With such mild fall temperatures here in Bedford, New York, my dahlias continue to bloom so beautifully.
I designated a large space for growing dahlias right behind my vegetable greenhouse, in an area that gets great sun and protection from strong winds. The colorful flowers begin to bloom with great profusion just as other plants pass their prime, and they last right up until the first frost. Not long ago, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, cut a lovely selection to decorate my home.
Enjoy these photos.
Dahlias are borne from tubers and are popularly grown for their long-lasting cut flowers.
There are about 42 species of dahlia, with hybrids commonly grown as garden plants. A member of the Asteraceae family of dicotyledonous plants, some of its relatives include the sunflower, daisy, chrysanthemum, and zinnia.
Dahlias are classified according to flower shape and petal arrangement.
Dahlias originated as wildflowers in the high mountain regions of Mexico and Guatemala – that’s why they naturally work well and bloom happily in cooler temperatures.
Dahlias were first recorded by Westerners in 1615, and were then called by their original Mexican name acoctli.
While the Dahlia is the national flower of Mexico, it is also the official flower of both San Francisco and Seattle on the US west coast.
Dahlias produce an abundance of wonderful flowers throughout early summer and again in late summer until the first frost.
Flowers come one head per stem. The blooms can be as small as two-inches in diameter or up to one foot across. This great variety results from dahlias being octoploids, meaning they have eight sets of homologous chromosomes, whereas most plants have only two.
Here in the United States, dahlias are considered a perennial in hardiness zones 8 and higher. in colder regions, zones 7 and lower, dahlias are treated as annuals. We’ve been lucky here at my farm. It is in USDA hardiness zone 6b and our dahlias come back every spring.
This is a cactus dahlia with its beautiful ‘spiny’ petals rolled up along more than two-thirds of their length.
The majority of dahlia species do not produce scented flowers or cultivars, but they are brightly colored to attract pollinating insects.
Ryan collects the dahlias and places them through the bottom side of a plastic milk crate to protect the delicate stems from breaking. They will be placed in water as soon as they are brought up to my Winter House.
Dahlias come in almost every color – white, shades of pink, red, yellow, orange, shades of purple, variegated and bicolor – almost every color except true blue.
The Dahlia is named after the Swedish 18th century botanist Anders Dahl, who originally declared the flower a vegetable, as the tubers are edible.
Before insulin, the tubers of dahlias were considered medicinal, being used to balance blood sugar due to their high fructose content. The petals were used to treat dry skin, bug bites, infections and rashes. The Aztecs were also said to have used their hallow stems as straws.
This bloom is white with darker burgundy petals in the center, edged in white.
Dahlias grouped with like blooms look so beautiful together. When planting dahlias, choose the location carefully – dahlias grow more blooms where they can have six to eight hours of direct sunlight.
When cutting, to prevent wilting, cut only in the early morning or late afternoon. And only cut them after they open to mature size – dahlias will not open after cutting.
Dahlias are common wedding flowers, not only for their looks but also for their symbolic meaning. During the Victorian era, dahlias were a symbol of commitment and everlasting union. They are also used to represent inner strength, creativity, and elegance.
Here’s Ryan with our latest bounty of beautiful blooms. Always wait until the foliage has turned brown before digging them up at the end of the season. This is important so that the plant can gather energy for the following year. It will store starches in the tuber which will fuel initial sprouting in summer. The best time is a couple weeks after the first frost when they’re well into dormancy yet haven’t been harmed by the cold. We may not get our first night of frost for a couple more weeks. Are you still enjoying the season’s dahlias where you live?
Here in the Northeast, autumn is a wonderful time to enjoy the changing foliage, but it's also a good opportunity to appreciate the many nuts that grow on the trees and fall this time of year.
Tree nuts grow on trees. These include almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts. There are also acorns, or oak nuts, which are the nuts of oaks and their close relatives. The great ginkgo tree also drops nuts - housed inside those soft, fleshy, strong-smelling yellow-brown fruits. Many birds and small animals rely on nuts, even deer and black bears feed on them. Nuts provide protein, carbohydrates, fats, and other crucial nutrients that help wildlife thrive especially when other natural food sources are nonexistent.
Here's a look at some of the different nuts that can be found right here at my Cantitoe Corners Farm, enjoy.
As a general rule, many nuts mature in late summer and start falling in September as the foliage begins to turn. We’ve been seeing a lot of nuts around the farm, so we gathered what we could and created this glossary. This grouping includes: almonds, black walnuts, hickory nuts, pin oak acorns, bur oak nuts, filberts or hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, and a ginkgo nut.
