As an avid gardener, I am always looking for rare and unusual plants.
Over the years I've amassed quite a large collection of potted plants - orchids, begonias, succulents, and other tropical specimens. I enjoy finding and learning about new and different varieties and then caring for them in my greenhouses. Recently, I added a few more interesting cultivars to my growing assortment.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Many of my plants are used for television and photography shoots. I use them for how-to gardening segments and as background set dressing. Most of them are from my greenhouses, but occasionally we bring in new specimens from our favorite growers. These plants were recently used in a shoot and need to be repotted.
For houseplants, the best soil mix is fast-draining, which will prevent root rot and allow good air flow so roots can take up air and water.
There is a hole at the bottom of each pot. A clay shard is placed over the hole to help with drainage. We always save the shards from any broken pots – it is a great way to reuse those pieces.
The pot is filled half way with soil mix before Wendy loosens the root ball with her hands and transfers the plant from its original container.
Then she adds additional soil mix – she fills to just below the top of the pot’s rim. The pot should be slightly larger than the plant’s previous vessel.
Wendy then makes sure the plant is centered before she tamps down lightly to establish good contact between the plant and the soil.
Wendy fertilizes all the newly potted plants. Remember what I always say, “if you eat, so should your plants.” We use Osmocote – small, round coated prills filled with nutrients.
This is called Ficus pumila ‘Quercifolia,’ sometimes called String of Frogs or Miniature Oakleaf Fig. It’s a dwarf evergreen houseplant with tiny half-inch bright green leaves that resemble frogs and grow on trailing stems.
Senecio succulents are prized for their unique foliage which can look like chalk sticks, miniature bananas, and even pearls. These plants are known for their adaptability and can be trailing, spreading ground covers, or large shrubby plants.
This is pilea, a tropical plant known for its tiny silvery green leaves. It features a low, bushy growth habit and is an easy-to-maintain houseplant that prefers bright, indirect light from an east-facing window or several feet from a south- or west-facing window.
Albuca spiralis, commonly called the corkscrew albuca or frizzle sizzle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to South Africa. It is a bulb succulent that can grow up to eight-inches tall. This is the base…
… And this is the top. Its large, yellow green flowers emerge on robust stalks and have a strong vanilla fragrance when in bloom.
‘Angelina’ Creeping Sedum, Sedum rupestre, shows off foliage in chartreuse to golden yellow. It spreads quickly as a drought-tolerant ground cover. Bright yellow star-like flowers bloom in summer and the foliage turns golden-orange in autumn.
Here’s a closer look. This plant is fast-growing and colorful.
Muehlenbeckia axillaris, also known as creeping wire vine or sprawling wire vine, is a low evergreen shrub, forming wiry mats up to three-feet in diameter. It has thin, red-brown stems, with glossy squarish to roundish leaves.
This big-leafed plant is Ligularia, a genus of about 150 ornamental perennial plants native to Central and East Asia and some parts of Europe. They have glossy, deep green foliage that can be quite large and round to thin and deeply serrated.
Creeping fig is a broadleaf, evergreen, woody, climber in the mulberry family. It is native to central and southern China and eastern Asia. This plant is a vigorous grower and can climb up to 15-feet high and spread up to six-feet wide.
Climbing Onion, Bowiea volubilis, is a large, exposed, green, scaly succulent perennial bulb with slender, twining, leafless, green stems and small, green-white flowers.
Some of the potted plants are top dressed with small gravel. This can help contain moisture and stop evaporation. This can also add weight to taller, slender vessels, so they don’t tip over.
I am very pleased with these additions to my greenhouse. I am looking forward to seeing them mature and thrive.
The weather is finally warm enough to start planting outdoors.
Yesterday, my gardeners planted the first of our flower seeds - sweet peas. The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is a garden classic producing beautiful blooms with the most amazing scent. Sweet pea seeds can be sown into small pots of compost in autumn and overwintered indoors, or planted directly into the ground come spring. We planted several sweet pea varieties from some of our favorite seed companies including Botanical Interests, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Sweet Pea Gardens, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Renee's Garden, Roger Parsons Sweet Peas, and Owl's Acre Seed in Northern England. These flowers will give us lots of fragrant color this summer.
Here are some photos - enjoy. And be sure to follow my new Instagram page @MarthaStewartBlog.
The old-fashioned varieties of sweet pea are grown for their vibrant colors and intense fragrances. Most sweet peas will begin blooming in late spring or early summer.
The flowers feature one large, upright rounded petal, two narrow side petals, and two lower petals. Luckily, the stems are sturdy enough to hold up their profuse flowers.
This one is a bright salmon to peach color. Originating in the southwest of Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean, sweet pea has been cultivated for use in gardens since the 17th century.
Sweet peas offer one of the widest color ranges in the plant kingdom, including crimson reds, navy blues, pastel lavenders, pinks, and the purest whites. These colors are found as solid colors, bicolors, and streaked or flaked flowers.
The leaves are pinnate with two leaflets and a terminal tendril, which twines around supporting plants and structures, helping the sweet pea to climb.
