My Blooming Pergola Garden in May
My long and winding pergola is putting on such a colorful and gorgeous display - all the spring flowers are just spectacular this time of year.
Soon after I bought my Bedford, New York farm, I built a 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, the Camassia and alliums are covering the area in an eye-catching palette of purple and blue - it's just stunning.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- It’s amazing what a difference a few weeks make in a spring garden. This is the pergola garden on April 22nd. It’s green and new growth is just beginning – everything around the farm is showing signs of life once again.
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- One week later on April 28, the foliage of many of the flowers has emerged. This pergola starts across from my perennial flower cutting garden and runs along one side of the carriage road leading to my Winter House. 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.
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- This is the garden yesterday – filled with varying hues of purple and blue – it’s breathtaking.
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- This palette of colors is a big favorite at the farm – it grows more colorful and vibrant every year. In a few weeks, this border shall transform once again and feature lovely shades of orange.
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- The most prominent plant right now is the Camassia – it’s blooming profusely and so beautifully.
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- Camassia leichtlinii caerulea forms clusters of linear strappy foliage around upright racemes.
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- Camassia is a genus of plants in the asparagus family native to Canada and the United States. It is best grown in moist, fertile soil, and full sun.
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- Camassia also comes in this lighter shade of blue. Both the lighter and darker shades look so good growing together in this garden.
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- On this, one can see the six-petaled, two-inch, star-shaped flowers.
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- The flower stalks stand 24 to 30 inches tall and display dozens of florets that open from the bottom up.
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- Camassia is also known as camas, wild hyacinth, Indian hyacinth, and quamash. The bulbs are winter hardy in zones 4 to 8 and both the plant and the bulbs are resistant to deer and rodents.
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- In the garden, Camassia blooms in late spring, after the daffodils and just before the peonies and other early summer perennials. Camassia is incredibly valuable since it naturalizes well when left undisturbed in a good spot.
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- 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.
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- An allium flower head is a cluster of individual florets and the flower color may be purple, white, yellow, pink, or blue.
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- 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.
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- This is Allium aflatunense ‘Purple Sensation’, with four to five inch wide violet-purple globes.
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- Alliums are rabbit-resistant, rodent-resistant, and deer-resistant, but adored by bees, butterflies, and pollinators. They look so beautiful dotting this border.
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- 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.
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- The boxwood are growing wonderfully every year. There are more than 300 boxwood shrubs planted here. These boxwood shrubs were grown from small saplings nurtured in one area of my vegetable garden next to my chicken coops. They’ve grown so much since we planted them five years ago.
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- Behind the pergola and across the “soccer field,” where my grandson, Truman, loves to play whenever he visits, are six matched standard weeping hornbeams, Carpinus betulus ‘Pendula’. Weeping hornbeams can grow to be about 50-feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 40-feet. These are very rare and precious trees and I am so happy they continue to grow well here.
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- I am so proud of this pergola garden. It is among the first one sees when they arrive at the farm, and some of it can also be viewed from my terrace parterre outside my Winter House kitchen. I am looking forward to watching it transform once again later this summer. What flowers are blooming where you live? Share your comments in the section below.
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