A Glimpse Of The Garden—

People Are the Secret To Garden’s Success

By Nancy K. Crevier

“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is a miniseries focusing on the heart of a gardener’s work — a special spot, an extraordinary plant, a place of respite, or a place that evokes a heartfelt memory. What is down the garden path of your friends and neighbors? What is down your garden path?

Howard Lasher has his pick of nearly a dozen gardens artfully placed on two acres of his Jolly Hill Farm, where he can find respite from a busy day or simply enjoy the beauty surrounding him. The gardens are overflowing with hosta, tree peonies, lady’s mantle, irises, honeysuckle, coreopsis, ferns, phlox, daisies, bleeding heart, eupatorium, gomphrena, and endless native wildflowers. Magnificent tree specimens, like the honey locust or the spring flowering magnolia or the dogwood stand on their own or anchor smaller gardens, along with Syringa lilac and bridal wreath spirea bushes.

The gardens encircle the small pond where two Adirondack chairs and a bench shaded by weeping willows beckon, and break up the expanse of lawn leading up to his home. They wrap around the stone house and meander toward the woods. Whimsical garden ornaments peek out from under foliage and add structure to gardens, while everywhere — in trees, on branches, atop fence rails, and tucked into every nook and cranny — are bird houses of every shape and color.

“There was nothing here when I bought the place 29 years ago,” said Mr Lasher. “There was not a single thing planted around the pond, even.”

Having grown up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan (sign posts for Suffolk and Houston Streets in one garden are a testament to his childhood neighborhood), Mr Lasher is highly appreciative of the beauty that gardens offer.

He credits his wife, Jeanette Hubley, an interior decorator, for the aesthetics she brings to the property and for her sense of color and style. But the truly magical things in his garden, said Mr Lasher, are not the plants, but the two gardeners who work with him to turn his ideas into reality.

Giomy Cambizaca has worked with Mr Lasher for nine years, and Phil Arevalo has overseen the gardens for 20 years.

“If there’s some gardening thing that perks me up or I read something or find a new plant, I’m on the phone with Giomy. She’s a wealth of information,” said Mr Lasher. “Phil and Giomy are my arms and legs. I have an idea, and then they are so hands on and always willing to listen. They are two of the most magnificent people anyone could have to work with,” Mr Lasher praised his gardeners. “It’s very rare that Giomy or Phil comes up with an idea, too, that I don’t like. They strive for perfection and have a demeanor that doesn’t allow ego to filter in to their daily chores here,” he said.

It is hard for Mr Lasher to choose one garden over another as a favorite. “It all depends on the day the stock market has had,” laughed the retired senior exchange official and floor trader at the American Stock Exchange, and president of Lasher Group, an independent institutional execution firm.

He enjoys the peace of the tiny shade garden tucked behind the house, and he enjoys the lush tree peonies that flower near the pool. He is excited by the number of hummingbirds the honeysuckle vine draws, the red tubular flowers clinging to delicate vines that clamber up the front of the house.

Smoke bush trees edge the tennis court and deep pink rosa rugosa bushes frame steps leading up to it. On the far side of the court is a special garden, said Mr Lasher. “Giomy and Phil have created this beautiful iris and day lily garden,” he said. Bridal’s wreath spirea bushes bow their branches laden with clusters of small white flowers in the garden, as well, and it is here that Mr Lasher takes a break from sets of tennis, sitting on the tree-shaded bench raised up on a stone terrace in that garden. “When you’re sitting up here, contemplating the economic malaise this country has allowed itself to be a part of, it’s just wonderful. It takes my mind off of it all,” he said.

There is one grove of trees on the property that has a hold on his heart, however. As visitors enter the property, six maple trees show off not only their natural beauty but the painterly skill of Southbury artist David Merrill, who at Mr Lasher’s behest, turned the stately maples into a living memorial for friends and colleagues of Mr Lasher’s who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001. Painted stars and stripes weave from one tree to the next, an American flag that waves to all that pass by. “I can never forget that day,” said Mr Lasher, “and David came in, saw the trees, and knew just what to do.”

Gardeners, painters, family, and friends — it is the people, as much as the plants, that make his garden what it is today, said Mr Lasher.

That is what is down the path at Howard Lasher’s home.