Planting My Summer House Terrace
I love beautiful stone urns filled with tropical plants.
As many of you know, I have a rather sizable collection of tropical specimens at my Bedford, New York farm. During the winter, they are all stored in a special greenhouse. Once warm weather arrives, they are brought out for display - some go to my home in Maine, some go to my home in East Hampton, and the remaining plants are placed in various locations here at Cantitoe Corners. Recently, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, filled four handsome vessels with agaves and Helichrysum petiolare on the garden terrace behind my Summer House. They’re so easy to plant and maintain - they’ll look wonderful all season long.
Enjoy these photos.
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- This is the terrace behind my Summer House. I love displaying tropical plants in these handsome Lunaform containers. Lunaform is a pottery studio in West Sullivan, Maine where they create extraordinary garden planters and urns – many of them reminiscent of vessels found in ancient Greek and Roman gardens. http://www.lunaform.com/
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- The hallmark of Lunaform is embossed on each pot. Look closely, and you can see it on the front of these vessels. These four Lunaform planters will look great planted with agaves from my greenhouse.
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- Agaves are exotic, deer-resistant, drought-tolerant plants. They make excellent container plants.
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- Here is Ryan placing each of the agaves into its pot, making sure it fits well and is level before planting.
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- For these plants, Ryan uses a horticulture mix formulated with Canadian sphagnum peat moss, coarse grade perlite, gypsum, dolomitic lime and a long-lasting wetting agent.
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- Ryan places a shard at the bottom of each planter. I save shards of terra-cotta to cover the drain holes. It keeps dirt from falling through while making sure there is still room for proper drainage. Saving the shards from broken pots is a great way to repurpose those pieces.
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- Ryan removes any damaged leaves. Agaves are long-leafed succulents with shallow roots and showy, spiked leaves. A little extra care should be taken whenever working with such sharp plants.
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- To preserve these more porous and fragile planters, Ryan keeps the agaves in the plastic containers. Doing this will also make it easier to remove the agaves next autumn, when these tropical specimens go back into the greenhouse for the winter.
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- Ryan fills the rest of the pot with medium.
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- And then sprinkles osmocote around the base of each plant.
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- Osmocote particles are known as prills. The beige shell on the prill coats a core of nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
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- The resin-coating is made from linseed oil and as the plant’s root system takes-up nutrition from the soil, it also takes up the needed nutrients from the osmocote.
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- Next, Ryan begins planting the Helichrysum petiolare, commonly known as licorice plant. ‘White licorice’ is very striking. This plant prefers sun to part-shade with well-drained soil.
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- Helichrysum petiolare is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to South Africa and naturalized in parts of Portugal and the United States. It is also known as silver-bush everlasting flower, trailing dusty miller and kooigoed. The foliage has a faint licorice aroma.
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- Helichrysum is exceptionally easy to grow and doesn’t need much fertilizing.
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- Helichrysum is a trailing evergreen subshrub with furry grey-green leaves and small white flowers when blooming.
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- Ryan plants six to eight small helichrysum plants underneath each agave.
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- Here are all the filled urns – they look beautiful already.
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- Finally, Ryan gives them all a good drink. Container plants are an easy way to dress up any terrace or patio.
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- At the edge of this terrace, just across from the agaves are these stone planters filled with boxwood.
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- And looking out into the sunken garden, everything is so beautiful, lush and green.
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- This garden is tucked inside a tall hedge of American boxwood. And the main focal point is the great old ginkgo tree at the back of the space. Soon, this garden will burst with colorful lilies to accent the bold green foliage – I can’t wait.
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