Seaside Gardening Guide

See what’s growing in these enchanting spaces by the sea.

At Home Among Flowers

Everyone knows that gardeners have an attachment to the land, but James Topping’s roots grow particularly deep.

Tria Giovan

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Plant Apprentice

James, who calls himself a self-educated landscape designer, started training at a young age. “Every day after lunch, my grandmother weeded the perennial beds, and I was there beside her,” he says. These days he tends the colorful beds himself, cultivating cottage-garden favorites such as lavatera, malva, hollyhock, and a double-flowered daylily that has been growing here for 150 years.