We've been lucky this week - the weather has been mild, pleasant, and perfect for doing outdoor work and pre-spring chores around my farm.
The crew is busy with many projects, including raking and cleaning the garden beds, restoring my long pergola, cutting down dead trees in the woodland and chipping all the fallen branches. Down at my stable, outbuilding windows are getting cleaned inside and out, while walls are being retouched with fresh paint. It’s a strong start to a refreshing season ahead.
Enjoy these photos.
This time of year is always busy. Once the weather starts to warm up, everyone is outside working on spring season tasks. There’s a lot to do on a working farm.
Here’s Pasang, my resident tree expert, tending to his chainsaw in between cutting trees. Lubricating the chain and bar cools the engine while flushing out saw dust and other debris. Maintaining the equipment properly is paramount.
The crew has removed lot of dead, damaged, and diseased trees. Many of them are ash trees infested and killed by the emerald ash borer.
Once the trees are down in one area, manageable tree limbs and branches are put through the chipper.
The chipper is pointed back toward the woodland, so chips can top dress the remaining healthy trees.
Here’s Adan picking up smaller branches around the field.
Up by my wood shop, Pete works on painting the last of the wooden beams for the pergola restoration project. What’s the color? My signature “Bedford Gray” of course.
And I hope you’ve seen glimpses of my pond on my Instagram page @marthastewart48. This project is nearly complete. I’ll be sharing lots of photos showing how it was all done in an upcoming blog.
Here’s Matt from my gardening team – he’s raking carefully around the daffodils down near my allée of lindens.
Nearby, Ryan trims the dead foliage around the growing hellebores.
These hellebores are just starting to wake up after the long winter. Sometimes known as Lenten rose or Christmas rose, these plants are long-lived, easy-to-grow and thrive in shady locations. I’ve had hellebores in my gardens for many years, and I find it so rewarding to have blooms that start in March, and continue through spring until the end of May.
Cesar is removing the industrial weed cloth from my old vegetable garden. Last year I used the area as a flower cutting garden. It’s an excellent growing space that’s filled with nutrient rich soil.
At my stable, Carlos “II” is cleaning the windows inside and out. During the year, debris and film can build-up on windows, sills and tracks. Windows should be dusted and washed regularly to keep them sparkling clean. For my windows, I like to use a white vinegar and water solution. Vinegar safely kills germs and is much more economical than chemical cleaners.
Fernando is inside the stable, retouching areas with paint. Everything looks so much better with a good coat of fresh paint.
Here’s Jimmy mucking out one of the donkey stalls. Mucking refers to the process of removing soiled bedding. It’s an important part of daily stable management to keep the stable clean and its equine residents comfortable and healthy.
Elvira is at my vegetable greenhouse picking fresh spinach from one of the beds. I use spinach from my garden every day for my green juice.
This is carpentry master Dmitri Logvinski of Logvinski Construction LLC rebuilding my pergola. He’s measuring and carefully cutting the beams that will run the length of the pergola and support the rafters.
Each of these cedar beams is carefully measured, and trimmed as needed on site. I’ll be posting an entire blog on the project soon.
And down in my Winter House basement, lots of organizing is going on to get all my glasses, plates, platters, etc. ready for the season’s gatherings. This year, Easter is on April 20th.
Spring cleaning is underway and everyone at the farm is doing their part. I’m looking forward to a very productive spring season. What’s on your spring cleaning to-do list?
It’s so wonderful to see the gardens transform this time of year.
Spring officially begins in less than a week and here at my farm, flowers are now emerging after the long, dreary winter. I have blooming croci, snowdrops, eranthis, and hellebores. And the leaves of so many daffodils are pushing through the soil. Soon the grounds will be covered in spring color. Here’s a glimpse of what is flowering right now.
Enjoy these photos.
And just like that there are flowers popping up everywhere. Crocus is an early season flower that pops up usually in shades of purple, yellow, and white. There are about 90 different species of crocus that originate from Southern Europe, Central Asia, China, the Middle East, and Africa.
Croci can be found in alpine meadows, rocky mountainsides, scrublands, and woodlands. I have groups of crocus blooms all around my farm.
Beneath my allée of pin oaks and in an area near my blueberry bushes, I grow white crocus. They only reach about four inches tall, but they naturalize easily, meaning they spread and come back.
And here are some pink crocus. Crocus blossoms attract winter-weary bees that are drawn to the rich, golden pollen inside each flower.
Eranthis, or winter aconite, is a genus of eight species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae – the Buttercup family. Winter aconite produces such cheerful flowers that appear in late winter or earliest spring. They are deer resistant and multiply more and more every year.
The yellow flowers are small, cup-shaped, and are typically yellow or white, with five to nine petal-like sepals.
One of my favorite spring blooms is the snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis. These beautiful white flowers are blooming all around my houses. Snowdrops produce one very small pendulous bell-shaped white flower which hangs off its stalk like a “drop” before opening.
