Landscaping: When Size Doesn’t Matter

When it comes to landscaping, size doesn’t matter.

If only you had a nice big yard, then you’d finally be able to have all of those flowering plants you’ve always wanted, right?

Good try, but you’ll need a better excuse. Susan Skoorka bought a home on a postage-stamp of a lot in Southampton Village more than 30 years ago. Maybe an eighth of an acre in size, the plot consisted of grass and a few forsythia plants.

“There was nothing here. It was just lawn,” said Ms. Skoorka. “Little by little, I started adding things. I really didn’t know much about perennials or pollinators, but over the years, I learned as I went. I began using native plants, and every year I make the beds bigger because I want to add more things.”

Even in early October, her yard is alive with color and life. Stalks of goldenrod wave in a light breeze, squirrels scamper up the trunk of an elderly maple tree. Christmas-red vibernum berries cover a large shrub, waiting to feed hungry songbirds filling up for a long migration south.

Ms. Skoorka, whose primary residence is in Manhattan, has no formal training in botany or landscape design, but the graphic designer has an artist’s eye for color, and a deep curiosity about nature that was gifted to her by her parents.

“I was born in the Bronx. My parents were big hikers, and Bronx Park was the woods. We had an aunt and uncle who lived on the other side of the park, so every weekend we hiked across the park. I used to go sleigh riding in Bronx Park, we used to ice skate in the Bronx Botanical Gardens after school in the winter until it was dark outside, then we’d go up for hot chocolate. We were always outdoors, and that love for the outdoors never left me; it’s in my soul.”

Oakleaf hydrangea or hydrangea quercifolia, hyssop or agastache, black-eyed Susan or rudbeckia—the common and Latin names for everything growing in her yard roll easily off Ms. Skoorka’s tongue. “The first Latin name I learned was aesculus hippocastanum, the horse chestnut tree, and I just loved knowing that. I love to learn things.”

While the yard is a picturesque oasis, beauty isn’t the main driver of Ms. Skoorka’s planting regimen. Her focus is on creating a perennial garden that provides food for the birds and bees from spring through late fall.

“I’ve created an ecosystem here that works, even in this tiny space.” She says she visits Lynch’s and Marder’s garden centers to see what’s new, “and if I like it, I plant it. Basically, I stick with perennials, and I choose them for color and for their value to pollinators. I also look for plants that are going to be hardy, because I don’t live here.”

While she doesn’t hesitate to remove plants that don’t pull their weight in engaging pollinators, she’s willing to leave some plants that others might consider weeds, like wild asters and wild strawberries, for their value to wildlife. The old maple tree growing in the corner of the yard gets a reprieve from the ax for the housing it provides to squirrels and the dead branches that attract colorful woodpeckers. Instead of cleaning up garden debris in late fall, she leaves it until spring so the bugs and small animals can use it for food and shelter over the winter.

Protected by a fairly low fence, the garden must be a mouthwatering sight for the local deer, but Ms. Skoorka and her partner Joanne Spina said the hoofed plague isn’t a problem. “The reason we have phlox is because the deer love the phlox,” laughed Ms. Spina. “The phlox starts to get tall in mid-spring, and the deer come in and trim them all down, so our phlox gets a later start flowering than it would normally, but then it lasts longer too, so it balances out. They really only eat the tops, they don’t destroy them.”

Looking out beyond her own yard to the community, Ms. Skoorka has her eye on an open field not far from the Rogers Memorial Library. “It’s a big open field, and it’s doing nothing—I’d love to be able to turn part of that into a meadow. I was also thinking that a chestnut tree would be beautiful at the entrance to Southampton Village. Over time it would become a landmark.”

Contemplating the next steps for her own garden, Ms. Skoorka said she probably won’t add too many more plants. “Maybe I’ll just extend the beds out another foot or two, we’ll see….”