My Pergola Garden in Spring Bloom
Here at my Bedford, New York farm all the spring flowers are blooming everywhere. My long and winding pergola is putting on such a colorful and gorgeous display.
Soon after I bought this property, I built a long pergola along the carriage road leading up to my home specifically for clematis. Over the years, I've planted lots of bulbs and perennials in the garden 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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- What a difference a few weeks make in a spring garden. This is the pergola garden in late April. The new growth is just beginning – everything around the farm is showing signs of life once again.
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- A week later, 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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- And here it is now, filled with beautiful blooms. This palette of colors is a big favorite at the farm – it grows more colorful and vibrant every year. In a couple of months, this border shall transform once again and feature lovely shades of orange.
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- Early morning is one of the best times to take pictures in the garden when the sun is low in the sky.
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- Bordering the garden on both sides are these boxwood shrubs. There are more than 300 boxwood shrubs planted here. These boxwood shrubs were grown from small saplings.
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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. 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 grows in this darker shade of blue. On this, one can see the six-petaled, two-inch, star-shaped flowers.
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- Both the lighter and darker shades look so good growing together in this garden.
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- The flower stalks stand 24 to 30 inches tall and display dozens of florets that open from the bottom up. 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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- Another beauty in the garden – the alliums. 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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- This is Allium aflatunense ‘Purple Sensation’, with four to five inch wide violet-purple globes. 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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- 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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- Symphytum is a genus of flowering plants in the Boraginaceae family. You may know it by its common name, comfrey. It is a dynamic accumulator in the garden – drawing minerals out of the soil and into the roots and leaves. It is also a wonderful compost accelerator and weed suppressant. Comfrey has large, hairy broad leaves that bear small bell-shaped flowers of various colors.
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- Catnip has jagged, heart-shaped leaves and thick stems that are both covered in fuzzy hairs. The botanical name for catnip is Nepeta cataria. The name Nepeta is believed to have come from the town of Nepete in Italy, and Cataria is thought to have come from the Latin word for cat.
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- Growing low to the ground is Ornithogalum. It features spear-like flower stems with multiple star-shaped white blooms.
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- In the center and at the ends of this winding pergola are wisteria standards. Right now, these beauties are cascading over the pergola and giving off the most intoxicating fragrance. Wisteria is valued for its beautiful clusters of flowers that come in purple, pink and white. Looking closely one can see flowers drape down from the soft green heads of foliage.
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- One one side of the pergola is this giant weeping copper beech tree – I love these trees with their gorgeous forms and rich color. I have several large specimens on the property.
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- On the the other side of the pergola and across the carriage road – a stand of stately bald cypress trees, now full of gorgeous soft green needle-like foliage.
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- And 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 garden – it fills in and grows more beautifully every year. What flowers are blooming in your garden right now?
Martha Pins
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