Do you know... clematis is known as the queen of climbers and is among the most decorative and spectacular of all the flowering vines? It looks great growing on trellises, over arbors, and up posts. The star like blooms come in beautiful shades of pink, white, blue, red, purple, and bicolor.
I have always loved clematis, and over the years I have grown many varieties of this wonderful plant. When I purchased my Bedford, New York farm, I built a long, winding pergola, supported by antique granite uprights where I could grow lots of clematis. From time to time, we add more clematis to these supports. We also plant them next to some of the surrounding trees. And then starting in late spring, a surge of magnificent clematis blooms appear and continue through summer.
Here are photos of some of the clematis we planted yesterday, enjoy.
In late June, all the posts along my winding pergola are filled with clematis flowers – shades of sparkling shades of lavender, blue and purple.
Each pair of posts grows the same variety, but over the years, I’ve added others all in the same palette of colors.
Clematis is a genus of about 300-species within the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. The name Clematis comes from the Greek word “klematis,” meaning vine.
Yesterday, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, and Phurba Sherpa from my Outdoor grounds crew, placed and planted a collection of new clematis plants from Monrovia, one of our sources for quality perennials.
Ryan places each potted clematis beside the post where it will be planted.
This is ‘Sapphire Indigo’ – a compact vine that shows off stunning masses of sapphire blue flowers. The standard clematis flower has six or seven petals, measuring five to six inches across.
This can be grown upward as a vine or even without support and trained as a ground cover.
Most clematis leaves are pinnately compound and heart-shaped with a smooth to coarsely toothed margin. They also feature a pointed tip and a shallowly lobed cleft at the petiole.
Phurba digs the hole next to the post. He is also careful not to disturb any bulbs in the soil.
The ideal fertilizer for clematis is a balanced food that will provide low-key, continuous release steady feeding. We are using Rose & Bloom by Scotts.
Phurba carefully removes the plant from its pot…
… and teases its roots, or scarifies the root ball. This stimulates the roots to grow.
Then Phurba places it into the hole, backfills, and points the top toward the post. As the vine grows, it will be wrapped loosely around the post.
This is Clematis ‘Arabella’ with beautiful, color-changing blooms. Its single flowers with slightly upturned sepal edges open to violet-blue, then develop mauve-colored centers and fade to soft blue as they age.
This clematis is called ‘Comtesse de Bouchard’ – a compact woody vine with leathery textured foliage and a profusion of large, brilliant pink blooms with soft yellow centers.
These deeper clematis varieties are placed in another location near my blueberry bushes – some along the outside of my flower garden fence, some on the posts of the blueberry pergola, and some around the persimmon trees just in front of the blueberry bushes.
Clematis ‘Killian Donahue.’ This cultivar is one of the most dramatic clematis with flowers ranging from shades of deep ruby red to brilliant fuchsia and lavender with orchid-pink highlights. It’s a great climber for fences and arbors.
This is Clematis ‘Boulevard Acropolis’ – another long-lasting variety. This clematis produces an abundance of large, showy intensely pink blooms.
Clematis ‘Piilu’ is noted for being one of the heaviest blooming Clematis with its bright pink flowers. In cooler climates, this plant blooms non-stop from late spring through early fall.
I hope you have one or two clematis growing in your garden. Most species are called clematis, but it has also been called traveller’s joy, virgin’s bower, leather flower, or vase vine. It’s also been called “Old Man’s Beard,” because of the long fluffy seed heads that look similar to an old man’s beard. Many clematis are also lightly scented. If you don’t have clematis, pick one up this week and plant it – you’ll love it as much as I love all of mine.
Creating a perennial garden takes time, patience, and thoughtful planning. The perennial bed located across from my chicken coops is several years old and thriving - looking more and more beautiful every summer.
