By Caitlin Brown
For Rye resident Pam Kindler, “gardening is an ultimate favorite hobby, and bird watching comes close behind.” Lucky for her, these two passions have found a way to gel in her glorious garden perched on a hill on Dogwood Lane. “I love to go outside with a cup of coffee and just look around and think about what I want to do next. I want my garden to always be evolving. Every year, I like to come up with something new,” she says.
Kindler and her family moved to the property in 1988. It was already laden with wonderful rock formations and special trees — the yard has many dogwoods and oaks up to 100 years old — “to dress up with gardens.” And the back of the house provided a spectacular, pristine backdrop: a view of the Apawamis Club golf course.
“When we first moved here, the house was on a rock ledge; it obstructed the view and limited use of the property,” she explained. So, about nine years ago, to make the yard more usable and open up the view/vista, she added a terrace in the back that extends from the house out and is bound by a 40-foot-high rock wall. A beautiful pergola covers a seating area where all can enjoy the amazing landscape below. For Kindler, it’s a great place for her to look down on her cedar wood raised vegetable beds, which she built from a kit she bought online from a company in Oregon.
The lower backyard garden boasts a wonderful variety of vegetables: bell peppers, eggplant, beets, lima beans, scallions, lots of radishes (she’s a big fan), tomatoes, cucumbers, various lettuces, zucchini, and more. The garden is flanked by raspberry bushes, a peony cutting area, and plants to aid in her next project: attracting butterflies. Kindler has planted parsley and celery to attract Black Swallowtail butterflies and members of the Milkweed family to attract Monarch butterflies.
Butterflies seem a likely extension of her love for beautiful flying things. Bird feeders are everywhere on this property. Plants throughout the property call to hummingbirds and other area-loving birds.
Up the hill in the back, there’s another pergola with a Betty Corning clematis climbing, a gift from the Fort Orange Garden Club — of which Corning was a member — given to Kindler for judging flower arrangements. There is a beautiful border of ostrich ferns to delineate the four-foot wall it borders. From Adirondack lounge chairs, you can look down on the landscape from another angle. There is also a wonderful formation of rocks next to it. “That’s another project,” she says. “I need to do some research on rock-friendly plants.”
At the front of the house birds are everywhere. A surrounding bird-friendly border offers privacy. Here you can find Viburnum, hardy Hibiscus, Joe-Pye Weed, Poppies, and Bee Balm. There are bird feeders and birdbaths and a surrounding border along the beautiful stone front wall. The birds chirping in this sanctuary-like atmosphere are heavenly.
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