounding your home with a beautiful landscape not only integrates your home into its setting and enhances the view from your windows; studies have shown repeatedly that good landscaping also enhances property values. But keeping the landscape looking good throughout the season and year after year requires work.

We live in a fast-paced world and sometimes we just need to slow down. You can’t always take a vacation, but you can take a break, right where you live. Moments of peace and serenity can be as close as your back door. Here are some ways to create your own peaceful haven in your own backyard.

Whether you spend time in your East End home during the summer season or all year ‘round, privacy is probably important to you. And it seems harder to come by all the time. There’s more traffic on the roads. The quiet of a weekend morning is often shattered by whining leaf blowers and buzzing lawnmowers.

Fall is the time to plant bulbs that reward us with beautiful flowers next spring and summer. Nurseries and garden centers offer the familiar daffodils, narcissus, crocuses, tulips and lilies now. These classic garden flowers are favorites, but there are many less well-known but equally beautiful bulbous flowers you can plant now for effortless, eye-catching color in next year’s landscape.

Summer is in the rearview mirror, and all too soon autumn will be winding down. Winter waits in the wings. For those of us who live here year-round, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have plants in bloom in the winter? That winter miracle is entirely possible…even easy to attain.

Vines are seldom the stars of the garden or landscape, but they play important supporting roles in many successful landscapes. Vines enhance the focal points and features of the garden, and in the right location at the right time of year can have their chance to shine, too.

One of the Hamptons’ hidden treasures is Pembrooke Fine Landscapes, a boutique landscape design/build company that for ten years has worked with select clients. Pembrooke’s founding partner, Bill D’Agata, is as talented as he is meticulous, overseeing the smallest detail.