Here at my Bedford, New York farm, we already have lots of gorgeous, bright, and colorful dahlias blooming in the garden.
My dahlia garden is tucked behind my vegetable greenhouse in an area exposed to full sun and protected from strong winds. When in bloom, dahlias provide some of the garden's biggest and most spectacular flowers in a variety of different sizes, forms, and colors. However, because dahlias are native to Mexico, they are not winter-hardy and tend to split in freezing temperatures or mold in soggy, wet soil. In most areas outside the warmest regions of the United States, dahlia tubers must be dug up and stored or covered before the cold season. A couple of years ago, we started covering the entire bed with burlap and a thick layer of hay. And it's proven to be a great solution for protecting the plants so we have superlative dahlias blooming right now.
Enjoy these photos.
Here’s a photo of my dahlia garden less than three weeks ago. We had just mulched it. All the plants are lush and green, but at this time, there were no blooms yet – not one.
Dahlias thrive in rich, well-drained soil with a pH level of 6.5 to 7.0 and slightly acidic. Over the winter, the entire area was covered with hay and protective tarps. This area is also blocked by my large vegetable greenhouse. It has served us quite well in this location…
… And just like that, two and a half weeks later, we have all these blooms. Dahlias grow more blooms when they get at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight per day. This spot was previously used for growing grapes, but it has now turned out to be a perfect place for our dahlias.
For the most part, dahlias are at their best from late summer through fall, when many other plants are starting to fade, but our flowers are already looking spectacular so early in the season.
The array of flower colors, sizes, and shapes is astounding. Dahlias come in white, shades of pink, red, yellow, orange, shades of purple, and various combinations of these colors – every color but true blue. Do you know… in the 19th century, a London newspaper offered a pound, or a little more than a dollar, to the first breeder to create a blue dahlia? Interestingly, the reward was never claimed, but there have been many attempts that are near-blue. Like many flower varieties, there is also no pure black variety—only dark red and dark purple.
And here is one in burgundy standing so tall.
Dahlias are named after 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. He actually categorized dahlias as a vegetable because of their edible tubers. The tubers are said to taste like a mix between potatoes and radishes.
Dahlia plant leaves grow segments that are ovate to oblong to lanceolate in shape. The leaf margins may be lobed or dentate. Leaves may be green, reddish-purple, or purple-black depending on the variety.
Dahlias are classified according to flower shape and petal arrangement. This one is a bright corn yellow with a bold yellow center.
This is a single dahlia with just one row of petals surrounding the center disc. They range from a charming single, daisy-like flower to the popular double varieties which can be two-inch-pompons to 12-inch dinner plate size. They are divided into 10 groups: single, anemone, collarette, waterlily, decorative, fall, pompon, cactus, semi-cactus, and miscellaneous.
Pompon dahlias yield masses of intricate, fully double blooms measuring up to two-and-a-half inches across. This dahlia is a pretty light pink to salmon color.
Currently, there are about 42 species of dahlia, with hybrids commonly grown as garden plants. A member of the Asteraceae family of dicotyledonous plants, some of its relatives include the sunflower, daisy, chrysanthemum, and zinnia.
This cactus variety is called ‘Park Princess’ with tightly rolled rich, vibrant pink petals. It is a prolific re-bloomer and an excellent cut flower.
The majority of dahlia species do not produce scented flowers or cultivars, but they are brightly colored to attract pollinating insects.
Dahlias are very attractive to bees and hummingbirds.
The genus Dahlia is native to the high plains of Mexico. Some species can be found in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador & Costa Rica as well as parts of South America where it was introduced.
Here is an elegant dahlia which produces large blossoms with fully double, slender, deep pink petals with creamy throats that produce a frilled effect-hence the name Fimbriata meaning frilly.
This dahlia is named ‘Bashful’ with its dark burgundy petals, hot pink tips, and golden stamens in the center of the flower. The three-inch flower blooms on a plant that grows to two-and-a-half feet by the end of the season. This is a great dahlia for bedding, containers, and cut flowers.
Dahlias continue to produce an abundance of flowers through late summer until the first frost. I am looking forward to lots and lots of arrangements.
When arranging, always strip off all the leaves that would be below the water line in the vase. This is true for all flower arrangements, not just dahlias. When leaves stay underwater, they decay and release bacteria that shorten the vase life of the flowers. And change the water daily so they look fresh and last longer.
These dahlias are creamy yellow with bold yellow centers.
There are just so many flowers that have opened beautifully – this a pale light orange with prettily formed petals.
Nearly every plant is showing off at least one bloom. I am so pleased with how these flowers are doing this year. Dahlias are herbaceous perennials, but often grown as annuals.
This dahlia bud is just about to open. When the flowers grow, they emerge small and pale at first. And gradually they get larger and more detailed.
The key to maintaining dahlia tubers for the winter is making sure they stay dry, have good air circulation, and are in a cool, dark spot. Covering them with bales of hay to protect them from the winter elements worked so well for us. Click here to see the blog on how we did it. And keep checking this blog to see more of these beauties blooming in the coming months.
Here at my Bedford, New York farm, we're always working off a long list of gardening tasks. This time of year, my gardeners are constantly weeding the beds, pruning and grooming various specimens, or potting young plants in ornamental containers.
Last week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, planted a couple of stone vessels near my pool with sedum and various hens and chicks - those charming mat-forming succulents with fleshy pointed leaves arranged in rosettes. It's always nice to see these interesting plants displayed around the farm during the warm season.
