Early May at My Farm
Many of you comment on how much you love seeing photos of my farm’s landscapes and gardens. Thank you for all your wonderful responses to my blog - I love reading them every day.
When I’m home, I always take time to tour the property, take note of what needs to be done, and visit with all my dear, sweet animals. Now that we’re all recommended to stay-at-home, I have more time to get out there and prune and groom my trees, plant in my gardens, and mow the many grassy fields and paddocks. The scenery at Cantitoe Corners changes rapidly from day to day, week to week, especially this time of year with all the glorious spring blooms.
Enjoy these photos.
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- This is my long pergola which stretches from the foot of my perennial flower cutting garden to the carriage road leading to my Winter House – it’s one of the first areas I see when I drive into the property. Here it is after a fresh mowing.
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- Right now, there is a carpet of blue-purple Muscari growing under the pergola and lots of bold green foliage bordered by my boxwood. Muscari is often found planted in lawns, borders, rock gardens, and in containers. All varieties of Muscari are also fragrant. These beautiful flowers are planted as bulbs and tend to naturalize quickly in good soil. They prefer well-drained sandy soil that is acid to neutral.
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- Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia. Most may know it by its common name grape hyacinth. Muscari appears as spikes of dense urn-shaped flowers resembling bunches of grapes in shades of blue.
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- They also come in light blue, pink, white, and two-toned. Muscari grows to about six to eight inches tall – and deer don’t seem to like them.
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- This garden grows so well. Soon, it will display a colorful palette of alliums, lilies, and camassia.
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- In the soccer field next to my pergola are these weeping hornbeams, Carpinus betulus ‘Pendula’. The branches of these trees gracefully weep to create an umbrella of foliage that reaches the ground.
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- In my shade garden outside the Tenant House, I have lots of beautiful ferns. Every day more and more unfurl. A fern is a member of a group of roughly 12-thousand species of vascular plants that reproduce via spores. These are ostrich ferns.
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- Known botanically as Podophyllum peltatum, this plant goes by various common names. “Mayapple” is used most often, but among its other nicknames are “duck’s foot” and “American mandrake. Mayapple is a native woodland plant that is widespread across most of eastern North America. This herbaceous perennial of mostly unbranched 12-18 inch tall stems is topped with umbrella-like leaves. The leaves remain furled as the stem grows in the spring, unfolding when the stem nears its full height.
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- Mayapple does naturalize freely, but look how pretty it is in large amounts. I have lots of these gorgeous plants throughout the shade garden.
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- In early spring, the foliage of Syneilesis palmata emerges from the soil looking like shaggy mane mushrooms. Over time, it forms a sizeable patch of green umbrella-shaped leaves.
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- Its foliage reaches about 24-inches tall with unusual umbels of upward-facing pink, and white flowers when in bloom. Mature foliage can be more than a foot across with deeply toothed, narrow leaves – it is really an interesting plant.
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- Epimediums are long-lived and easy to grow and have such attractive and varying foliage. Epimedium, also known as barrenwort, bishop’s hat, and horny goat weed, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Berberidaceae.
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- This is one of four Sargent crabapples, Malus sargentii, in front of my Tenant House. It is a shrub that grows to about eight feet tall.
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- It is now filled with buds that will soon turn to clusters of sweet, fragrant white flowers.
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- Just outside the kitchen door to my Winter House, I have two of these Camperdown Elms. Camperdown Elms slowly develop broad, flat heads and wide crowns with weeping branch habits.
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- Its leaves are broad oblong-obovate to elliptic, rough-textured, and serrated.
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- Nearby is this weeping katsura tree. Cercidiphyllum japonicum f. pendulum has pendulous branches that fan out from the crown and sweep the ground. Caramel-scented foliage emerges bronze or purple-red, turns blue-green, then fades to gold or apricot in autumn.
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- Here is a closer look at one of its branches – already full of foliage.
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- And across the carriage road from my Winter House are the beautiful Malus ‘Gravenstein’ espalier apple trees.
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- Here you can see some of the white flowers that have emerged.
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- The herbaceous peony bed is also growing beautifully. Soon, this garden bed will be overflowing with giant peonies in pink and white.
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- With more than 25-thousand named varieties, daffodils are one of the most hybridized flowers in the world. The blossoms come in many combinations of white, orange, yellow, red, pink, and even green.
