DIRT

By the beautiful sea lies an East Hampton enclave nestled into its surroundings so unimposing—yet so very glamorous—that I had to pinch myself. In conjunction with the Guild Hall "Garden as Art" tour, I had the opportunity to visit the garden of Dina Merrill and Ted Hartley several times during its various seasonal phases. Their three-house compound is perched on the ocean in the most fabled part of East Hampton—the privileged world photographed by Slim Aarons come to life. As most in-the-know know, Merrill has impressive lineage: She was the only child of Marjorie Merriweather Post (Post Cereals) and a Wall Streeter named Edward Francis Hutton (or E.F.). But she never sat on her laurels, instead she made her own name in 22 motion pictures and countless television shows. Husband Ted had his own history: a dashing fighter pilot, former actor and, currently, CEO of their joint venture RKO Pictures.

Dina Merrill first came to the Hamptons in 1958 and instead of using her idyllic property to build yet another shingle cottage on the beach, she created a home and garden in a make-believe mode that only a movie star would know. Now it's the center of a family compound, full with the life of three generations—the domiciles connected by a series of sandy walks and hedges.

It is immediately apparent when those who love plants and cherish their environment have had their own hand in their milieu. As with Dina and Ted's, all of the most dramatic conifers are represented to their best advantage. Long-needled native black pines hover over short-spined, tightly clipped yew in box shapes that are theatricalized by a giant, round Japanese holly. Knowingly planted with spring-to-fall spanning varieties of lilac, azalea, rhododendron and every sort of hydrangea, there are shades of pink and white in bloom every successive week.

The ocean is approached through the shady, woodsy side of the garden and as you come upon it, your focus is stimulated by the mannered swimming pool and then surprised by the wildness of the dunes and shoreline just beyond. The son's house next door is alive with trampolines, hammock-hung and swing-strung, the better to occupy four school-age kids. On the water side there is a steep bank of tamed but still wild Rosa rugosa and on the other, a sculptured apple and pear orchard that doesn't bear much fruit, but is great to look at. It is made even more interesting because you are not sure which came first: the heavy pruning which began out of deer-ravaged necessity or the clearly obsessive art form that it has become. The daughter's sweet brown-shingled colonial is more casually strewn with willow trees and more billowing bushes of hydrangea—some in that dazzling deep purple that you can never find anymore. But the apex of the action is the main house's sensational swimming pool, rife with white tea roses and crowned by an iconic bronze dolphin that spews water in a perfect arc.

A diminutive but hard working greenhouse is tucked away grotto-like against the house and holds sun hats as well as seedlings. Proving that this is a real gardener's garden, there is an old, but well-maintained, perfectly-situated gardener's cold frame that receives the seedlings of tomato, bell pepper and eggplant. While coaxing them tenderly through the rougher part of early spring, it serves as a break from the ocean's winds as the vegetables burst their seams in high summer. The thriving herb garden is an out-of-this-world octagonal wheel that works wonderfully, both in keeping the cilantro, basil (both sweet and mammoth) and chives in order, while still managing to look divine. Even the aromatic wild mint is tamed to its space and seems happily controlled. That it is actually easily accessible from the kitchen is the pièce de la résistance.

Another of the true Hollywood touches is the provocatively colorful cutting garden—huge and actually several gardens within a garden—lovingly stocked with blooming plants at any time of the year that Mrs. Merrill visits. Of course, Mark Keerans and the other great people that care for garden could always have a glorious selection of the best already-cut flowers waiting for her indoors in florist's buckets, but that would deprive her of the thrill of cutting the stems herself. As well, neighborhood farm produce is the only sort allowed in the kitchen. Don't ever try to pass off that withered Florida corn for local. Dina Merrill knows the difference and won't eat a kernel of the alien kind.