The witch-hazel continues to bloom nicely. It grows as small trees or shrubs with clusters of rich orange-red to yellow flowers. They’re very hardy and are not prone to a lot of diseases. Most species bloom from January to March and display beautiful spidery flowers that let off a slightly spicy fragrance.
Witch-hazel flowers consist of four, strap-like petals that are able to curl inward to protect the inner structures from freezing during the winter.
New growth is also emerging in the woodland. Symplocarpus foetidus, commonly known as skunk cabbage or swamp cabbage is a low growing plant that grows in wetlands and moist hill slopes of eastern North America. The flowers appear before the leaves and show a mottled maroon hoodlike leaf called a spathe, which surrounds a knob-like structure called a spadix.
Here is a lighter green-yellow variety.
One can see the spadix inside. The spadix is actually a fleshy spike of many petal-less flowers. As the flowers mature, the spathe opens more to allow pollinators to enter.
This is a red sedum. Sedum, a large genus of flowering plants, are also known as stonecrops and are members of the succulent family. Sedum does really well growing between the crevices in stone walls. We planted this sedum several years ago. Most sedum has a trailing nature – I love how it grows on the side of this wall outside my Winter House.
Looking closely, many of the trees are showing off their spring buds. These are on the branches of a Stewartia tree.
And along the daffodil border, in the woodland and in various areas around the farm there are patches of daffodil foliage. I have thousands of daffodils planted in large groupings, providing a stunning swath of color when in bloom.
Here, one can see how the daffodils pushed through the soil.
These are the leaves and berries of Rohdea japonica, also known as Japanese Sacred lily, or Nippon lily – a tropical-looking evergreen herbaceous perennial that has an upright, clumping, and vase-like form. Its leaves are thick, rubbery, and measure from about a foot long and two to three inches wide.
Another favorite – the hellebores. Hellebores are members of the Eurasian genus Helleborus – about 20 species of evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. They blossom during late winter and early spring for up to three months.
Many of them will soon be open. Hellebores come in different colors and have rose-like blossoms. It is common to plant them on slopes or in raised beds in order to see their flowers, which tend to nod.
Much of the farm still looks like winter, but not for long. Soon the trees will be filled with glorious leaves, and all the gardens will be bursting with color – wait and see!
It's that time of year when the first spring flowers emerge from the soil - among them are the delicate white early season snowdrops.
Snowdrops, Galanthus, are the nodding, crisp white flowers that dangle above clumps of strap-shaped leaves from January through March. I love Galanthus and have many different varieties here at my farm. The hardy fall-planted bulbs are easy to grow and multiply naturally providing carpets of stunning blossoms every year.
Enjoy these photos.
This is a snowdrop, Galanthus. The genus name refers to the white color of the flowers – gala is Greek for “milk,” while anthos is Greek for “flower”.
Snowdrops are characterized by three small inner petals and three outer petals, which are spoon shaped and longer than the inners.
Snowdrops should be planted in light to moderate shade and moist but well-drained soil.
When they start to push through the soil, two or three dark green, strap-like leaves come up first and grow four to 10-inches tall.
Galanthus is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. They are native to Europe and the Middle East.
One of the most cultivated is Galanthus nivalis, usually known as the garden snowdrop. Here is a view from above the base of the flower, where it begins to nod.
These flower heads can be ‘single’ – one layer of petals – or ‘double’ – multiple layers of petals. And notice the inner petals – they can be blotched heavily with green…
… or just tipped lightly with color.
On this snowdrop, both the inner and the outer petals are blotched. These markings are what make the snowdrops unique.
Some of the varieties I grow include ‘Hippolyta,’ elwesii ‘Mount Everest,’ elwesii ‘Polar Bear,’ nivalis ‘Magnet,’ ‘Sam Arnott,’ ‘ woronowii, plicatus Dionysus, nivalis ‘Viridi-apics,’ ‘Turncoat,’ ‘George Proverbs,’ and ‘Little Ben.’
And do you know… Galantamine, a substance found in the plant, is used to treat Alzheimer’s disease symptoms? Galantamine is found in a variety of plant sources, such as Amaryllis, Leucojum, and Narcissus.
However, snowdrops are toxic plants for humans, dogs, and cats.
Plant snowdrops in groups to create an eye-catching display come spring.
I’ve planted snowdrops in many different areas around the farm – outside my Winter House, in beds surrounding my Tenant House, under the large London plane trees in my maze, and in many other areas where they can be seen and enjoyed during the early days of spring.
This snowdrop is a double, making it even more interesting.
Underneath, one can see the multiple petals tinged in emerald green.
Snowdrops multiply by offsets – new bulbs that grow attached to the mother bulb.
Snowdrops are a pest-free plant. Rabbits and deer won’t eat them, and most chipmunks and mice leave them alone.
Snowdrops typically begin to bloom in late winter to early spring, usually from February to March in many regions.
Finally, don’t get them confused with this charming flower, the snowflake, Leucojum. Snowflakes, which are typically more lantern-shaped, with pointed, out-curved, green-blotched tips and segments that are each about the same length, will start blooming in April.
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