My gardeners and outdoor grounds crew continue to check off big tasks from our long to-do list here at the farm - among them, cleaning the sunken garden behind my Summer House.
Some of you may recall, I began planning this formal garden more than 10 years ago. The focal point is the great old ginkgo tree at the back of the space that is original to the property. Over time, I've planted American and English boxwood, smaller ginkgo trees, smoke bushes, Siberian weeping pea shrubs, peonies, hostas, lilies, alliums, and so much more. Yesterday, Ryan and Brian tended to the beds - weeding, raking, and cleaning the entire area.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
The former owner of my farm, Mrs. Ruth Sharp, occupied two houses on the property. She called this house the Summer House, where she stayed during warm weather. Adjacent to it is the Winter House which had a better heating system and where Mrs. Sharp was comfortable during the cold months. I kept the names of the buildings, although major changes were made to both. Today, the Summer House serves as a library and entertaining space. Behind the house is this formal sunken garden “room.”
The main focal point is the mighty old ginkgo tree. This tree is about 250-years old. Although not as large as others I’ve seen, my tree is quite massive and sits at the north end of the garden, very visible from the Summer House terrace.
Surrounding the sunken garden on three sides is a tall American boxwood hedge. I love how it encloses the space. And because the Summer House faces a rather busy intersection, the wall of boxwood also provides a good deal of privacy.
In the center, where the stone footpaths converge is a giant millstone – one of three I have here at the farm. A millstone is a circular stone used in gristmills or triturating, crushing or, more specifically, grinding wheat or other grains.
There is also this antique sundial. A sundial is any device that uses the sun’s altitude or azimuth to show the time. It consists of a flat plate, which is the dial, and a gnomon, which casts a shadow onto the dial.
Here’s Brian cleaning and weeding one of the beds.
In this garden I also have smaller ginkgo trees on both sides of the main footpath. The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees. It prefers a minimum of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The ginkgo has a cone-like shape when young, and becomes irregularly rounded as it ages.
The leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three-inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three-inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze. Ginkgo leaves grow and deepen color in summer, then turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.
Ryan is raking some of the early autumn leaves that have fallen from the silver maple tree above. The garden beds are freshly weeded showing the low boxwood hedges.
A couple times a year, we groom and prune these hedges to give them a more clean and manicured appearance.
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.
I also have these boxwood shrubs. Boxwood is naturally a round or oval shaped shrub that can reach up to 15 feet in height. I love the tapered tops.
Behind the boxwood, one can see the tree peony plants. Tree peonies are larger, woody relatives of the common herbaceous peony, growing up to five feet wide and tall in about 10 years. They are highly prized for their large, prolific blooms that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter.
I also grow itoh peonies in ths garden. Itoh peonies or intersectional peonies are crosses between the herbaceous and tree peonies. These peonies die back to the ground in the fall which means that the new buds in the spring are less likely to be killed by frost than tree peonies.
On the terrace, I have several potted Norfolk Island pines, Araucaria heterophylla, a species of conifer.
Also potted are ferns. This one is a variegated Boston fern with strikingly patterned fronds.
Across the terrace – potted aloe plants.
There are also six weeping Siberian pea shrubs with cascading weeping branches.
These are the beautiful deep-colored leaves of the chocolate mimosa tree. These leaves are bronze-green, fern-like leaves that appear in late spring and then become a deeper rich chocolate-burgundy color in summer.
I have two of these gorgeous mimosa trees growing beneath the large ginkgo tree. The chocolate mimosa tree is a fast-growing, deciduous tree with a wide, umbrella-shaped canopy.
In the back of the garden, I also have these large leaf hostas. Hostas are a perennial favorite among gardeners. The lush green foliage varying in leaf shape, size and texture, and their easy care requirements make them ideal for many areas. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
Here are the leaves of the smoke bush, Cotinus. I have many smoke bushes around the farm – it is among my favorite small trees. These can grow to a moderate size – up to 15-feet tall and 10-feet wide.
Here’s Brian using our battery powered handheld blower from STIHL. Soon, there will be lots of leaf blowing going on here at the farm now that it’s fall.
I am so pleased with how my Summer House garden has developed over the years. I really should entertain here more often. What do you think?
My gardeners and outdoor grounds crew use their tools all year long, so it is important to keep them clean and in good working condition at all times.
If you're an avid gardener, you know sharp pruning tools not only make chores easier to complete, but they also make cleaner cuts, which allow plants to heal faster. Making clean cuts also exposes them to less damage from diseases, insects, fungi, and weather extremes. Everyone on the crew cleans, sharpens, and conditions their pruners, snips, and shears regularly. The process only takes a few minutes, and it keeps these gardening implements in proper working order.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Pruners are among the most essential tools here at my Bedford, New York farm. Pruners, or secateurs, are used for grooming all the garden specimens. Their primary purpose is to remove dead, diseased, or damaged stems, and branches from plants and bushes.
Here’s Brian using his pruners on the hedge around my pool.
And here he is cutting the dead wood from one of the raspberry bushes.
Each member of my crew has pruners. We all like to use Okatsune secateurs. Bypass garden pruners such as these make nice, clean cuts using two curved blades that bypass each other in the same manner as a pair of scissors. One blade is sharpened on the outside edge and slips by a thicker unsharpened blade.
Because they are used so often, every few days my gardeners take stock of their cutting tools, and clean and sharpen their hand pruners. Here, Brian shows his pruners before they are cleaned and sharpened.