Here are the tendrils they use to grasp anything that’s a quarter-inch or less.
This season, we’re planting many different varieties from a number of seed companies.
I always encourage my crew to bring “the right tools for the right job.” Here are the three tools Wendy is using for this planting project – a hoe, a cultivator, and a rake.
Once the area along the garden fence is cultivated, Wendy drops some good fertilizer. Sweet peas are heavy feeders, so it is important to ensure the soil is nutrient-rich.
We’re planting the sweet peas along one side and the back fence of my old vegetable garden down by my chicken yard. Wendy uses a hoe to create a shallow trench – just a couple inches deep.
These are some of the seeds – large enough to see when dropping them into the trench.
Wendy drops the seeds into the shallow furrow. Sweet peas are happiest in the sun with their roots in cool, moist soil.
These seeds are planted just a couple of inches apart. Look closely and you can see the seed.
Then the seed is pressed lightly into the soil.
As each section of seeds is planted, a marker identifying the variety is placed accordingly.
Wendy uses a small garden soft rake to cover the seeds with two inches of soil.
Using a rake also makes the area look neat and tidy.
And here is a lovely pink variety called ‘Angela Ann.’ This sweet pea has an attractive rose pink on a white background. It’s an excellent sweet pea for the garden or to use as cut flowers.
And here is a crisp white sweet pea. These flowers are rich in nectar and pollen and attract lots of bees and hummingbirds.
It takes about 50-days in cooler temperatures under 60-degrees Fahrenheit, for sweet peas to develop and bloom. I am looking forward to lots of colorful and fragrant flowers come May.
It's five days before the official start of spring. The trees are budding, the crocuses are blooming, and perennials are pushing through the soil with energy and color.
This is always a busy and exciting time at my farm. My outdoor grounds crew and gardeners are working hard to get everything ready for the season. This week, my foreman, Chhiring Sherpa, is adding nutrient-rich compost to the beds beneath my long and winding pergola. These beds are already exploding with new growth - alliums, camassia, muscari, and more. Soon, these beds will be filled with a spring palette of blue, lavender, and purple.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
New spring growth is visible in every garden here at the farm despite nighttime temperatures still dropping into the 30s Fahrenheit.
My long pergola is still surrounded by the burlap-covered boxwood, but not for long – like clockwork, we remove all the fabric in time for Easter.
Early March is the best time to start tending the beds – weeding, and pulling last year’s growth and fallen leaves and applying a new coat of compost around the plants.
This is organic compost. I like to top dress my beds with this in the spring to add nutrients, such as nitrogen, into the soil. Compost is an efficient and practical fertilizer. Adding compost also improves the soil’s ability to absorb and store water, aerate, and increase the activity of organisms.
With good, consistent maintenance, look what’s already blooming so gloriously – here is a stretch of crocus.
Emerging from bulb-like structures called corms, crocuses are low-growing perennial flowering plants from the iris family. Crocus are among the first to bloom in spring and come back year after year.
Growing along the back border are small bunches of these purple and white striped croci. This striped flower produces several upright, cup-like, purple and white striped blooms on stems rising to four to six inches above basal, grass-like leaves.
Planted at the base of every post is clematis. 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.
New growth is visible on every clematis plant. Clematis bloom times can vary, but by planting a range of cultivars, one can have flowers from early spring to late fall.
Four years ago, we lined the center footpath of the pergola with these black bricks I originally bought for a terrace project years ago and never used. Each black granite brick measures eight inches long by about two inches wide and two inches thick.
Here’s Chhiring weeding and cleaning the bed before laying down a layer of compost. It doesn’t need a lot – just an inch or two is sufficient.
These are the leaves of Camassia. Camassia forms clusters of linear strappy foliage. By early May, these leaves will surround upright racemes. 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.
Muscari, or grape hyacinth, has long, linear, floppy, green leaves. The foliage emerges from the ground in early spring followed by the flowers. The foliage dies back after flowering in early summer, but then starts growing actively once again in mid-autumn.
Rosettes of allium leaves also dot the garden. Alliums are often overlooked as one of the best bulbs for constant color throughout the seasons. The flowers come in oval, spherical, or globular shapes, blooming in magnificent colors atop tall stems.
Here, one can see the red shading on the tips of the allium leaves when they first emerge. Unfortunately, by the time these alliums bloom in late May or early June, the leaves will have withered away.
These are the woody stems of catnip. On established plants, the shoots begin to come up in early spring.
In the center and at the ends of this winding pergola are wisteria standards. Right now they are bare, but the fragrant plant blooms start to appear in mid-to-late spring, in May or June.
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 and I am so happy they continue to grow well here.
Looking closely, one can see all the buds that have formed.
Here is one side of the pergola now covered in a light layer of compost. The long beds are looking so beautiful already. I can’t wait to see this area transform into a spring garden of colorful flowers.
Here’s a view from the other side. It’s enough to inspire any gardener to get out there and start working – happy gardening.
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