The garden of Liz and Damon Mezzacappa, designed by Deborah Nevins. (Courtesy of Parrish Art Museum)

Southampton - "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" As the Parrish Museum's Landscape Pleasures event proved, it is as much about the emotional connections to the garden as it is about the blooms.

In a thinking outside the flower box effort to connect art and gardening, last week the Parrish Museum presented their 2010 Annual Landscape Pleasures weekend which kicked off with a Saturday morning symposium that featured three women who are indelibly connected to gardening, but in three very different ways.

Gathering in the museum's concert hall, the SRO crowd of museum supporters was treated to a continental breakfast and an opening address by museum director Terrie Sultan. Referencing the theme of natural sustainability at the heart of this year's symposium, in her message Sultan said, "There is another sense in which sustainability applies to this year's program - to sustain is to give support and nourish, and all three of our speakers have been nurtured by their engagement with their gardens."

The garden of Lillian and Joel Cohen and their 1892 McKim, Mead and White house. (Courtesy of Parrish Art Museum)

As proved by their presentations, Sultan could not have been anymore accurate in her description. First to the podium was Barbara Damrosch who has worked professionally in the field of agriculture since 1977. She writes a weekly column for The Washington Post called "A Cook's Garden" and is the author of "The Garden Primer: Second Addition" and "Theme Gardens." Damrosch and her husband own Four Season Farm, an experimental market garden in Harborside, Maine. The farm produces vegetables year-round and has become a nationally recognized model of small-scale sustainable agriculture.

Damrosch's connection to gardening is economic as well as emotional and during her presentation spoke about the visual beauty that can be derived from planting vegetables, which is often overlooked in a home victory garden. She noted, "If grown well, fruits, vegetables, and the gardens where they are grown can be a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach." She also discussed how home gardens are "agents of seduction" that will promote better eating habits for families that plant and nurture them.

Artist April Gornik chats with fellow gardeners and Parrish supporters.

Internationally renowned artist April Gornik followed and discussed "How the impulse to re-form nature and alter the world forms an intersection of art with the aesthetics of gardening, and contrasts with gardening's functionality and origins." Familiar to readers of Hamptons.com and Managing Editor Eileen Casey's column "Artists of the Hamptons" and her many other art features, check out the profile. Gornik's transformational paintings are in major public collections around the world, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Parrish Art Museum, among others. Gornik's work was represented in the 1989 Whitney Biennial in New York, the 10+10 Show of American and Soviet Painters originating at the Art and Design in 1988, and "Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained" at the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 1984. Gornik lives and works in both New York City and North Haven. The attendees were not only treated to photos of Gornik's garden, but to slides of her breathtaking artwork.

Barbara Damrosch signing "A Cook's Garden" for an enthusiastic fan.

The symposium's final speaker was Dominique Browning, 13-year editor-in-chief of the century old, now sadly folded, lifestyle and design magazine House & Garden. Author of two previous gardening related books, "Around the House and In the Garden: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Healing and Home Improvement" and "Paths of Desire: The Passion of a Suburban Gardener," her remarks at the symposium related to her latest offering, "Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness."

As obvious by her titles, Browning addresses more than gardening in her books, as she did at the symposium. Her presentation at the Parrish was called, "The Adventure of a New Garden" and she revealed, often very humorously through the reading of excerpts from her book, how her new garden at her new home in Rhode Island, helped her to reinvent her life after House & Garden. Particularly funny was her explanation of her ongoing relationship with mint and her decision to create a literal lawn of it. Just released in May, "Slow Love" is a must read, whether one is a gardener or not.

Former House & Garden editor-in-chief Dominique Browning at the speaker's podium in the museum's concert hall at the Parrish's Landscape Treasures event.

All of the speakers' books, including a gorgeous coffee table art book of Gornik's work, where available for purchase at the event. Enthusiastically purchased by attendees, the authors had long lines of fans eager to have their selections signed. The symposium was a huge success with many gardeners and Parrish supporters lingering in animated conversation between themselves and with the presenters long after the high noon conclusion. All attendees were given a beautiful lavender specimen to take home and plant in their own gardens.

Landscape Pleasures continued later in the day with a early evening alfresco cocktail party at the beautiful Southampton home of Alex Kuczynski and Charles Stevenson, Jr. An absolutely wonderful lawn party in honor of Parrish Benefactors, Patrons, Sponsors and Underwriters. Our hosts' own staff created the hors d'oeuvres and they were simply delicious and the sunset views from the perfectly manicured grounds were outstanding. Many of Southampton's most noted social families were represented and it was particularly wonderful to see Gayle Perkins Atkins in attendance with her husband Charles Atkins, as she is recovering from a recent back injury.

Alex Kuczynski (center) who, along with her husband Charles Stevenson, Jr., hosted the Landscape Treasures cocktail party chats with sponsors Jamie and Jill Frankel.

The finale of the Parrish's Landscape Pleasures event was the Garden Tour which took place on Sunday, June 13. This year the tour featured the personal gardens of Lillian and Joel Cohen, Liz and Damon Mezzacappa, Hilary and Wilbur Ross, Jr. , Audrey and Martin Gruss and Martha McLanahan.

Cohen and McLanahan, along with Perry Guillot, were the co-chairs for this year's exceptional program. Bravo to all involved, as once again the Parrish has produced an exceptional and illuminating event that takes its patrons out of the confines of the museum's extraordinary galleries and exposes them to the art all around them.

For more information go to www.parrishart.org.