My long and winding pergola is putting on such a colorful display - all the spring flowers are just spectacular this time of year.
Soon after I bought my Bedford, New York farm, I built this long pergola along the carriage road leading up to my home specifically for clematis. Over the years, I've added lots of bulbs and perennials that bloom at different times throughout the season. Right now, a gorgeous palette of purple, blue, and lavender covers the area.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
My long pergola is located across from my perennial flower cutting garden and along one side of the carriage road leading to my Winter House.
Earlier this month, one could see so many flowers just waiting to burst open.
This is the north side of the pergola with lots of growing Muscari.
Everything grows so well in this garden. There were carpets of purple Muscari or grape hyacinths everywhere. Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia that produce spikes of dense, most commonly blue, urn-shaped flowers.
And here’s the garden bed last week – exploding with gorgeous color. Early morning is one of the best times to take pictures in the garden when the sun is low in the sky.
My long clematis pergola runs from the flower cutting garden all the way to the back of my carport. 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.
It is filled with lots of blue and purple flowers, but in a few weeks, this border will also be filled with lovely shades of orange.
Camassia leichtlinii caerulea forms clusters of linear strappy foliage around upright racemes studded with dozens of six-petaled, two-inch, star-shaped pale to deep lavender-blue flowers.
Here is Camassia in a darker shade of blue. Camassia is a genus of plants in the asparagus family native to Canada and the United States. It is also known as camas and is best grown in moist, fertile soil and full sun. Camassia is incredibly valuable since it naturalizes well when left undisturbed in a good spot.
Alliums are often overlooked as one of the best bulbs for constant color throughout the seasons. They come in oval, spherical, or globular flower shapes, blooming in magnificent colors atop tall stems.
Alliums require full sunlight, and rich, well-draining, and neutral pH soil. This is Allium ‘Ambassador’ – among the tallest and longest blooming. It is intensely purple with tightly compacted globes that may bloom for up to five weeks.
This is Allium aflatunense ‘Purple Sensation’, with four to five inch wide violet-purple globes. Alliums are rabbit-resistant, rodent-resistant and deer-resistant, but adored by bees, butterflies, and pollinators. They look so beautiful dotting this border.
We also have some white alliums mixed in this garden.
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.
Three years ago, I decided to line both sides of my clematis pergola with small boxwoods. There are more than 300-shrubs now planted here, and they continue to thrive. I originally planted them as very small seedlings and then nurtured them for a few years – they have all grown so beautifully.
Yesterday, we planted a selection of daylilies. Daylily ‘Entrapment’ flowers appear in midsummer, and again in late summer to early fall. They grow up to 26 inches tall with semi-evergreen foliage and ruffled blue-purple blooms.
We also added some Perovskia atriplicifolia, commonly called Russian sage – tall, airy, spike-like clusters that create a lavender-blue cloud of color above the finely textured, aromatic foliage. This vigorous, hardy, heat-loving, and drought-tolerant plant resists deer and other garden pests.
My head gardener, Ryan McCallister, positioned the plants strategically throughout the beds so they could be planted. The sawtooth styled bricks are a new addition this season, lining both sides of the footpath.
Here’s Pasang working hard to get them all into the ground before the pending rain.
Behind the pergola is this giant weeping copper beech tree – I love these trees with their gorgeous form and rich color.
The deep red to copper leaves grow densely on cascading pendulous branches.
I am so proud of this garden. I can’t wait to show you how it looks with all the beautiful clematis blooms, and then later this summer with its swath of gorgeous tiger lilies.
I hope you are able to do some gardening this weekend. What flowers are blooming where you live? Share your comments in the section below.
The large and colorful horse-chestnut trees are in full bloom now at my Bedford, New York farm.
