Transforming My Greenhouse Gardens

July 1, 2025

Totally transforming an existing garden bed is a good way to revitalize an outdoor space.

The two garden beds in front of my main greenhouse were once home to my currant bushes. Six years ago, I moved the berries and created more formal gardens with hostas and white lilies. Recently, I decided the beds would be perfect for displaying my new Martha Stewart Hybrid Tea Roses. I wanted them to be planted in a grid pattern alternating each rose with boxwood. In the center of each bed, I planted four tall conical boxwood. I know these gardens will grow so beautifully in the coming years.

Here are some photos.

: How would you display a rose named after you? These are blooming Martha Stewart Hybrid Tea Roses, bred by Meilland, a six-generation family-owned rose-growing business, and launched in North America through Star Roses and Plants. I knew these would look excellent in front of my main greenhouse at my farm.

: My new rose has large pink blooms, dark green foliage, and a most wonderful and sweet fragrance. Plus, each five inch bloom has more than 100 petals.

: These garden beds in front of my glass greenhouse are already bordered by European hornbeam hedges and boxwood shrubs. Last fall, the beds were also cleared, tilled and fed before any work was started to redo them.

: In the center of each bed, I planted four Buxus microphylla ‘John Baldwin’ from nearby Select Horticulture in Pound Ridge, New York. ‘John Baldwin’ is grown for its broad, conical habit. New foliage starts with a blue tint which slowly fades to blue-green.

: I always encourage my gardeners and outdoor grounds crew to measure everything. Here is Phurba marking the true center of each bed.

: Next, holes are dug out for each of the four boxwood.

: Each hole should be at least two to three times as wide and as deep as the height of the boxwood root ball.

: Then, each boxwood is carefully placed into the hole and backfilled. Notice, all the protective wrapping from the root ball is removed and discarded. I like to take everything off whenever i plant, so there is nothing obstructing the roots. The soil is also properly fed with Miracle-Gro.

: Not long ago, I instructed my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, to measure a new grid pattern for my new rose bed design. Ryan and Matthew measure from the center of the boxwood.

: I wanted to alternate the roses and small boxwood shrubs, one in each square of the grid. The boxwood were nurtured here from bare-root cuttings.

: Bright colored landscape twine is used to mark the pattern.

: Ryan meticulously measures each square to be three feet by three feet.

: The rose plants are selected, counted, and brought to the planting site. I think they will all look so wonderful growing in these beds.

: The leaves of the rose are described as “pinnate” – meaning there is a central rib and then leaflets off to each side, with one terminal leaflet. Rose leaves can have anywhere from two to 13 leaflets.

: Then more digging… When planting, make sure the hole is slightly wider but equal in depth to the rose’s root ball. This will generally be about 15 to 18 inches deep by 18 to 24 inches wide.

: The boxwood and roses are placed into the holes for me to see before planting. Each hole is also fed with Miracle-Gro.

: And then planting can start. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. Boxwood is native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. One boxwood…

: … and then one rose. Matthew places the rose into the designated hole and checks to see that it is at the same level as it was in the pot. He makes sure the top of the root ball is about an inch above the edge of the hole before he backfills. He also looks to see that the plant is straight and the best side faces front.

: Here is the garden all planted. When planting roses, depending on the variety, they need at least two to five feet in between plantings. These are spaced perfectly.