The Summer House Garden is Blooming
It's such a joy to see the gardens transform in spring. This week, the sunken garden behind my Summer House is blooming so beautifully.
I began this formal garden more than 10 years ago and have added many different kinds of plants and trees ever since. I've planted American and English boxwood, ginkgo trees, smoke bushes, Siberian weeping pea shrubs, peonies, hostas, lilies, and so much more. Right now, everything is so green and the tree peonies are glorious - many are showing off their unimaginably large, and often fragrant, pink, yellow, and burgundy flowers. I shared some photos over the weekend on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48, did you see them?
Here are a few more, enjoy.
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- Earlier last month, the garden was just waking from its winter nap. Here, the trees are still bare, and the plantings surrounding the boxwood shrubs are just starting to peek through the soil. The structure is called my Summer House where the former owner of my farm, Mrs. Sharp, stayed during the warm weather. Today, the Summer House is used both as a library and as a place for entertaining. The terrace opens out to this beautiful sunken garden.
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- Now, the garden is so lush and green. Looking at the gardens in bloom is why we work so hard to maintain all the many beds here at my farm. I think it’s definitely worth all the effort. The garden’s focal point is the old Ginkgo tree at the back of the garden.
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- The ferns are looking so vibrant this time of year and they grow taller every day. These graceful perennials are easy to grow, long-lived, and require very little care. They come in a variety of leaf colors, shapes, and sizes. I have many, many ferns here at the farm.
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- The boxwood shrubs down the center of the garden are carefully groomed with tapered tops. Boxwood is naturally a round or oval shaped shrub that can reach up to 15 feet in height. When I first designed this garden, I called it my Boxwood Room. It measures 60 by 120 feet and is surrounded by a tall American boxwood hedge. And because the Summer House faces a rather busy intersection, the wall of boxwood also provides a good deal of privacy. I planted smaller ginkgo trees along both sides of the footpath. The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees.
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- Cotinus, also known as smoketree or smoke bush, is a genus of two species of flowering plants in the family Anacardiaceae, closely related to the sumacs. They are a great choice for massing or for hedges. The stunning dark red-purple foliage turns scarlet in autumn and has plume-like seed clusters, which appear after the flowers and give a long-lasting, smoky haze to branch tips.
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- In this garden, I also have six weeping Siberian pea shrubs with cascading weeping branches that bear pinnately compound leaves. Look closely, and one can see the pea-like flowers that bloom in spring.
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- Here’s a look at the delicate blooms. One to five long-stalked flowers are bundled in leaf axils along the branchlets. Flowers are bright yellow, and about ¾ inch long. The upper petal is broad, mostly ascending with the sides often curled back.
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- This bed is filled with Leucojum vernum – the spring snowflake, a perennial plant that grows between six to 10 inches in height and blooms heavily in early spring.
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- The plant produces green, linear leaves and white, bell-shaped flowers with a green edge and green dots.
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- And look at the glorious peonies. Tree peonies are larger, woody relatives of the common herbaceous peony, growing up to five feet wide and tall in about 10 years. They are highly prized for their large, prolific blooms that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter. This entire side is filled with flowers.
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- Native to Europe and Asia, peonies were brought over to England by the Romans in the year 1200. In ancient times, peonies were used for medicinal purposes including curing headaches, relieving pain during childbirth, and for the treatment of asthma.
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- Here’s a light pink variety. A mature plant can have an abundance of flowers. Peony leaves are alternate and deeply dissected. Leaflets are stalked, pale green above, blue-green beneath, and up to four inches in size.
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- This dark magenta peony is always so eye-catching in the garden. They come in colors that include all ranges of white, pink, yellow, magenta, and dark maroon.
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- I also have bright creamy yellow tree peonies in this garden. Peonies bloom in a wide range of forms, from simple, elegant singles to massive doubles with hundreds of petals. The best soil for growing must be deep, rich, and loose, with a pH between 6.5 and 7.0 – peonies prefer slightly alkaline soil.
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- When planting tree peonies, choose a well-drained location, with four to six hours of direct sun or dappled sun and shade all day – a place protected from drying winds is also helpful.
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- They don’t need much, but I often prune the tree peonies myself and have found that pruning to about a four to five-foot height creates a wonderful eye-level view of blooms.
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- Flower buds produce large quantities of nectar which attracts ants. In fact, ants play a role in the opening of flower buds and provide protection against harmful insects. Flowers emit a subtle, sweet fragrance that also attracts pollinating wasps and flies.
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- Here’s a view from across the bed – I love the varying layers of foliage. The peony is a perennial plant that can survive up to 100-years when it is cultivated under optimal conditions. I look forward to many, many seasons of these most impressive flowers. I’ll share more photos from the tree peony garden in an upcoming blog.
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- At the end of the footpath is this antique sundial. A sundial is any device that uses the sun’s altitude or azimuth to show the time. It consists of a flat plate, which is the dial, and a gnomon, which casts a shadow onto the dial.
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- And in the back, the Alliums are beginning to bloom also. The Allium, also called Ornamental Onion, is one of the most interesting blooms in the spring and summer garden. With a spherical shape that holds its form throughout the season, it’s one of the longest lasting blooms to be had from a bulb. They appear in a variety of colors, heights, and forms – all highly attractive to pollinators and very deer resistant. You’ll love the Alliums in my pergola garden. I hope you caught a glimpse of them on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48.
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