Budding Trees Around the Farm
Here at my Bedford, New York farm, we're expecting several days of cloudy skies and showers, with temperatures in the 40s - a chilly start to April, but the gardens continue to transform.
I am constantly noticing something new blooming here. While many of the spring flowers are erupting with vibrant color, we've also been taking photos of the various trees, shrubs, and bushes and all the precious buds just beginning to open on their branches.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- Here on my 153-acre farm, I’ve planted thousands and thousands of trees – in and around the gardens, along the carriage roads and throughout the woodland. I love how they look in the landscape and how they change through the seasons. Most importantly, we need trees for the environment – they help combat climate change, provide habitat and food for birds and other animals, and release oxygen for us to live.
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- The Pin Oak Allée is the first allée guests see when entering my farm. These trees are tall and impressive. Pin oaks, Quercus palustris, are popular landscape trees because they are fast-growing and easy to maintain.
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- Nearby, I have a stand of weeping hornbeams, Carpinus betulus ‘Pendula’ – the branches of these trees gracefully weep creating an umbrella of foliage that reaches the ground.
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- Hornbeam is monoecious, meaning male and female catkins, which appear before the leaves, are found on the same tree.
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- Outside my main greenhouse, I have Camperdown Elms, which slowly develop broad, flat heads and wide crowns with weeping branch habits. I also have beautiful Camperdown Elm specimens outside my Winter House.
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- Here are the spring buds. Soon, small reddish green flowers will appear before the foliage.
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- Viburnum is an upright, rounded, multi-stemmed, deciduous shrub or small tree that typically grows to 20-feet tall and up to15-feet wide. This too is showing spring growth.
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- My blueberries are located between my Flower Garden and my Hay Barn. These blueberry bushes are so prolific – we harvest thousands of fruits every summer.
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- The first sign of growth are the visible swelling of the flower buds.
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- Just outside my kitchen on the terrace parterre is a tall weeping katsura, one of my favorite trees. Cercidiphyllum japonicum f. pendulum has these pendulous branches that fan out from the crown and sweep the ground. Tiny red flowers emerge in late March or early April before the leaves.
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- Aesculus hippocastanum is a large deciduous tree commonly known as the horse chestnut or conker tree. This is one of the many I have here at the farm. It is located at one end of my stable at the foot of my long Boxwood Allee.
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- These are beginning to bud. They will continue to grow over the next few weeks showing leaves and flowers. By mid-May to early June, these trees will be in full bloom.
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- And here are the early season branches of a weeping cherry tree down behind my stable. A weeping cherry tree is at its best when the pendulous branches are covered with pink or white flowers. I’ll share photos when it is in full bloom – it won’t be long.
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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.
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- Yellow flowers on short stalks bloom in early spring before the leaves emerge in dense, showy, rounded clusters.
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- One of the earliest trees to flower here in spring is the magnolia. This one down by my hoop houses is always the first to show buds and blooms. Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol.
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- From a distance, everyone notices the stunning golden-yellow weeping willows. Here is one grove of weeping willows at the edge of my pinetum. The golden hue looks so pretty against the early spring landscape.
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- When the tree blooms in late winter or spring, yellow catkins appear. In time, the catkin flowers will blossom with hundreds of hairlike protrusions. The flowers mature to yellow before they are disbursed by wind or rain.
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- My orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. We planted more than 200-fruit trees here, many of which started as bare-root cuttings. Some are now beginning to flower.
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- Some trees are still bare or still holding on to last year’s leaves, but very soon the entire landscape will transition again and be filled with lush green layers of foliage and more colorful flowers. Watch the progression with me on my blog and on Instagram @marthastewartblog.
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