Landscaping in East Hampton, NY

Outside the village, the Town of East Hampton's landscaping chapter, Chapter 155, adopted in March 2021, sets the rules. Gas or diesel leaf blowers are banned from May 20 to September 20 (section 155-6A(1)), and in that window no leaf blower of any kind, battery models included, may run on a Sunday (section 155-6B). From September 21 to May 19, gas or diesel blowers are allowed between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and on Sundays and holidays only homeowners may use them, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. A walk-behind gas or diesel blower needs a property larger than one acre (section 155-5D), against 1/2 acre in the Town of Southampton's hamlets.

Inside the village, Chapter 196, rewritten in May 2025, governs all landscape equipment, not only blowers. From January 1 through May 14 and from September 16 through December 31, landscape equipment may run Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. From May 15 through September 15 the weekday hours hold, but Saturday shrinks to noon to 4:00 p.m., and gas or diesel leaf blowers are banned outright (section 196-1A(11)(d)). The schedule gives no Sunday hours at all. A hardship permit from the Village Building Inspector can allow work outside these times (section 196-1A(12)). We plan spring and fall cleanups in the village around the short summer Saturday and keep Sundays clear.

The Village's lighting chapter, Chapter 188, rewritten in 2015, requires exterior lighting to use fully shielded fixtures, with the light source directed downward (section 188-4B), and permits no light source above 3,000 Kelvin (section 188-6C). It encourages photocells with timers that switch lights off by 11:00 p.m., and motion sensors for pedestrian safety, and it bars the lighting of private sporting courts and playing fields (section 188-4B(8)). Our landscape lighting for village properties is shielded path, step and wall light at 3,000 Kelvin or warmer, on photocells and timers set for 11:00 p.m.

The Village says its design today follows the way the settlement was laid out in 1648, with a broad common, now Main Street, on the plain north of Hook Pond, and its history page traces Great Plain from Hook Pond to Lily Pond and Little Plain from Lily Pond to Georgica Pond. Those ponds are also where water rises: Section 9.16 of the County's Hazard Mitigation Plan, the village annex, names the oceanfront, Hook Pond and Georgica Pond as the flood-prone areas and says North Main Street and Cedar Street often flood. Near the ponds we ask the Village Building Department, which handles wetland flagging, where the wetland line runs before we draw a bed. The 11937 ZIP code sits in zone 7b on the USDA's 2023 map, and on the oceanfront we plant from the CCE Suffolk salt-spray list: bayberry and bearberry, each an A on the Rutgers deer list, and beach plum.

Water supply varies across the Town. In Wainscott, south of East Hampton Airport, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services confirmed PFOS and PFOA in more than 150 private wells, and the Suffolk County Water Authority oversaw about 45,000 feet of new water main there in four months in 2018. In summer 2026, after reporting East Hampton public supply wells offline, SCWA declared a Stage 1 Water Alert for its East End towns, holding lawns to odd and even days with no watering from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and lifted it for East Hampton on July 31, 2026. SCWA requires an RPZ backflow device, tested every year, where a private well connects to the home or irrigation is chemical-fed. Our irrigation systems run drip zones on smart controllers with rain sensors, both of which SCWA credits to customer accounts.

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