Summer Plants and Flowers at Skylands
During my summertime stays at Skylands, my home in Maine, beautiful plants flourish outdoors and cut flower arrangements fill nearly every room inside.
I love decorating my homes with lush and vibrant plants and flowers. In Maine, we grow many of the flowers in a large cutting garden that's located in the same area as the vegetable garden. There are also many bold plants and gorgeous blooms in the planters and gardens of my large terrace - so many extraordinary botanical displays that capture the attention of all who visit.
Here are some of this year's photos, enjoy.
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- The lilies bloomed everywhere at Skylands this summer. The tall, colorful flowers filled my large terrace. This sphynx is out “guarding” the terrace for the season. She is one of two glazed terra-cotta sphinxes designed by Emile Muller. Émile first used plain ceramic products on buildings and industries. Then, in 1884 he developed the glazed terra-cotta, which he continued to use for many architectural decorations and art reproductions. The two are stored indoors and taken out as soon as the warmer weather arrives.
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- Lilium is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs and all with large, prominent flowers. The flowers are often fragrant, and come in a wide range of colors.
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- Here is a bright yellow lily growing in the terrace garden. When arranging cut lilies, handle them with care – they can bruise easily.
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- And don’t forget, lilies have heavily pollinated stamens, which stain, so before bringing them indoors, it’s important to gently pull the anthers with a tissue, or pinch them off with your fingers.
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- These succulents are planted in a long stone trough I bought several years ago from Trade Secrets. Notice the pink gravel used to top the soil surrounding these plants – it is the same pink gravel that covers the carriage roads at Skylands.
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- I always have agaves up at Skylands. Agaves are exotic, deer-resistant, drought-tolerant, and make wonderful container plants. It’s not easy dealing with giant, prickly agave plants. One must be very careful of one’s eyes, face, and skin whenever planting them. We planted this one in spring, when I come up to Maine for my traditional terrace planting weekend.
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- Another agave sits in this beautiful faux bois planter underplanted with ‘Silver Falls’ dichondra. This planter is extremely heavy – about four to five hundred pounds.
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- All the plants and flowers on my large “cracked ice” terrace are thriving despite the dry weather.
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- This is a ponytail palm, Beaucarnea recurvata – a species in the family Asparagaceae. It has a sleek bulb-like trunk with lush, long leaves.
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- This is the West Terrace. Every year, we always hang a series of fern-filled planters under the pergola – it adds such a lovely touch of greenery to the space along with the overhanging kiwi vines. These ferns, Nephrolepis exaltata ‘Bostoniensis’, are among the most popular varieties with its frilly leaves and long, hanging fronds.
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- At Skylands, the vegetable garden and the flower cutting garden are in the same location, all protected by a fence. Everything is very well maintained and weeded – it is so pleasant to cut from this garden when we make arrangements. Here, one can see snapdragons, phlox, lilies zinnias, and in the distance, my gardener Wendy Norling.
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- Here is a beautiful collection of snapdragons. Snapdragons are great for arrangements as they last quite a long time. A palette of pink and white looks very pretty against the earth tones in this room.
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- Another bright snapdragon arrangement with yellow, white, orange, and pink flowers.
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- On this large table in the Living Hall is a basket fern I brought up from my Bedford, New York farm. Basket ferns are epiphytic or epipetric and are native to tropical Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania. It is sitting on a grand faux-bois cement table where I always like to display large plants and flower arrangements for my parties.
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- The hydrangea is among my favorite of flowering plants. It offers huge bouquets of clustered flowers from mophead to lacecap from summer through fall.
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- These turk’s cap lily arrangements are in a small alcove outside my dining room – so bright and inviting. They’re placed in Chinese export “Orange Fitzhugh” porcelain vases. Gorgeous arrangements don’t always have to be giant in size – the pair work perfectly here on this faux bois table.
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- On the dining room table, vases of rudbeckia with their bright, showy flower heads. Rudbeckia flower colors include yellow and gold, and the plants grow two to six feet tall, depending on the variety.
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- More rudbeckia blooms are used to decorate this brass coffee table in my living room. Rudbeckias are easy-to-grow perennials and include the popular black-eyed Susan.
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- And here is another large basket fern sitting on this faux bois table. I love faux bois, which means “false wood” in French. Faux bois refers to the artistic imitation of wood or wood grains in various media. The craft has roots in the Renaissance with trompe-l’œil. I have many faux bois urns, chairs, and tables at Skylands.
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- And a vase of glorious pink lilies – simply stunning. On the wall are prints depicting the birds of Mt. Desert Island here in Maine by artist Carroll Tyson. What a lovely summer. I hope you’re still enjoying some of the wonderful colors of the season.
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