A Coveside Garden

Before the backdrop of a summer green or golden fall salt marsh and the blue waters of Allin's Cove, wild geranium, blue aster and delicate white blooms of native ageratum nestle in front of glistening blue green leaves of joe pie weed and coastal azalea.
This beautiful coveside garden is the result of an almost serendipitous coming together of the Barrington community – home owners, land trust, a local designer and a local business all of whom donated, whole or in part, ideas, time, labor and money to make it happen.

The garden is located on Land Trust property between Nancy and John Brex's 112 year old home on Alfred Drowne Road and Allin's Cove salt marsh. The garden abuts a tangled buffer of invasisve sumac, bittersweet, honeysuckle, multiflora rose and phragmites. For twenty-eight years the Brexs followed the mowed line of the lawn present when they moved in. There were no visible boundary markers and the Brexs were unaware that approximately twelve feet of the lawn was not theirs.

The problem came to light in 2005 during salt marsh restoration work in Allin's Cove. Then president Helen Tjader and steward Pete McCalmont visited the Land Trust property and noticed that the lawn appeared to extend into it. Shortly after, a survey confirmed this. What resulted was an extraordinary cooperative effort to solve what often is a contentious dispute over property boundaries.
The Brexs were willing and helpful participants from the very beginning. Not only did they contribute their ideas and labor, they made a contribution to the Land Trust to cover the cost of the plants and mulch. They wanted something done to mitigate potential invasive incursions into their yard. The Land Trust wanted to help. Thus began the start of an almost year long collaboration bringing in landscape designer Ann Penisten; Board member Penny Lachmann; the Redwood Nursery; Helen and Pete; and the whole Brex family - Nancy, John and teenage sons John and Tom.

Helen provided three huge loose leaf notebooks she had previously compiled of local native plants for the Brexs to study and select shrubs and perennial flowers. Pete, meanwhile, applied for and received the CRMC permits and did what he loves best – cutting back invasive plants that blocked the view of the salt marsh and cove, saving native shrubs, and freeing a lilac almost smothered in bittersweet. Nancy was excited with the view from her deck of the newly created salt marsh and cove, and wanted to see more. “What if we plan something we like to look at that will be a natural buffer and get rid of the junky stuff?”
And that is what they did. With the now exposed panorama the Brexs were able to select plants that would not only permit a view of the marsh and cove but would also provide a lovely year round garden. Nancy studied the notebook, took notes on sun, shade, soil, water needs, height and color contrast and made a list of plants.
Penny called on Ann who volunteered to design the garden almost exclusively with the selected native plants. They worked together with Nancy on the design and came up with the final plan. Redwood Nursery, which had worked with the Land Trust in the past, offered a price break and ordered the plants. A few, Nancy found at Home Depot. Pete tilled the lawn and they followed his suggestion to cover the area for the 20 X 75 foot garden with five layers of newspaper and top with mulch.
Enter the teenage Brex boys. The plants were delivered on Memorial Day weekend. That garden needed a lot of newspaper. Two-thirds of the way along they ran out. Undaunted, Tom knocked on neighbor's doors, finally collecting enough to finish the job. They dug the lovely undulating edge of the garden, laid out the tiny plants on top of the paper according to the plan, dug the holes, added peat moss and the whole family planted, mulched and watered. The garden was created in three days.
Over the years Nancy tweaked the garden – moving shaded azaleas and inkberry to sunnier spots, abandoning the echinacia to the woodchuck, planting black eyed susans, replacing the clethora to another spot in the garden, and weeding out creeping invasives. The native plants require no added fertilizers and attract very few pests. The Land Trust will continue to trim the invasives to inhibit their growth and ensure a view of the salt marsh and cove.
The Brex's lovely garden is an example of buffer planting between a homeowner's lawn and the wetland that is required along all wetland and coastal features in Rhode Island. These buffers filter and absorb storm water that carries nitrogen from fertilizers, poisons from pesticides and road runoff; and they absorb fresh water that feeds invasive phragmites growth.
But it is mostly a story of community collaboration and the melding of human and natural resources to create a beautiful, natural and healthy environment.