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- I plant early, mid, and late-season blooming varieties so that sections of beautiful flowers can be seen throughout the season. My great daffodil border is broken up into various groupings – different varieties, different shapes and sizes, and different blooming times. This provides a longer splash of color. There are more than 40 varieties planted in the daffodil border.
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- I take stock of my daffodils every year to see what is growing well and what is not, so I can learn what to remove, where to add more, and what to plant next.
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- Cultivars with bold colored cups generally retain better color when planted in a little shade to protect them from the hot afternoon sun.
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- Normal rainfall will typically take care of any watering requirements during the spring flowering season.
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- Be sure daffodils are planted where there is room for them to spread, but not where the soil is water-logged. After daffodils bloom in the spring, allow the plants to continue growing until they die off on their own. They need the time after blooming to store energy in their bulbs for next year’s show.
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- Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol. Growing as large shrubs or trees, they produce showy, fragrant flowers that are pink, white, red, purple, or yellow. Look how bold and bright these flowers are. The magnolia family is one of the oldest trees in existence. Because of this, their flowers do not have true petals and sepals; instead, they have petal-like tepals. Also, the flowers do not produce real nectar but attract pollinating beetles with fragrant and sugary secretions.
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- I have several pink magnolias on one side of a carriage road leading toward my stable. They are in an area near the giant birdbath.
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- Leucojum vernum, or the spring snowflake, is a perennial plant that produces green, linear leaves and white, bell-shaped flowers with a green edge and green dots. The plant grows between six to 10 inches in height and blooms in early spring. Leucojum is a genus of only two species in the family Amaryllidaceae – both native to Eurasia. These bulbous perennials have grass-like foliage and are quite fragrant.
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- This newest hedge borders one side of my donkey paddock. It is a row of American Hornbeams, Carpinus Caroliniana. This deciduous hardwood tree prefers moist, acidic soil and produces dark green summer leaves that turn a variegated orange in the fall. It will look so pretty in this location.
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- In front of my large vegetable garden is a pair of cherry trees. Cherry trees are so beautiful in spring – these are covered in white blossoms. These trees will then produce the delicious cherries we all know and love. Unfortunately, the squirrels love them also.
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- Here are the pretty cherry tree blossoms.
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- This is a weeping larch, Larix decidua ‘Pendula’. It has bright green needles in spring, which turn gold before dropping in fall. This curvaceous tree is located at “the triangle” where the carriage roads leading to the Boxwood Allee, the Pin Oak Allee, and the woodland, all converge.
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- The landscape around the farm is changing every day – here, the green-yellow of the weeping willows can be seen in the distance.
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- My fruit orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. We planted more than 200-fruit trees here, many of which started as bare-root cuttings. These trees are all staked for added support, and they’re growing very well – in part because of the nutrient-rich soil.
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- These are plum tree branches. My plum varieties include ‘Green Gage’, ‘Mount Royal’, ‘NY9’, and ‘Stanley’. Prunus americana has such beautiful white flowers. It produces very sweet, and juicy fruits.
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- Mertensia virginica, or Virginia bluebell, is a perennial that is native to North America. Its buds are actually pink, but the flowers are blue. They can grow in any garden and bloom in early to mid spring and continue blooming through early to mid summer. Mertensia virginica will grow to a height of 18 to 24 inches tall, so they’re great naturalization plants for use behind other, smaller ones. They do best in peaty, sandy soil, but once planted, they require very little maintenance.
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- This is Fritillaria meleagris, also known by its common names: chess flower, checkered lily, drooping tulip, or in northern Europe, simply fritillary. The name Fritillaria actually comes from the Latin word “fritillus” meaning dice-box, likely referring to the checkered pattern on some of the flowers.
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- The bell-shaped flowers seem rather large for the plant. Fritillaria flowers come in colors from deep purple to white. The narrow leaves are alternate and sparse.
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- And remember my new formal garden beds in front of my main greenhouse? These beds are just bursting with new spring growth. I can’t wait to see all the stunning white lilies that grow here.
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- Last week, while joining a LIVE Zoom broadcast for Mercedes-Benz, my crew of three who are staying with me at the farm, and I, saw this large and handsome crow watching all the activity and making its many caw-caw noises. Here it is in flight.
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- The day was filled with on and off showers, and just as we were about to begin our broadcast, we saw this wondrous rainbow. It was a beautiful early evening sight. I hope you are all able to take advantage of the outdoor splendor around your home this spring.
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