Planting in the Flower Garden
Today in the Northeast, we're expecting mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s. It will be warm, but still a good day for planting in the gardens.
It takes a lot of time to maintain a flower cutting garden this large. Every spring, we add more and more flowering plants - making this space a colorful mix of beautiful and interesting specimens. In only a few years, this garden has really developed into one of the most eye-catching areas of Cantitoe Corners. Yesterday, we planted several iris cultivars, salvia, baptisia, and more.
Enjoy these photos.
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- It is so exciting to walk through this cutting garden. After nurturing it the last few years, it has finally transformed into the beautiful space I envisioned. Every year, I add more and more plants that would look pretty both outdoors and as cut flowers inside my home. When developing a cutting garden, always choose a mix of colors, shapes, sizes, and textures to make the most striking arrangements.
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- Yesterday, we planted several more iris varieties including this Iris ensata ‘Variegata’ – a strikingly beautiful plant with creamy white-and-green, vertically striped, broad foliage topped with attractive, small deep purple flowers with a reddish sheen.
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- Iris ensata ‘Picotee Wonder’ is a Japanese Iris with slender green grass-like leaves. It blooms with beautiful white flowers, and purple veins and edges bloom.
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- This iris is a bluish-purple variety. Iris care is minimal once the growing iris is established. Iris flowers bloom in shades of purple, blue, white and yellow, and include many hybridized versions that are multi-colored.
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- Although not yet blooming, this is the lush foliage of Iris germanica ‘Blatant’ – a bearded iris variety with fragrant blooms, rich maroon falls, and vivid yellow standards.
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- I have many bearded iris flowers in the garden. I showed some varieties earlier this week. Here is a lavender cultivar with the distinctive fuzzy, caterpillar-like “beards” that rest atop the falls.
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- The beards, which can be either the same color as the petal or a contrasting color help attract bees to perform pollination.
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- Ryan places the new specimens in bare spots around the garden. I always wanted a mixed collection, so there was something interesting and different to look at in every direction.
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- Once the plants are positioned, Phurba follows behind to get each one into the ground. Each hole is about 10-inches deep and four inches wide.
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- Iris plants prefer full sun and well-drained soil. They also like good air circulation.
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- As with all plantings, tamp the soil around the base carefully to be sure there is good contact.
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- We also planted Baptisia ‘Carolina Moonlight’. This plant produces loads of sturdy spikes filled with rich buttery yellow pea-like blossoms that emerge in mid to late spring.
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- The showy terminal flower spikes are followed by inflated seed pods. The pea-like flowers are attractive to butterflies and other insect pollinators.
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- And this is Salvia. This aromatic plant is great for cutting and beloved by bees and butterflies—plus, they’re drought-tolerant.
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- Salvias appear as a colorful spike of densely-packed flowers with tubular blossoms atop square stems and velvety leaves.
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- Also blooming profusely is this columbine variety, Aquilegia Vulgaris ‘Nora Barlow Pink’. Ryan grew this popular perennial from Columbine seed right in our greenhouse. It has long-lasting blooms marked by spurless, fully double pink flowers that look like small dahlias. This variety is one of the few Columbines with double flowers and no spurs.
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- The flowers either face outwards or are found nodding, like these.
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- The most striking feature of most columbine flowers is the collection of five backward-projecting spurs. Each spur is a petal that has developed into what appears to be a tall, slender, hollow hat. At the very top of each spur, inside, is a gland producing sweet nectar.
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- Dianthus flowers belong to a family of plants that includes carnations and are characterized by their spicy fragrance. Dianthus plants may be found as a hardy annual, biennial, or perennial and most often used in borders or potted displays.
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- There are numerous types of dianthus – most have pink, red, or white flowers with notched petals. Look at Kevin Sharkey’s Instagram page @seenbysharkey for a gorgeous arrangement of Dianthus barbatus, the sweet William.
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- Here’s another gorgeous lupin plant – in yellow. I hope you’ve seen the other beautiful lupines in my garden. Their telltale look is a tall, showy spire of flowers that come in a multitude of color varieties with impressive grayish-green textured foliage.
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- And a beautiful and perfect rose – the roses are just starting to bloom now. I can’t wait until the entire area is filled with these fragrant and colorful blossoms.
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