The Gardens in Mid-April
Although we're expecting partly cloudy skies and some showers this week at my Bedford, New York farm, the gardens are still showing off lots of springtime blooms.
The garden beds are changing every single day. Trees are beginning to leaf out and various flowers are bursting with color and energy - muscari, Chionodoxa, corydalis, Cornus mas the cornelian cherry tree, and of course the daffodils.
Enjoy these photos.
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- More and more daffodils are opening every day. I plant early, mid and late-season blooming varieties so that sections of beautiful flowers can be seen throughout the season.
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- The classic yellow-and-white daffodil is a welcome sign of spring. With more than 25-thousand named varieties, daffodils are one of the most hybridized flowers in the world. The blossoms come in many combinations of yellow, orange, white, red, pink and even green.
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- Here’s another daffodil in its gorgeous splendor. Daffodils are some of the easiest spring flowering bulbs to grow, and are perennial, so they reliably come back year after year.
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- Look at the foliage – so green and plentiful. I cannot wait to share photos of the swaths of daffodil flowers blooming along the border that stretches down one side of my farm.
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- Many of the crocus flowers are still blooming beautifully. These are beneath my allee of pin oaks.
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- Hello my blue boy! Here is one of my mature blue peacocks enjoying the mild weather and flowers outside his pen.
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- Chionodoxa, known as glory-of-the-snow, is a small genus of bulbous perennial flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, often included in Scilla.
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- They also come in dainty pink. The flowers have up to 10 star-shaped, six-petaled clustered pale flowers with white centers atop dark stems and sparse, narrow foliage.
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- Puschkinia is a genus of three known species of bulbous perennials in the family Asparagaceae. It is native to the Caucasus and the Middle East. Puschkinia grows so beautifully in clumps – I have several areas filled with these delicate small flowers.
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- Remember the hellebores? The hellebores continue to show beautifully at the farm. 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. Hellebores come in a variety of colors and have rose-like blossoms.
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- Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia that produce spikes of dense, most commonly blue, urn-shaped flowers that look like bunches of grapes in spring. Muscari is also known by its common name for the genus – grape hyacinth.
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- Bright colorful flowers rising above neat mounds of delicate foliage make corydalis perfect for shady borders. Of the 300 or so species of corydalis with differing colors, these are dark pink flowers growing outside my studio.
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- Here is one of the many peonies just waking up from its winter slumber. This one is in my Summer House garden.
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- Outside my Summer House is this Cornus mas, commonly known as cornelian cherry – a deciduous shrub or small tree that is native to central and southern Europe into western Asia. It typically grows over time to 15 to 25 feet tall with a spread to 12 to 20 feet wide. Yellow flowers on short stalks bloom in early spring before the leaves emerge in dense, showy, rounded clusters.
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- These are the buds of a weeping cherry tree with its cascading branches. I have two outside my stable. They only bloom for a short while. These trees are big eye-catchers when guests are lucky enough to see them filled with white flowers.
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- Some of the magnolia trees are also blooming. Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol. Growing as large shrubs or trees, they produce showy, fragrant flowers that are white, pink, red, purple or yellow.
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- From the carriage road looking up above the pinetum, one can see the gorgeous golden yellow of the weeping willows.
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- The trees’ long, tube-shaped flower clusters called catkins make their appearance just before weeping willow leaves reappear on the branches. The flower clusters are filled with nectar, which insects carry for pollination.
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- The darker blue flowers are Siberian squill. Native to Russia, these plants grow to about four to eight inches tall and spread out and bloom profusely.
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- Just off the carriage road leading to my run-in horse paddock are several red Japanese barberry shrubs. Most striking are the deep reddish purple inch-long leaves that stand out this time of year.
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- And look at all the growth erupting in front of my greenhouse. The bed is filled with white lilies, which will be in bloom later this summer.
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- The gardens are coming alive – it’s a gorgeous time of year. What spring blooms do you see around your home? Share them with me in the comments section below.
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