Just outside my stable, at the foot of my linden tree allée are two Aesculus pavia shrubs, red buckeyes.
In autumn, the leaves turn from bold green to bright yellow.
And its orange nuts are encased in husks that split open to reveal
the “buckeyes.”. Squirrels and chipmunks feast on these protein rich nuts, so they don’t last long.
I also have large mature horse chestnut trees in front of the stable and along the carriage road azalea border. These trees burst with reddish-pink clusters in late spring.
And then drop spiny-shelled fruits containing the seeds, technically known as conkers. Here, they are on each side of the acorns – big and very glossy.
The acorns dropped from these pin oak trees. This allée is located next to my Equipment Barn just past my flower cutting garden.
Composed of a bowl-like structure known as a cupule and a cap sitting atop, acorns almost always contain one seed each – in very rare cases, two. Acorns have tannins, which taste bitter and are toxic if eaten in large quantities.
This is the leaf of a bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa. They are alternate, simple, six to 12 inches long, roughly obovate in shape, with many lobes. The two middle sinuses nearly reach the midrib dividing leaf nearly in half. The lobes near the tip resemble a crown.
The bur oak also has acorns that form along the branches encased in shells and then fall to the ground.
Around my farm, I also have several black walnut trees, Juglan nigra, native to North America and related to hickory nuts and butternuts. They have thicker, harder shells than the English walnuts traditionally found in stores, but they also have a richer, bolder, earthier flavor.
During dormancy, the black walnut can be identified by looking at the nuts that have fallen around the tree. Black walnuts have a yellow-green husk that turns dark brown as it ages.
Here is a closer look. The husked nuts are about two inches in diameter. The nut inside is also more round, while the nuts on its butternut tree cousin are more egg-shaped and smaller.
Inside are the walnuts in their hard shells – the hardest shells of all the tree nuts.
Because the black walnut shell is tougher than other nutshells, the nutmeat may be a bit challenging to remove, but here is nut inside.
Hickory is a common name for trees in the genus Carya, which includes about 18 species of deciduous nut-producing trees of the walnut family.
Hickory fruits consist of hard-shelled nuts, surrounded by a woody husk. The husk varies among species as to how easily it splits. The nuts are edible, although they vary in size and taste.
I have two almond trees here at the farm – both on one side of my main greenhouse. They thrive in mild, wet winters, and hot, dry summers in full sun. I am very fortunate these trees are doing so well in this area.
The leaves of the almond tree are long – about three to five inches. The almond fruit is leathery, and usually referred to as the hull or husk of the seed. It measures about two inches long, and is called a drupe. The outer covering, or exocarp, is a thick, grayish green coat, with a downy feel to it. This fruit is not edible.
Many almonds fall from the trees on their own. Some of the drupes will open on their own also, exposing the shells, but most will have to be opened manually. Here is nut casing that is removed from the drupe and the hard shell.
Shelling almonds refers to removing the hull to reveal the seed, so the almond that is eaten is inside this seed. Once all the almond seeds are removed from the fruits, they’re spread out and left to dry. These must be dried to reduce the moisture in the kernels.
Outside my run-in paddock, I have a grove of filbert trees, or hazelnuts. The American hazelnut, also known as the American filbert, is a native shrub of the eastern United States.
Hazelnuts develop from the female flowers and come in clusters of up to five nuts. They usually ripen in early to mid-August. Squirrels absolutely love them – it was pure luck to find this cluster still intact.
Behind my sunken Summer House garden is this giant female ginkgo, the focal point of this formal space. It’s probably more than 250-years old. Although not as large as others I’ve seen during trips to Asia, my tree is quite massive – its trunk circumference measures at least 14-feet. Ginkgo trees have beautiful green leaves that turn a luminous gold-yellow in fall.
Every October the fruits start to fall. They can be found all along the footpath. The most noticeable thing about these is their smell – it is hard to miss, and the stench is quite disagreeable. The outer, nasty smelling pulp is known botanically as sarcotesta.
Here is a closer look at a ginkgo fruit on top of my sundial.
Inside is a single hard-shelled seed enclosing an edible kernel. The kernels are often roasted and used in Asian cuisines.
And here are smaller two ginkgo trees – standing out so beautifully outside my stable. Right now, they are bright, bright golden-yellow. These are male specimens that don’t drop any fruit or nuts. I hope you are able to appreciate some of the tree and shrub nuts, acorns and fruit where you live. They are all… good things.
