My Winter House terraces are looking so lush and beautiful.
This time of year, I always display a variety of specimens around my home - potted plants, small evergreens, and even some trailing ground covers that work well as underplantings in ornamental vessels. They all look wonderful next to the terrace parterres, or formal geometric gardens - some planted with herbs and flowering plants, and some planted in tiers of bold green boxwood and golden barberry. This week, my gardeners and outdoor grounds crew spruced the terraces up with fresh plants and amended the beds with soil and food.
Here are some photos.
When well-maintained, terrace parterres are so stunning. I am proud of how well these have developed through the years. Parterres are designed as geometric symmetrical beds bordered by low, groomed hedges. In the center is one of my giant sugar pots now used as a fire pit.
It’s always fun to visit local nurseries and select plants for one’s own gardens and terrace containers. Neighborhood shops sell what grows best in the area and experts on staff are there to answer any questions. I enjoy bringing home different plants for my spring and summer displays. These are all small Japanese holly shrubs.
Planting the urns outside my Winter House is already underway. Every urn has a drainage hole at the bottom. Matthew places a layer of weed cloth first to protect the vessel itself. This will also make it easier to remove the plant next autumn, when it is put back in the greenhouse for the cold season. The container is filled two-thirds of the way up with a good quality potting soil.
This year, I am planting three of this interesting plant – Abies koreana ‘Kohout’s Ice Breaker.’ This is a dwarf, evergreen conifer that develops into a small, broadly pyramidal tree.
It has short, stubby branches with flat, curved silvery blue and white needles and an incredibly slow growth rate.
I use Miracle-Gro Organic Outdoor Potting Mix. It contains a quick-release natural fertilizer that feeds plants for up to two months.
It looks great planted in this vessel, but it would look even better underplanted with trailing ground covers. Don’t be afraid to mix and match plants in a single container.
Matthew adds Helichrysum and Dichondra, both of which have trailing growth habits that I often use as underplantings for potted specimens.
These plants are located at the bottom of my stairs where I can see them every day. They will grow wonderfully through the season.
I also have pairs of stone planters on the steps and landings of the terrace parterres. Here is another one being prepped for planting.
I brought home several small Japanese holly shrubs, Ilex crenata, that are just perfect for these urns.
Ilex crenata is an evergreen shrub or small tree prized for its soft, glossy, dark green foliage.
The lower parterres are planted with herbs. The crew added some thyme and rosemary to fill in any bare spots.
I use Miracle-Gro Organic Raised Bed & Garden Soil in all my raised beds at the farm. It is filled with nutrients.
Here, soil is added to all these beds. I also grow catmint, a perennial herb in the mint family, used for culinary and ornamental purposes.
Catmint forms compact, mounded clumps with gray-green foliage and lavender-blue flowers.
It is important to add organic soil mix to garden beds each year as a way to refresh and maintain the garden soil health. Over time, soil settles, compacts, and loses nutrients, especially after a busy growing season. I feed and amend the soil often and it always pays off!
The boxwood hedges and shrubs are freshly groomed. And don’t worry, as the weeks progress, the bold green of the boxwood will return.
On the upper parterres, I grow boxwood and golden barberry, Berberis thunbergii. It is a deciduous shrub that is compact, adaptable, very hardy and shows off striking small, golden yellow oblong leaves. Golden barberry takes on its brightest coloring in full sun.
These garden beds will mature beautifully during the season and provide a splendid and welcoming area for gathering.
It's always fun to plant a new garden - especially when it includes lots of beautiful, fragrant roses.
Over the last several weeks, I've been working on a new formal garden. The bed was previously planted with beautiful lilacs as well as roses, but it was in need of a complete overhaul to revitalize the space and add some new young plants. The roses are from Star Roses and Plants, a company of brands that focuses on breeding and introducing specimens offering longer-lasting, disease resistant blooms. I planted more than 140 new roses to add to the existing rose bushes and surrounded them all with a border of boxwood. I'm looking forward to seeing this garden mature and fill the area with gorgeous color, form, and fragrance.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This garden was once my allée of lilacs, Syringa vulgaris. The garden was filled with sweet-smelling lilacs in white, lavender, and purple – with some shrubs reaching 15 to 20 feet tall. After 20 years, the garden needed to be refreshed, so I replanted it with young roses and a border of boxwood.
