Guild Hall's Garden Tour Goes Green Aug. 22 & 23

Photo: Rainsquall over Mashomuck/Fred Stelle

The weekend of August 22 and 23, Guild Hall, in East Hampton, will hold their annual “Garden as Art” cocktail reception, lecture and garden tour. Every year this event provides an exceptional experience for sophisticated gardeners as well as ordinary Hamptons voyeurs to peep behind the hedgerows of some of the most astonishing estates in the world.

“I am so excited about this program,” said Geoffrey Nimmer, the event’s chair. Nimmer, who has organized the five-garden tour is landscape designer known for creating gardens that are not only stylish, but sustainable and “smart” environmentally. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that the use of pesticides and herbicides is having a detrimental effect on the environment,” Nimmer said. “Things have to change drastically and quickly. The gardens on this year’s tour show that gardens can be incredibly beautiful, and at the same time, toxin-free.” In keeping with Nimmer’s passion for sustainable landscape design the theme of this year’s tour will be “The Green Landscape.”

Five gardens, noted for their use of local plants and toxin-free maintenance routines, will open to ticket holders from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The tour, which is self-guided, includes a property on Lily Pond Lane, another in North Haven and three in the Town of East Hampton. Tickets for the tour cost $100 and can be purchased on the Guild Hall website.

The weekend kicks off with a cocktail party on Friday night from 6 to 8 in the evening at Mary Ryan’s 19-acre compound overlooking Gardiner’s Bay. The event will be held in a historic barn on the property and Plum Builders has sponsored the evening. Tickets cost $300.

On Saturday morning, garden tour participants will be offered a continental breakfast prepared by the Golden Pear beginning at 9 a.m. followed by a lecture by this year’s honorary event chair, Edwina von Gal. von Gal is a landscape designer known for her work with indigenous plants as well as her knowledge of diverse eco-systems. She has founded a conservatory in Panama as well as designed gardens across the country. Her foundation, Perfect Earth Projects, seeks to conserve ecology globally.

Participants will also have the opportunity to enjoy a Saturday luncheon at the 26-acre estate of Andy Sabin, overlooking Accabonac Harbor. His gardens have been created with the tranquility of a Buddhist retreat as inspiration. The previous owner of the property was the artist Ward Bennett and the artist Jane Martin now works there. Martin will open the studio to lunch guests. Tickets to the event cost $500.