Living

Long Island’s South Fork, known for beaches, maritime history, and fancy people, is also known for its hedges. Hedge installation and maintenance are big business, and there could be a whole book about hedges, with different varieties popular during different eras. In the last decade, for example, the “green giant,” a now ubiquitous tree, has been placed along property lines throughout the Hamptons. It’s here to stay, and grow, and grow.

It takes understated talent and a keen eye for a designer to balance her personal aesthetic with those of a client. "I consider it high praise when a client's family or friends walk into the space and say it's a reflection of the client and doesn't feel designed," said Delia Kenza, an interior designer based in Sag Harbor and Brooklyn.

Here's a guide to growing and enjoying your best tomato-flavored life, thanks to Matthew Quick, the farm manager for the nonprofit Share the Harvest Farm, and Marilee Foster, who typically grows 100 varieties each year on her Sagaponack farm.

The first thing Arthur Beckenstein sees when he steps out of his bedroom every morning is a lush spread of vibrant, earthy color. Maybe it's a textured greenish-brown in the winter, but come spring, summer, and fall, fresh pops of emerald, lime, yellow, purple, and red fill his field of view. It's not a painting. Rather, it's a landscape — a rooftop garden atop a one-story section of his house, visible from the second-floor windows. A green roof, to be exact.

For gardeners and landscapers seeking four-season interest, low maintenance, and environmental impact, trees check off all the boxes. Plus, they offer shade for sitting areas, a backdrop for a garden, and nesting places for birds, among ecological benefits. Just as there’s no irrigation watering trees in a forest, it is not needed for the established trees in your yard. The time and money saved on irrigation and maintenance might feel liberating.

Ever wonder about the long ribbon of pink and white hibiscus blooming at the entrance to the village in late summer, or the flower-filled meadow between Accabonac Road and Methodist Lane? These are working rain gardens that slow, capture, and filter rainwater and road runoff as the water makes its way through the Hook Pond watershed and eventually into the ocean. They are successful examples of a natural solution to a water pollution problem.

Liz and Joe Sanicola’s house in East Quogue is a modern homesteading paradise — the ultimate intersection between home and garden.

In the summer months, under the immaculately tended giant rhododendron stand in Henry and Martha Murray's backyard on Further Lane in Amagansett, their young grandchildren can be glimpsed darting in and out of the canopy of fuchsia blossoms, visible one second, gone the next.

Sleigh bells ring: Are you listening? Here’s our carefully curated selection of the holly-est, jolliest events between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.

There’s no easier way to cook for a crowd than to throw an old-fashioned holiday cocktail party, serving simple, make-ahead hors d’oeuvres. We'll help you master the art.

Wine has never been more popular than it is today (as we know from all the “You had me at merlot” and “Mama needs wine” T-shirts sold on Etsy). But what about . . . hot wine? Reporting in on the rich delight of Scandinavian glogg.

Journey back — way, way back — to winters past, when prosperity came from harpooned whales, kids flew up and down frozen Hook Pond on skates with sails at their back, and the annual businessmen’s holiday promotion was a raffle for a free ton of coal. Here, season snippets from the pages of The Star evoke the sights, smells, sounds, and snowy pastimes of Decembers gone by.