Bees are quite fragile, which growing up you don’t realise. I have learned so much about them since, and about their importance to our ecosystem. I didn’t realise there was a whole catalogue of different bees, so when I was asked what kind I wanted I said, “Just normal garden bees.” The serious bee people rolled their eyes at me. I said I wanted, ‘Just normal garden bees.’ The serious bee people rolled their eyes at meĭid you know bees have nationalities? Our best honey producers – this is, of course, nationalistic of me – are the Italian bees. Because we are surrounded by the water, it never freezes here and I can have crepe myrtles from South Carolina, marvellous magnolias and camellias, all of which thrive because of the temperate location. I approach it much like a painter I want it to look a certain way and the plots are my three-dimensional canvases. Every Saturday, with the help of a crew, I tend to our garden for 12 straight hours. ![]() Now my wife and I are lucky enough to own an old estate in Southampton that once belonged to the Straus family of Macy’s department-store fame. Growing up in Douglaston, Queens, I often visited Westbury on Long Island – F Scott Fitzgerald territory – and its extraordinary gardens always impressed me. Marino at a 2017 exhibition of his work at London’s Gagosian Gallery © Getty Images You want to use the Austin Powers line on them – “Oh, do behave!” – but they don’t. ![]() ![]() Either one or two trees will have been blown out by a nor’easter – as happened to me last summer – or the crocosmia won’t come back because it didn’t thrive in winter. The only thing that’s certain is that by next spring 20 per cent of your garden will have changed. It’s the antidote to modern life and keeps me from going crazy. Unlike my day job – architecture, which tends to be somewhat fixed – there is nothing fixed about gardening.
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