The roses were planted in two rows – each variety in groups of four all the way down. I shared the planting process in a previous blog.
After they were planted, I decided to put down industrial strength weed fabric to deter the pesky weeds. Wide strips were cut and secured with landscape staples.
This fabric is durable and long lasting.
Next is a layer of mulch. Small, manageable amounts are dropped in between the plants.
I make this mulch right here at the farm. Mulch is great to maintain moisture, suppress weeds, regulate soil temperature, and improve soil health.
Chhiring spreads the mulch to create a two to three inch layer across the entire bed.
In the end, both sides look so gorgeous. On the left are older rose bushes – some of which were transplanted from my previous home in East Hampton. I love roses and have been growing them for decades.
Every row is perfectly lined up. The boxwood that surrounds the garden will grow into a nice formal hedge.
Rose leaves are borne alternately on the stem. In most species, they are about two to five inches long, pinnate, with at least three leaflets and basal stipules. The leaflets also usually have a serrated margin. and remember, rose stems are often armed with sharp prickles, not thorns. A prickle can be easily broken off the plant because it is really a feature of the outer layers rather than part of the wood, like a thorn.
Among the varieties now planted here – Parfuma® Earth Angel™
‘KORgeowim’ – a beautiful, peony-shaped rose with blooms in cream and warm pink in the center. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Bolero™ ‘Meidelweis’ is a compact Floribunda rose with a strong sweet fragrance. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
I also planted Raspberry Cupcake™
‘KORcarmsis’ which has a strong raspberry and lemon fragrance. Its blooms are medium to light pink with large, cup-like petals. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Parfuma® Bliss ‘KORmarzau’ is a delicate, creamy pink blend rose with an apricot colored center. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
This is Michelangelo™ ‘Meitelov.’ It has a sweet, lemony scent with vibrantly saturated, golden yellow petals. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Sunbelt® Savannah™ is a very hardy and disease-resistant pink Hybrid Tea Rose with an extraordinary fragrance. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Romantica® Moonlight ‘Meikaquinz’ has large, light yellow flowers that are great for cutting. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Princesse Charlene de Monaco®
‘Meidysouk’ is a charming Hybrid Tea Rose with double flowers in light apricot to shell pink in color. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Dee-Lish® ‘Meiclusif’ is a tall Hybrid Tea Rose with a strong fragrance of verbena and citrus. It has large, deep pink, non-fading blooms. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Top Cream™ ‘Meiroguste’ has large, old-fashioned blooms of creamy-white with light pink blush. All are very disease resistant and beautiful for use in arrangements. This garden is sure to bring years of fragrant beauty to my farm. (Photo provided by Star Roses and Plants)
Spring is always a wonderful time for a garden tour.
Every now and then, I agree to open my gardens for a small number of private walking tours. Yesterday was the first one of the season. It was for two winners of a charity auction run by the Seattle, Washington based nonprofit FareStart. The guided walk took them through various gardens, groves, and allées. They learned a bit about the history of my farm, the many changes I've made over the years, and about the plants and trees they saw along the way.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Every group experiences a different tour when they visit the farm depending on what is blooming at the time. It’s extra special when the peonies are in flower.
These peonies are behind my main greenhouse where the guided walk began. My peonies are just starting to bloom around the farm.
The pergola garden is also hard to miss with all its beauty.
The blue Camassia and purple alliums are prominent right now. Allium species are herbaceous perennials with flowers produced on scapes. They grow from solitary or clustered bulbs. Camassia is a North American native perennial bulb with tall, star-shaped flowers that thrive in moist, sunny environments.
