Visiting My Summer House Garden
The sunken garden behind my Summer House is brimming with vibrant foliage.
I began this formal garden more than 10 years ago and have added many different kinds of plants and trees ever since. The focal point is the great old ginkgo tree at the back of the space that was original to the property. Over time, I've planted American and English boxwood, smaller ginkgo trees, smoke bushes, Siberian weeping pea shrubs, peonies, hostas, lilies, and so much more. I am so pleased with how well it has developed.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- When I first designed this garden, I called it my Boxwood Room. It measures 60 by 120 feet and is surrounded by a tall American boxwood hedge. I love how it encloses the entire space. And because the Summer House faces a rather busy intersection, the wall of boxwood also provides a good deal of privacy.
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- Not long ago, we planted the urns on the large terrace overlooking the garden. It is a great place to display tropical plants that do best in indirect sunlight and container plants are an easy way to dress up any terrace or patio.
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- I acquired seven of these gorgeous faux bois containers a couple years ago. They look great potted up with big leaf specimens like philodendrons.
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- This split-leaf philodendron, Philodendron Selloum, is native to South America. It belongs to the group of philodendron plants that are among the most common of houseplants for their ability to thrive without much maintenance.
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- These plants have glossy, heart-shaped or rounded leathery leaves that develop deep clefts and oblong perforations as they grow older. The leaves may be as much as 18-inches wide on foot-long leafstalks.
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- The aerial roots can be trained to climb or directed into the soil. The tough roots grow downward from the thick stem and will root if they touch the ground.
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- I display lots of tropical plants in 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. I have four Lunaform planters potted up with thuja on this side of the terrace. Thuja is thick, dense, and easy-growing, with greenery that’s hardy, pest-resistant, and disease resistant.
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- Underneath this thuja shrub is helichrysum, a trailing evergreen subshrub with furry grey-green leaves and small white flowers when blooming. Helichrysum petiolare is commonly known as licorice plant and trailing dusty miller.
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- This thuja is planted with bright, lime green Lysimachia – a low-growing, creeping ground cover which forms a leafy mat about two to four inches tall.
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- We planted agave in this stone planter. Agaves are exotic, deer-resistant, drought-tolerant plants.
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- And here are the stunning seed-bearing puffs of the smoke bushes. These billowing puffs float over the leaves of the purple dark Cotinus – a genus of two species of flowering plants in the family Anacardiaceae, closely related to the sumacs. I have many smoke bushes around the farm – it is among my favorite small trees. These can grow to a moderate size – up to 15-feet tall and 10-feet wide.
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- Appearing in late spring, are these large, feathery, pink flower plumes that cover the plant with hazy ‘smoky’ puffs throughout summer.
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- The main focal point is the mighty old ginkgo tree at the back of the space. This tree is about 250-years old. Although not as large as others I’ve seen, my tree is quite massive.
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- I have smaller ginkgo trees on either side of the footpath. The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees. It prefers a minimum of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The ginkgo has a cone-like shape when young, and becomes irregularly rounded as it ages.
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- The leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three-inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three-inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze. Ginkgo leaves grow and deepen color in summer, then turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.
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- Growing beneath the ginkgo is a beautiful chocolate mimosa tree, a fast-growing, deciduous tree with a wide, umbrella-shaped canopy.
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- It has beautiful bronze-green, fern-like leaves appearing in late spring and then a deeper rich chocolate-burgundy color in summer. It will show off delicate, pink, pincushion-like blooms later in the season.
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- Hostas are a perennial favorite among gardeners. Their lush green foliage varying in leaf shape, size and texture, and their easy care requirements make them ideal for many areas. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
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- These lilies line both sides of the center stone footpath. They will soon bloom in lovely shades of yellow, cream and white. Some of the varieties include ‘Anastasia’, ‘Casa Blanca’, ‘Regale Album’, and ‘Conca Dor’.
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- English boxwood is more sensitive than its American cousin and gets carefully wrapped with burlap every winter. I lined both sides of the path with a low boxwood hedge and then larger shrubs within the garden.
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- At the end of the footpath is this antique sundial. A sundial is any device that uses the sun’s altitude or azimuth to show the time. It consists of a flat plate, which is the dial, and a gnomon, which casts a shadow onto the dial.
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- On the right of this ginkgo is one of six weeping Siberian pea shrubs with cascading weeping branches that bear small yellow pea-like flowers in spring. I am so very proud of how well this garden is growing. Soon, this garden will burst with colorful lilies to accent the bold green foliage. And, when it is safe to do so, I will start entertaining in this garden – I can’t wait.
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