My Pergola Garden in May
I hope you caught a glimpse of my pergola garden on @MarthaStewart48 - it is putting on such a colorful and gorgeous display.
Soon after I bought my Bedford, New York farm, I built a long pergola along the carriage road leading to my home. Over the years, I've added lots of bulbs and perennials that bloom at different times throughout the season. Right now, the Camassia and alliums are covering the area in an eye-catching palette of blue and purple.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- Across from my stately bald cypress trees is my long and winding pergola. This pergola starts just outside my flower cutting garden and runs along one side of the carriage road leading to my Winter House.
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- The uprights for this pergola are antique granite posts from China – originally used as grape supports in a valley that was going to be dammed and flooded to create a reservoir. The cedar rafters were just replaced earlier this year.
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- Bordering the garden on both sides are these boxwood shrubs. There are more than 300 boxwood shrubs planted here. These boxwood shrubs were grown from small saplings.
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- This is the pergola garden late last month – lots of fresh, healthy green foliage.
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- This is the garden now filled with varying hues of purple and blue – it’s breathtaking.
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- The most prominent plant right now is the Camassia – it’s blooming profusely and so beautifully.
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- Camassia leichtlinii caerulea forms clusters of linear strappy foliage around upright racemes.
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- On this, one can see the six-petaled, two-inch, star-shaped flowers of Camassia.
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- Camassia is a genus of plants in the asparagus family native to Canada and the United States. It is best grown in moist, fertile soil and full sun.
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- Camassia also comes in this lighter shade of blue.
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- Both the lighter and darker shades look so good growing together in this garden.
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- The flower stalks stand 24 to 30 inches tall and display dozens of florets that open from the bottom up.
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- Alliums are often overlooked as one of the best bulbs for constant color throughout the season. They come in oval, spherical, or globular flower shapes, blooming in magnificent colors atop tall stems.
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- An allium flower head is a cluster of individual florets and the flower color may be purple, white, yellow, pink, or blue.
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- Alliums require full sunlight, and rich, well-draining, and neutral pH soil. Alliums are rabbit-resistant, rodent-resistant, and deer-resistant, but adored by bees, butterflies, and pollinators.
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- Alliums pop up above the Camassia throughout the garden adding color and texture.
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- Spanish Bluebells, Hyacinthoides, are unfussy members of the lily family, and native to Spain and Portugal. They are pretty, inexpensive, and good for cutting – they add such a nice touch of blue.
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- Behind the pergola and across the “soccer field,” where my grandson, Truman, loves to play whenever he visits, are six matched standard weeping hornbeams, Carpinus betulus ‘Pendula’. Weeping hornbeams can grow to be about 50-feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 40-feet. These are very rare and precious trees.
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- In the center and at the ends of this winding pergola are wisteria standards. One can see them in the back of this image. Right now, these beauties are cascading over the pergola and giving off the most intoxicating fragrance.
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- Wisteria is valued for its beautiful clusters of flowers that come in purple, pink and white. Looking closely one can see flowers drape down from the soft green heads of foliage.
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- I am so proud of this pergola garden. It is among the first one sees when they arrive at the farm, and some of it can also be viewed from my terrace parterre outside my Winter House kitchen.
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- Here is a view from the carriage road beneath my allée of pin oaks. My gardens are looking stunning this spring.
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