This garden, my perennial hydrangea border, had long been home to a selection of colorful hydrangeas including mature mopheads transplanted from my former Lily Pond home in East Hampton. In more recent years, I expanded it and filled it with lots of other plantings, such as irises, ligularia, phlox, Aruncus, Euonymus, catnip, and more. Last week, I added a few more hydrangeas to fill in bare spots, including Hydrangea 'Seaside Serenade Bar Harbor,' and Hydrangea 'Seaside Serenade Martha's Vineyard.' The plants are from Monrovia, one of our sources for quality perennials and shrubs.
Enjoy these photos.
In 2020, I decided it was time to expand this hydrangea border, so we planted a selection of perennials I knew would do well in this location with sunny mornings and shady afternoons.
It’s developed nicely over the years, but my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, and I keep an eye on it and supplement it with other plantings to fill in any voids.
It already has many mature hydrangeas. I love hydrangeas and have been collecting them for quite a long time. Hydrangeas are popular ornamental plants, grown for their large flower heads, which are excellent in cut arrangements and for drying.
Hydrangea is a genus of at least 70-species of flowering plants native to southern and eastern Asia and the Americas. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Japan, and Korea.
Hydrangeas are long-lived, and extremely vigorous specimens that offer lavish and varied blooms. The most common garden hydrangea shrub is the bigleaf mophead variety, Hydrangea macrophylla. The name hydrangea originates from two Greek words – “hydro” meaning “water” and “angeion” meaning “vessel” or “container.” Together, the rough translation is “water vessel” which refers to their exceptional thirst for water.
The secret to the hydrangea’s color is in the soil, or more specifically, the soil’s pH level. Adjusting the measure of acidity or alkalinity in the soil can influence the color of the hydrangea blossoms. Acidic soils tend to deepen blue shades, while alkaline environments tend to brighten pinks.
Most hydrangeas are shrubs, but some are small trees. They can be either deciduous or evergreen, though the widely cultivated temperate species are all deciduous.
In addition to the mopheads, there are also hydrangeas that bloom in lovely lacecaps in this garden.
The lacecap is very similar to the mophead, but instead of growing round clusters of showy blossoms, this hydrangea grows flowers that resemble flat caps with frilly edges.
All the hydrangeas are doing well. Hydrangeas love the warm morning sun, but they dislike the heat of the afternoon, so this is the most ideal location.
The hydrangea blooming season depends upon the type and cultivar as well as the planting zone. Most new growth hydrangeas put on buds in early summer to bloom in the following spring, summer and early fall seasons.
Recently, we received a selection of pretty hydrangea varieties from Monrovia to add to the border.
This is Hydrangea ‘Seaside Serenade Bar Habor.’ This relatively new compact form is great for smaller spaces, such as in between the larger hydrangea varieties already established in this garden. It features masses of big, white flower heads throughout summer. Its straight sturdy stems also hold up well in heavy rain.
This is Hydrangea ‘Seaside Serenade Martha’s Vineyard.’ This hydrangea shows off long-lasting, bold pink mophead blooms that are not influenced by soil pH. Flowers also develop a lovely green tinge as they age.
Hydrangea leaves are opposite, simple, stalked, pinnate and four to eight inches in long, toothed and sometimes lobed.
Here, Brian digs the hole for the plant. As always, at least twice the size of the plant’s root ball.
Once dug, Brian sprinkles fertilizer in the hole and in the surrounding soil. For these, we use an all-purpose formula with a good balance of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium.
As with any plant, Brian teases the root ball to stimulate growth. This root ball is not root bound, so the soil is softer and easy to scarify, or tease, with his hands.
The plant should sit at the same depth it was in the pot.
Next, Brian backfills, tamping the soil lightly at the end to ensure good contact.
These productive plants will flourish in this garden and make nice additions to the already established plants. Remember, perennials grow slowly the first year, faster the second year, and then usually reach full size in the third year. A well-designed perennial garden will provide many years of enjoyment.
My new garden continues to produce bounties of beautiful fresh vegetables. Our latest harvest - potatoes!
