Keeping Up with the Gardens
Summer may be coming to a close, but this time of year can be very hectic - my gardeners and outdoor grounds crew are busy keeping up with all the rapid growth.
Here at my Bedford, New York farm, the crew is mowing, weeding, pruning, and grooming the many perennial plants and shrubs. I am sure there is also lots to do in your gardens as well. Plus, signs of fall are beginning to emerge - growing apples, pears, quince and medlars, the first colchicum blooms, and the changing colors of the leaves.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- This week, the weather has been warm, but pleasant – temperatures in the 70s with a few much needed showers. Many of you use my blog as a guide to remind you when to get things done in the gardens. This time of year, we’re still doing a lot of weeding and deep watering, mowing, and grooming.
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- Pasang and Domi are tackling the beds under my allée of lindens. Any weeds and cuttings are placed into my Martha Stewart Multi-Purpose Heavy-Duty Garden Tote Bags. We use these bags all over the farm. Each tote can hold more than 900-pounds! Find them at my shop on Amazon.
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- And here’s Brian mulching and grooming the newly planted parrotia trees in my living maze.
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- Persian parrotia or Persian ironwood is a small upright tree or large, rounded, multi-stemmed shrub. It is related to witch-hazel. The oblong green leaves turn various shades of red, orange and yellow in the fall, often persisting into the winter months.
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- Here is Chhiring on our SZ22-48 stand-on mower. We use this to mow areas where the riding mower cannot go – he is mowing the grass in between the fruit trees in my large orchard. Stand-on mowers are easy to maneuver through tight spaces and can be used on uneven landscapes.
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- Chhiring also uses STIHL’s trimmer to whack any tall grasses around the perimeter of the orchard.
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- And here’s Fernando “raking the roads” all around my home. He is in our Polaris Ranger. I love these off-road vehicles. We use them every day for so many tasks. We created this special device to rake the gravel, so it is even and also picks up any debris along the way. This is done every couple of weeks to keep the roads looking neat and tidy. It is made from four soft garden rakes attached to a wooden frame.
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- Down at my long and winding pergola, the boxwood border is growing so well. These boxwood shrubs along both sides of the pergola were grown from small saplings nurtured right here in one area of my vegetable garden next to my chicken coops. There are more than 300 boxwood shrubs planted here. This photo shows the latest growth.
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- I love boxwood and use a lot of it around the farm. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The leaves on boxwood branches are arranged opposite from each other, making pairs.
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- Also in this garden is is Perovskia atriplicifolia, commonly called Russian sage. It shows tall, airy, spike-like clusters that create a lavender-blue cloud of color above the finely textured, aromatic foliage. It is vigorous, hardy, heat-loving, drought-tolerant, and deer resistant.
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- There are still some beautiful passion flower blooms showing off their color and unique form. They bloom from spring through late fall, The passion flower genus includes more than 500 species of mostly tendril-bearing vines in the family Passifloraceae.
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- The fruits at the farm are also growing, despite this summer’s drought. Just outside the old corn crib are quince trees – three of the many I have here at the farm.
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- Are you familiar with quince? Quince is a fall fruit that grows like apples and pears, but with an unusually irregular shape and often gray fuzz. These fruits turn a golden yellow when ready to pick in fall.
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- I planted a variety of pear trees, most of which are in the orchard. Among them, ‘Bartlett’, ‘Columbia’, ‘D’Amalis’, ‘Ginnybrook’, ‘McLaughlin’, ‘Nova’, ‘Patten’, ‘Seckel’, ‘Stacyville’, and ‘Washington State’.
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- I also have the espalier of Asian pear trees outside my stable. Espalier refers to an ancient technique, resulting in trees that grow flat, either against a wall, or along a wire-strung framework. Many kinds of trees respond beautifully to the espalier treatment, but fruit trees, like apple and pear, were some of the earliest examples. And, because necessary sunlight reaches every piece of fruit that these trees bear, espalier pruning remains standard procedure at commercial orchards in France. Here I have six ‘Shinseiki’ and four ‘Nijisseiki’ pear trees.
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- And of course, I have many, many apples. I grow hundreds of apple trees here at the farm – some that were here when I acquired the property and others I planted after moving. The newer apple trees include ‘Baldwin’, ‘Black Oxford’, ‘Cortland’, ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, ‘Esopus Spitzenburg’, ‘Fuji’, ‘Golden Russet’, ‘Grimes Golden’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Redfield’, ‘Roxbury Russet’, and ‘Windham Russet’.
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- There are apples growing in the dwarf espalier behind my carport.
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- Because of this year’s heat and lack of rain, the apples may be a bit smaller than usual – we’ll see.
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- These are the fruits of the medlar, Mespilus germanica – a small deciduous tree and member of the rose family. These fruits are not ready yet – we’ll pick them in late October or early November.
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- The fruit is about one to two inches in diameter, and ranges in color from rosy rust to dusty brown. Medlars are native to Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe. The fruits have to be eaten when almost rotten in a process called “bletting”. And, because of this, they either have to be eaten right off the tree or picked early and put aside for a few weeks to blet. The medlar is very pulpy and very sweet. Its taste is similar to an overripe date with a flavor similar to toffee apples or apple butter.
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- Growing just outside my flower garden are these charming anemones still in bloom. Also known as Japanese thimbleweed, Japanese anemone, Anemone hupehensis, is a tall, stately perennial that produces saucer-shaped flowers in shades of creamy pink to pure white, each with a green button in the center. Look for blooms to appear throughout summer and fall, often until the first frost.
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- And at the edge of my Stewartia Garden, underneath the tall bald cypress trees – some of the first colchicum sprouts. Colchicum is a member of the botanical family Colchicaceae and is native to West Asia, Europe, parts of the Mediterranean coast, down the East African coast to South Africa and the Western Cape. There is always something growing here at my working farm. And always something to do. I am so very proud of how this farm has developed over the years.
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