For this task, Brian uses a coarse cleaning block and a whetstone. Both are soaked in water for about 10-minutes before using. A whetstone will help keep the pores of the stone clean, dissipate frictional heat, and ensures smooth sharpening.
This little cleaning block has a slightly rough texture for removing grime from the blades. Cleaning blocks are great for removing rust and other debris. They’re made of a semi flexible rubber compound with abrasive grits for scouring.
Brian uses the block to remove any dirt, sap, etc.. Brian goes over every part of both blades. One can also use a medium grit sandpaper.
Here, it is already beginning to look a little bit cleaner.
It is important to also get all the dirt off the metal parts – anything left on tools can attract and hold moisture and cause rust.
Sharpening stones, water stones, or whetstones are fine-grained stones used for sharpening the edges of steel tools and implements through grinding and honing.
Next, Brian uses the whetstone to sharpen the blade. Brian holds the pruners firmly and places an even and gentle pressure drawing the stone along the blade from hilt to tip.
Here’s another view. Most secateurs are single bevelled – Brian sharpens the outside, and then smooths off the inside, going slightly over the edge.
Brian holds the whetstone at an angle to sharpen the edges and maintain the bevel. The bevel is what makes a tool sharp, and blades are factory ground to a precise angle that’s just right for each tool.
These blades are now very sharp. And be sure to always watch what is being done – keep fingers away from the blades.
Brian carefully feels each side to be sure there are no burrs. A burr is a bit of waste metal forming at the edge. If a burr is present, one will feel a slight catch on the blade.
Brian lightly lubricates all the clean, sharpened metal parts. Oil will help the pruners perform more smoothly.
He also oils the joint where the two sides meet. After oiling, it is a good idea to open and close the pruners to hear how the parts move together – they should work smoothly and evenly.
On the left is a clean and sharp pruner – on the right, an uncleaned, unsharpened pruner.
Brian does the same process for this pair – first, he uses the cleaning block…
… then the whetstone…
… and after oiling, he wipes it down with a cloth.
Now both pairs are ready to go back out into the gardens. Cleaning and sharpening supplies are available at many garden shops and online. It is crucial to keep these garden tools sharp at all times. Sharp pruners for working in the gardens… it’s a very “good thing.”
Berry picking season is over now, so it's time to trim the old canes and branches back and get the bushes ready for next year.
I love growing berries and have been growing them for a long time. Here at my Bedford, New York farm, I grow patches of red raspberries, golden raspberries, black raspberries, gooseberries, blueberries, and currants. Many berries are best eaten raw, but they can be used in a variety of ways - as ingredients in jams and jellies, pies and tarts, and delicious summer juices. For the best yields from these plants, it's crucial to keep them well-maintained - they need to be pruned properly and regularly. Pruning produces larger berries in greater volumes. It also helps to control diseases that might otherwise spread through the berry patches. We do a more aggressive pruning in late winter or early spring before the foliage returns, but recently, my gardener Brian O'Kelly, trimmed the long canes and cut out any unproductive old and dead wood.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
I have several rows of raspberries on one side of my main greenhouse. They all produce so many fruits every summer because they are well-maintained through the year.
Here is what these raspberry bushes looked like in late June – full of sweet berries. Summer-bearing raspberry bushes produce one crop each season. The fruits typically start ripening in late June into July with a crop that lasts about one month.
Botanically, the raspberry belongs to the Rosaceae family, in the genus Rubus.
The raspberry is made up of small “drupe” fruits which are arranged in a circular fashion around a hollow central cavity. Each drupelet features a juicy pulp with a single seed.
The leaves of raspberry plants are light-green and spade-shaped. They are also toothed along the edges.
Flip the leaves over and healthy leaves will be a light greenish-silver color.
Here are the bushes before we started grooming them. Raspberries are unique because their roots and crowns are perennial, while the stems or canes are biennial. A raspberry bush can produce fruit for many years, but pruning is essential.
The upright posts are made of granite and they have heavy gauge copper wire laced through them to support the long canes.
The wire can be tightened or loosened depending on the need.
The copper wire is on both sides of the canes holding them up.
Brian first prunes all the old, weak, diseased, and damaged canes at ground level. Unpruned raspberry bushes will still grow, but won’t yield more berries.
He checks all the canes to make sure he cuts all those that are necessary. Leaving them unpruned makes them more prone to disease.
It’s good to keep the base of the bushes within a 12 to 18-inch footprint by also pruning out any suckers that poke up outside those parameters.
Here is an old, dead cane that already produced berries. It is brown in color.
The young canes are still bright green.
Brian stops for a quick photo. Pruning the berries takes some time, so we do it over a course of days in between other more time sensitive tasks.
There are a few fall berries, but not many.
Here is a pile of old canes cut from the plants. After this pile gets a bit bigger, it will be loaded onto one of our vehicles and taken to the compost yard.
The last step is to trim off the tops, so it looks neat and tidy. Here is one row all evenly cut on top.
It is important to use sharp tools in order to get consistently sharp cuts. It is also crucial to keep tools clean. Leaf sap quickly builds up on blades and clogs up the mechanisms making them less efficient.
This area looks so much better. The rows of raspberries now have wide aisles between them. A little care for these berry bushes will keep them producing delicious fruits for many years. It’s a good start to fall, and there is lots of work to do.
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