Every year around this time, the horse-chestnuts, Aesculus, burst with gorgeous pink flower clusters. I have a pair of these handsome trees at one end of my long Boxwood Allee just outside my stable. I also have a grove of horse-chestnuts along the carriage road to my Summer House. And, we just planted an allee of young trees in front of the storage building in one of my back-fields.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
The horse-chestnut, Aesculus, is a large deciduous tree. This is one of a group of horse-chestnuts that were originally potted up as bare-root cuttings and nurtured for more than a year.
As part of our large tree-planting project here at the farm, I decided to plant this group along a carriage road leading to a storage building. Because of their wide growth, these trees were positioned about 20-feet apart.
Horse-chestnuts should be planted in moist, well-drained soil in full sun or partial shade.
First, the crew dug the holes – deep enough to accommodate them with the top of the rootball flush with the soil.
As we do with all our trees, we add a generous amount of fertilizer. A good fertilizer made especially for new trees is sprinkled in the hole and generously around the base of the tree once it is in the ground.
Here, Pasang finishes planting one of the trees and carefully ensures there is good contact with the soil.
Horse-chestnuts grow at a medium rate – about 13 to 24 inches per year.
The bark is a pale creamy gray-brown, with a smooth, soft, fine texture. It’s not very strong but its softness makes it ideal for carving. Horse-chestnut trees also exhibit interesting twisted limbs.
And here is Chhiring giving all the trees a good, thorough drink. Trees should be well watered, especially in their first year until their roots are established.
I have more mature trees along a carriage road and on two sides of the donkey paddock. These trees are now bursting with reddish-pink clusters. These trees begin to flower in mid-May and quickly attract lots of attention.
The flowers provide a rich source of nectar and pollen for insects, particularly bees. The horse-chestnut is native to the Balkan Peninsula. It was first introduced to the UK from Turkey in the late 16th century and widely planted. Though rarely found in the woodland, it is a common sight in parks, gardens, streets and on village greens.
The horse-chestnut can grow to a height of about 50 to 75 feet and a spread of 40 feet at maturity. We also added a couple more young horse-chestnuts in this area.
The palmate leaves comprise five to seven-pointed, toothed leaflets spreading from a central stem. The leaves are light green as they unfold, emerging dark green at maturity, and are about four to 10 inches long and doubly serrated on the margins.
The most prominent horse-chestnuts at the farm are these two in front of my stable. This photo was taken in the second week of May. These trees grow in an oval to a rounded shape and are among the earliest trees to leaf out.
And here they are earlier this week full of gorgeous flowers.
When they start to bloom, the flowers look like this. The individual blossoms have four to five fringed petals.
Here they now in full bloom – so bright and colorful. The distinctive, rose-red, cone-shaped flower clusters look so pretty against the lustrous dark green leaves.
These flowers are followed by attractive, spiny, green seedpods from midsummer through fall.
Established trees require little care other than occasional pruning in late winter as needed.
These trees make wonderful shade trees for large areas – when selecting a space for planting, always consider the mature growth of the tree.
Growing horse-chestnuts is easy and well worth the little effort involved. These trees make wonderful additions to the landscape for many years.
This season's tree-planting project continues at my Bedford, New York farm with a group of young, healthy Japanese maples.
Every year, I try to add a few interesting and rare trees to my Japanese Maple Grove. I love this area of the farm and my gardeners, outdoor grounds crew and I have been working hard to keep it looking its best - weeding and cleaning the beds, pruning and grooming all the trees, and edging the carriage road. Not long ago, I purchased several more of these remarkable trees to add to my collection. With so many cultivated varieties available, one can find suitable specimens, which will grow beautifully in sun, shade, containers, and even bonsai. These trees provide countless variations in size, leaf shape, and color - I am looking forward to watching them develop in this shady woodland.
Enjoy these photos.
Over the last several years, I’ve planted hundreds of Japanese maples in this area not far from my chicken coops. I just love them and always look forward to their gorgeous displays of color, especially in autumn.
Japanese maples prefer dappled sun or part shade. I purposely planted them beneath larger trees in this area of the farm. The varying heights of these trees add a nice texture to the grove. Many of these trees came from Summer Hill Nursery in Madison, Connecticut. After they were unloaded, they were brought right to the woodland and placed strategically, filling in any bare spots.