If you live in an area where foliage changes with the seasons, you know how exciting and beautiful this time of year can be.
The changing leaves are already providing lots of color - red, orange, yellow, and brown can be seen in areas across the landscape. I've planted thousands of trees and shrubs at my farm, so it's a fantastic place to take in the season's changes and enjoy all it has to offer.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here at Cantitoe Corners, one of the prettiest times of year to walk the four miles of carriage road around my home and through the woodland is now, when the foliage on so many trees and shrubs show off their fall colors. This is one of the most popular views – the road leading to my hayfields and the woodland beyond.
In the Northeast, some trees change early, others late – usually from October to November.
Because of changes in the length of daylight and changes in temperature, leaves stop their food-making process. The chlorophyll breaks down, the green color disappears, and the yellow to gold and orange colors come out and give the leaves part of their fall splendor.
The perimeter around my paddocks displays such wonderful shades of orange, yellow, amber, brown, and green. I love the layers of color created by the changing leaves. Although some autumn coloration occurs wherever deciduous trees are found, the most brightly colored foliage is seen in Canada, the northern United States, Scandinavia, northern and western Europe, the Caucasus region near the Black Sea, Russia, eastern Asia, Argentina, Chile, southern Brazil, Korea, Japan, and New Zealand’s South Island. Here is my grove of American beech trees. The American beech, Fagus grandifolia, is native to eastern North America and turns a pretty golden-bronze in fall.
Here is my Allée of Pin Oaks, Quercus palustris. These have done so well over the years.
The leaves are changing to yellow and reddish bronze. Once its fall color display is done, pin oaks often retain brown leaves, which persist on the trees through winter.
Hard to miss these bright yellow autumn ginkgo trees. I have many around my farm with the biggest and oldest specimen in the sunken garden behind my Summer House. Ginkgo biloba, commonly known as ginkgo or gingko, and also known as the maidenhair tree, is the only living species in the division Ginkgophyta. It is found in fossils dating back 270-million years. Native to China, the ginkgo tree is widely cultivated, and was cultivated early in human history.
This is a Stewartia. Native to Japan, this tree is known not only for its brilliant shades of orange that emerge in fall, but also for its interesting exfoliating bark and delicate blooms. I love Stewartia trees – do you know why? Here’s a hint: it’s in the name.
My longtime driver, Carlos “Uno” Villamil, took this photo a few days ago. It shows the edge of my Stewartia garden just outside my Tenant House, where my daughter and her children stay when they visit. This garden contains various Stewartias, Cotinus, and Japanese maples.
And here is another view Carlos captured.
This is the bright yellow American larch, Larix laricina, out in the pinetum. This tree is commonly called tamarack, eastern larch, American larch or hackmatack.
This deciduous conifer will drop all these showy needles just as winter approaches.
Persian parrotia or Persian ironwood is a small upright tree or large, rounded, multi-stemmed shrub. It is related to witch-hazel. These parrotias are on the east side of my large Equipment Barn. I also planted parrotias in my living maze.
The oblong green leaves turn various shades of red, orange, and yellow in the fall, often persisting into the winter months.
This is one of several Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Slender Silhouette’ trees, American sweetgums, planted in my maze. As these trees mature, they will maintain their erect, columnar form, growing up to 50 feet tall and only about four-feet wide.
Here is another type of sweetgum. For fall color, the sweetgum is hard to beat. Its glossy green, star-shaped leaves turn fiery shades of red, orange, yellow and purple this time of year.
I have beautiful healthy Osage orange trees along three sides of a paddock surrounding the run-in field and shed, not far from my tennis court. Here they are now as the leaves start to change from deep green to bright yellow.
These lindens are already turning too. I loved this linden tree allée so much, I decided to extend it all the way down to the chicken coops in 2017 – I am so pleased with how well it is growing.
Lindens, Tilia, are medium to large sized shade trees that are easy to maintain and attractive in any landscape. An older allée of linden trees is located just outside my stable.
And look what else is starting to bloom here at the farm. This is just one of hundreds of saffron flowers planted by my friend and colleague Hannah Milman. Planting is done in July, August and September either by hand or by machine. Harvesting comes at the end of October to mid-November.
At my farm I planted many different types of trees in hopes that they would shade, provide climate control, and change color at different times, in different ways. It’s so beautiful to see them change through the seasons.
And here are the changing leaves of the tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera. This time of year is always so magical. What does autumn look like where you live? Let me know in the comments section below.
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