The Ten Plants That Quietly Define a Classic Hamptons Landscape
THE HAMPTON RUSTIC APPROACH
Every landscape Hampton Rustic design walks a line between formality and nature, between the estate itself and the wild East End beyond its lawn. Over two decades of installing gardens from Southampton to Montauk, our team has settled on a working list, part native and part not, that shows up again and again because it simply performs. Here are five non native staples we reach for constantly, and five native alternatives that do the same job while giving something back to the land.
Fountain grass, specifically the Hameln variety, tops the non native list. It grows two to three feet tall with soft bottle brush plumes that catch the wind and add movement to what might otherwise be a static planting. We use it constantly along driveways and borders because it asks so little in return: full sun, minimal water, and a hard cutback each winter.
Boxwood does the opposite job. Where fountain grass moves, boxwood holds still, giving a planting its formal backbone and staying green through the depths of winter, which matters when a house sits empty most of the year. On the grand estates it tends to get shaped into a rounded, almost oversized egg form, while closer to the villages it shrinks into tidy, squared little hedges. Either way, it needs an annual pruning but otherwise takes care of itself.
Salvia is one of our favorite complementary perennials for Hamptons landscapes. Its vibrant purple flower spikes provide long-lasting color and graceful movement, pairing beautifully with native grasses and flowering plants. Used in sweeping drifts, salvia brings a polished but relaxed quality to gardens, driveways, and boarder plantings while also providing an important nectar source for pollinators. It is mostly drought tolerant, comes in shades from pale lavender to nearly black purple, and together with boxwood and fountain grass forms something like the holy trinity of East End entrance plantings.
Knockout Roses, usually the double bloom light pink or red variety, is our pick when a planting needs color. Unlike traditional roses, which demand constant spraying and feeding, these bloom in generous, ruffled sprays from late spring into early fall with a fraction of the fuss.
Royal Purple Liriope is our answer for shaded ground cover, an evergreen perennial that stays a rich dark green nearly year-round and sends up spikes of purple flowers several times a season. It thrives under specimen trees where little else will, shrugs off a hose, a lawnmower pass, even the occasional delivery truck, and looks especially sharp planted in front of a boxwood hedge, where the greens play off each other and the purple blooms stand out.
At Hampton Rustic we keep an equally reliable list of native plants that do much of the same work.
Switchgrass plays a similar role to fountain grass, only bigger, reaching anywhere from three to eight feet depending on the variety. It THE go to for naturalizing a border or easing a lawn into a meadow.
Virginia Rose, not to be confused with the invasive Rosa Rugosa often mistaken for it, is genuinely native to Long Island and thrives in sandy, salt sprayed conditions near the water. Its fragrant rose hips can be dried, though the thorns mean it belongs along a border rather than beside a path where kids or dogs might brush against it.
Northern Bayberry earns the nickname the wild cousin of boxwood. It shares boxwood’s evergreen structure and salt and wind tolerance, but we let it grow looser and less clipped, which suits properties closer to the water that call for a softer look.
Yarrow, with its fern like foliage and flat crowns of yellow or white flowers, is nearly indestructible once established and doubles as an excellent cut flower.
Black Eyed Susan, the true flower to yarrow’s tight buds, blooms from summer straight into fall and is at its best massed in clusters, where it also happens to be one of the better plants for drawing pollinators into a garden.
The common thread, native or not, is resilience. Wind, salt, heat, and long stretches without rain are simply part of gardening out here, and every plant on this list has proven itself against all four. But we also use them with real intention, keeping the more formal choices closer to the house and letting the grasses and natives take over as the landscape moves toward its edges, softening a pool house or a generator pad along the way rather than hiding it behind a straight hedge. It is that layering, more than any single plant, that gives a Hamptons landscape its unfussy elegance.
OUR PICKS AROUND TOWN
Long Island Natives-a wholesale grower and distributor serving landscape professionals. Hampton Rustic’s source for native plants, including our top five—Switchgrass, Rosa Virginia, Bayberry, Yarrow, and Black Eyed Susan. They’re an excellent local resource and a company we use regularly.