Nearby is my Soccer Field, which is adjacent to the pergola. It is looking so lush and green. On one side are six rare weeping hornbeams, Carpinus betulus Pendula. And in the distance is the old corn crib, which is original to the property.
The tour also viewed my pool – now open and ready for warm season swimming. The six Ginkgo biloba Goldspire™ Obelisk trees are just starting to leaf out now.
The tour then walkd down my Pin Oak Allée. A recognizable trait of the pin oak is that its lower branches hang down. It also has horizontal middle branches and upright upper branches forming a most interesting growth habit.
Susan Maki and Julie Hart are both avid gardeners and work at Squak Mt. Nursery in Issaquah, Washington. They admired so many of the gardens and asked such wonderful questions. It was interesting to hear what plants and trees do well in their area of the country. Here they are at one end of my long Boxwood Allée.
Susan and Julie learned about the giant sugar pots I have around the farm. I use them as fire pits and as coolers when I entertain, but originally sugar kettles like this were used on 19th century Louisiana plantations for the production of sugar. Sugar cane was placed in the large, spherical vessels and cooked down to make syrup. Because they could withstand such high heat, they were also used for cooking.
The horse chestnut trees at the stable end of my Boxwood Allée always grab everyone’s attention. Aesculus hippocastanum is a large deciduous tree also known as conker tree. All the horse chestnuts are blooming right now.
Anyone who visits my farm always saves a little time to see my handsome, well-mannered horses. Susan stopped to greet young Ulysses, one of two horses I rescued last year.
In the stable chick nursery – lots of baby turkeys and chickens. This poult is already learning to perch – it is standing on one of its glass feeders.
Next, a stop to see the peafowl. While it is breeding season for the peacocks and peahens, none of the males were interested in fanning their tail feathers…
My head gardener, Ryan McCallister, answered many of their gardening questions – in particular, how I care for all my roses here at the farm.
Then it was a walk through the azalea grove. The smaller, younger azaleas, which I’ve planted in the last few years are bursting with color. Some azaleas bloom as early as March, but most bloom in April and May with blossoms lasting several weeks.
Azalea petal shapes range from narrow to triangular to overlapping rounded petals. They can also be flat, wavy, or ruffled. Susan and Julie loved these light pink flowers.
Some of the most beautiful growth this time of year is outside my Summer house. Susan and Julie saw my long tree peony border planted in a semi-shade of giant maples. Many of the specimens were transplanted from my Turkey Hill garden in Westport, Connecticut and continue to thrive here at my New York farm.
There are very few plants that can compete with a tree peony in full bloom. The pink varieties are more fragrant than others. This one has slightly ruffled petals with a yellow gold center. Tree peonies come in colors that include all ranges of white, yellow, pink, magenta, and dark maroon.
Julie admired the Lady’s Mantle bordering the garden. Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis, is a clumping perennial which typically forms a basal foliage mound of long-stalked, circular, scallop-edged, toothed, pleated, soft-hairy, light green leaves. The pale chartreuse flowers blend softly with the green foliage.
Across the carriage road are my old pink azaleas that are flowering with gorgeous deep pink color. My azalea collection starts in a lightly wooded area where they get lots of filtered sunlight throughout the day. When I extended the garden down the carriage road, I planted more than 400-azaleas, and continue to add more every year.
Cinco is one of my two stable cats – she followed the tour all the way up to the Summer House sunken garden.
My herbaceous peony bed is just coming to life with the bold green foliage and all the many buds waiting to open. My herbaceous peony collection includes 11-double rows of peonies, and 22 different varieties of peony plants – two varieties in each row. Susan and Julie studied the grid pattered staking in hopes of doing something similar with their peonies back home.
As the two finished the tour, they admired my stand of bald cypress trees along this carriage road. Taxodium distichum is a deciduous conifer. Though it’s native to swampy areas, the bald cypress is also able to withstand dry, sunny weather and is hardy in USDA climate zones 5 through 10. The day was perfect for a tour of the gardens – sunny, mild, and so pleasant. Thanks for visiting my Cantitoe Corners Farm, Susan and Julie.
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