WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Working with landscape designer Dennis Schrader, artist Ugo Rondinone crafts a meditative Long Island garden where bold sculptures mingle with moss

- MAYER RUS

Much like the proverbial rolling stone, a coastal bluff with sandy soil is a tricky spot to gather moss.

But Ugo Rondinone remained undaunted. Starting in the COVID lockdown of 2020, the Swiss-born artist spent years cultivating a verdant wonderland at his beach home on the North Fork of Long Island (AD, December 2018). “My vision was a landscape that features moss as its star attraction—a lush, tranquil ground cover that can be enjoyed all year round,” Rondinone says of his garden odyssey. Although the property already boasted mature trees and patches of existing mosses, lichens, and ferns, the artist’s path to arcadia was hardly straightforward. “The beginning was difficult. We failed the first two seasons,” he confesses. “Moss takes a lot of patience.”