Among those we’re planting this year is this ‘Green Cascade’ Japanese maple. Noted for its unique form, award-winning Acer japonicum ‘Green Cascade’ is a small mounded tree of graceful, weeping or pendulous habit.
In spring, it shows rich emerald green leaves that are palmate, finely-dissected, and lacy-like deeply cut into at least nine lobes. In the fall, the foliage turns brilliant shades of yellow, orange and crimson.
‘Orangeola Threadleaf’ Japanese maples have weeping red-orange foliage, showing a slightly pinkish hue from a distance.
This variety displays deeply-lobed, finely-serrated leaves, giving an artistic lacy effect that contrasts well with green-leafed cultivars.
Nearby, is the ‘Green Threadleaf’ maple. I love its unique shape.
‘Green Threadleaf’ maples have smooth, muscly branches and feather-soft green foliage that cascade to the ground.
‘Flavescens’ Japanese maple cascades nicely also. Different from other maples, this variety has spring-to-early-summer cool yellow-green foliage.
In fact, the ‘Flavescens’ early-season leaves are quite yellow. As summer progresses, they green-up more but will turn back clear yellow in the fall.
Once the trees are positioned, Pete begins planting. Here he is digging one of the holes. A crucial step in growing healthy trees is to plant them at the proper depth. Planting a tree too deep can kill it. Plant it only at its flare – the bulge just above the root system where the roots begin to branch away from the trunk.
The tree is removed from the pot and placed into the hole to gauge the necessary depth. A good rule of thumb is to plant it to the same height as it was in the pot.
Once the depth of the hole is correct, the hole is amended with fertilizer. We use M-Roots with mycorrhizal fungi, which help transplant survival and increases water and nutrient absorption.
After the fertilizer is mixed in, the tree is placed in the hole.
And then Pete backfills the root ball.
Pete adds a little more fertilizer to the top of the root ball.
Pete also adds a little more soil and then skillfully shapes the pit. After putting a new tree into the ground, be sure to keep it slightly moist for the first year as it takes root.
Some of the others already planted include ‘Golden Full Moon’ maple – a bushy, medium-sized deciduous shrub or small tree noted for its spectacular foliage.
It shows intensely bright yellow leaves in spring. These leaves are rounded, palmate leaves, adorned with seven to nine sharply pointed lobes that gradually turn pale chartreuse as the season progresses.
‘Tamukeyama Threadleaf’ maple is a graceful, mounding, dwarf tree with waxy, deep red bark, and beautiful cascading branches.
The foliage is deeply lobed with a beautiful purple-red color throughout the summer. The color turns bright red in the fall. The palmate leaves have seven to 11 incised lobes cut to the base of the leaf.
This is ‘Emerald Lace’ Japanese maple – a fast-growing, deciduous small tree with deep emerald green, lacy foliage. Because these young maples need to be protected as they grow, I always place stakes around the perimeter of each tree so that it is visible when the leaves fall off.
‘Emerald Lace’ features finely dissected leaves that emerge bright green in spring with red petioles that remain red throughout the season. Summer color lightens to light green with red highlights. ‘Emerald Lace’ has great fall colors that run yellow to orange and finish up with fiery red.
‘Omurayama’ is a weeping form of Japanese maple. It typically grows in an upright, rounded, cascading form to 10 feet tall over the first 10 years, eventually maturing to 15 feet tall and as wide.
‘Omurayama’ maple has palmate leaves with several lobes that all originate from one point looking like an open hand with outstretched fingers.
‘Ruby Lace’ is a rare variety with very interesting leaves that are red on the top and green underneath holding color through the summer.
This grove grows more beautifully every season. Few trees are as stunning as the Japanese maple. With more than a thousand varieties and cultivars including hybrids, the iconic Japanese maple tree is among the most versatile small trees. What is your favorite Japanese maple tree?
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