Yesterday, before a thunderous rainstorm, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, harvested the season's first batch of potatoes. Potatoes are from the perennial nightshade, Solanum tuberosum. As the world's fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, and rice, potatoes are grown from “seed potatoes”, which are certified disease-free and specially grown in nurseries for planting purposes. This season’s “seed potatoes” came from High Mowing Organic Seeds, an independently-owned, farm-based seed company in Wolcott, Vermont.
Enjoy these photos.
Every year, we order a selection of potatoes to plant. This is the first year we planted them in my new half-acre garden. I chose two of the largest beds, filled them with nutrient-rich compost and then when everything was ready, planted our seed potatoes. This photo is from late April. It generally takes three to four months to grow potatoes.
We also carefully select the potatoes we grow, using the varieties that worked for us in years past. This time, some of the varieties include Burbank russet potatoes, dark red Norland potatoes, Elba potatoes, German butterball potatoes, red Chieftain potatoes, Satina potatoes, Yukon gem potatoes, and Yukon Gold potatoes. Here is Ryan preparing to plant the beds.
The potatoes are planted in long trenches that run the entire length of each bed and are about five to six inches deep. Potatoes can be planted in cooler soils at least 40-degrees Fahrenheit. Potatoes perform best in soil with pH levels 4.8 to 5.5. Potatoes are easy to grow as long as they have access to full sun and moderate temperatures.
These trenches are at least one to two feet apart to give the potato plants ample room to develop. Here, Ryan backfills the trenches, fully covering the potatoes at least four-inches. Potatoes do best in well-drained, loose soil, and consistent moisture. Little maintenance is needed from this point – just watering.
Here is one of the potato beds a month later.
By the end of June, the bed is full of growth and green foliage. The potato grows up to 40 inches tall. As the potato plant grows, its compound leaves manufacture starch that is transferred to the ends of its underground stems or stolons. The stems thicken to form a few or as many as 20 tubers close to the soil surface – those are the potatoes.
Here is another photo of the potato beds this summer – so lush and green.
And just yesterday, they looked like this. This is definitely a less attractive sight in the garden, but it is a well-anticipated one because it means the potatoes are ready.
The potatoes are ready once the vines have died back – when the tubers are done growing, and the potato plants have begun to turn yellow and withered. This year, because of all the wet weather, the vines still appear green in many places, but the crop is ready for harvest.
Here is Ryan picking a gold potato – they are all looking great.
It’s important to dig them up carefully, so as not to damage any of the tubers. All these are from one plant.
Ryan digs deep into the ground and feels around for potatoes – potatoes will be slightly cool to the touch.
It’s fun to dig around the soil and find multiple potatoes waiting to be picked. They are not too deep – any potatoes will only be within the first five-inches of soil.
Because potatoes grow underground, it is always a surprise to see how prolific the plants have been. As the potatoes are picked, they’re placed in separate containers or trug buckets by color. Some of them will be medium-sized, while others will be much smaller, or much larger.
There are more than 200 varieties of potatoes sold throughout the United States. Each of these varieties fit into one of seven potato type categories: russet, red, white, yellow, blue/purple, fingerling, and petite.
All of these potatoes were picked within the first 15-minutes. Ryan picks as many as he can before the expected rain – the rest will wait for the next dry day giving them more time to grow.
This batch is brought to the small hoop house next to my head house, where they can be placed in single layers in trays and crates to dry.
Ideally, potatoes should be kept in an environment around 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit. They can be stored in bins, boxes, or even paper bags – just nothing airtight to prevent rotting.
Another tip – never wash potatoes until right before using – washing them shortens the potato’s storage life.
And also, don’t store potatoes with apples – the ethylene gas will cause the potatoes to spoil. In addition, they should never be stored in the refrigerator. We have so many potatoes with even more still in the ground – I can’t wait to try them. I hope your weekend is filled with bounties of delicious produce from your gardens.
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