Enjoy these photos.
Hens and chicks are members of the Sempervivum group of succulent perennials. They are also known as houseleeks. These plants form mats composed of tufted leaves in rosettes. We planted these hens and chicks a couple of years ago and they have been fine here since. Hens and chicks are winter hardy in growing zones 3 to 8. My farm is zone 6b.
I had a few more hens and chicks left over from another planting project. They were just enough to fill this small stone trough I have at the back of my pool area.
This urn is filled with a good quality potting soil. Using a proper soil mix will help to promote faster root growth and give quick anchorage to young roots. Fertilizer is also added.
Hens and chicks require minimum care. These plants do best in rocky, sandy places, flower beds, or pots with well-draining soil. These drought-tolerant specimens need very little water once they’re mature and can go weeks without watering. Once established, water them only when the surrounding soil dries out. They will fill up this container quickly.
In two larger planters, Ryan chooses to plant sedum. Sedum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, members of which are commonly known as stonecrops. This specific sedum is Hylotelephium ‘Plum Dazzled,’ a stonecrop mat-forming perennial with an abundance of fleshy pinkish purple leaves.
For this planting project, Ryan has a trowel and a Hori Hori. Named after the onomatopoeia of a digging sound, the Hori Hori knife is a gardening knife with a sturdy, wooden handle and a beveled blade. The translation of Hori in Japanese is the word “dig.”
There was already a top coating of fertilizer on this soil, but Ryan amends it with a fresh layer of soil and food.
Ryan adds some of our fast-draining composted potting soil that holds moisture but drains well.
In lieu of a shovel, Ryan uses these pots to scoop the soil into the planter. He uses two nesting pots turned, so the holes in the bottom are all closed.
Then, Ryan scoops a layer of composted soil into the planter.
Not only does it look better with a fresh layer of soil, it also adds fresh nutrients.
Then he adds a sprinkling of an all purpose granular fertilizer with equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. I always encourage feeding the plants – “if you eat, so should your plants.” Applying plant food during the growing season also helps support healthy growth and encourage blooms.
All the plants are spaced evenly in the trough before planting. This planter is long enough to accommodate seven plants each.
Ryan uses the trowel to dig a hole deep enough so that the top of the root ball is level with the surface of the soil.
Ryan carefully removes the plant from its pot…
… and then teases or scarifies the roots, meaning he fingers through the roots to loosen the strands and increase their volume. Teasing apart plant roots just before you are ready to plant stimulates them.
Next, he just places it into the planter soil at the same depth it was in its original container. These plants will grow raspberry-pink flowers this summer, which will entice bees and butterflies.
He does this for all six of the sedum plants. In a few weeks, these should grow well and fill the planter.
An identical planter is also filled with sedum on the other side of this area. Here, Ryan adds some soil surrounding the plantings and then lightly tamps down to establish good contact.
Here is a view from above after all the sedum is planted.
Because these plants also have fleshy leaves, they are also quite drought tolerant.
These stonecrop plantings will grow up to six to eight inches tall and 16-inches wide. They’ll be so pretty to look at through the season. Happy summer planting.
Another enjoyable garden tour at Cantitoe Corners!
One day last week, I opened my gardens for a private showing to The Garden Club of America Zone III. The tour was part of their annual business meeting. Just before the event, I spoke to the group at the nearby Bedford Playhouse about the creation and design of my gardens. And then it was just a brief ride to see all that was blooming at the farm. More than 120 guests attended. Afterward, we served a variety of refreshments and small bites, including Martha's Chard, Black Diamond caviar with homemade Melba toast, Murray's Stilton cheese with homemade brown butter shortbread biscuits, gougères and cheese and poppyseed puffed pastry straws made by PS Tailored Events. It was a lovely afternoon and a very enjoyable garden tour.
Enjoy these photos. You'll also see more of this tour on an upcoming episode of "Martha Gardens" exclusively on The Roku Channel, stay tuned.
I was so delighted to be a part of this year’s Garden Club of America Zone III annual horticulture conference. Here I am at the Bedford Playhouse, not farm from my farm, where I was interviewed as part of the program.
I spoke about the design and building of my Bedford gardens. I prepared a slide show of photos showing all the gardens currently at the farm. This is a photo of my upper and lower terrace parterre, just outside my Winter House kitchen. It is planted with large boxwood shrubs surrounded by a smaller hedge of boxwood and bright golden barberry.
After my presentation and interview at the playhouse, everyone drove to my farm for the tour. Because the group was so large, Ryan led one of four groups. The first stop was my new half-acre vegetable garden. He talked about its transformation from a donkey paddock to this lush and productive space for growing the most beautiful vegetables I’ve ever had.
Our three other group leaders were Wendy Norling, my gardener in Maine, my dear friend and EVP Director of Design at Marquee Brands, Kevin Sharkey, who knows about all my gardens past and present, and my Bedford gardener, Brian O’Kelly. Each carried signs, so guests would know where their group leader was at all times.
Nearly every bed was filled with beautiful vegetables. Kevin took a series of great images earlier in the morning – everything was just bursting with growth.
These are just three of the broccoli heads – each one more perfect than its neighbor. I picked one not long ago and it weighed two and a half pounds! Look at my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48 and see how much my cauliflower heads weighed. The vegetables are so robust and they’re so early – every day something new is ready to pick.
The group saw my tree peony border planted under the semi-shade of giant sugar maples near my Summer House. And Ryan talked about my extended azalea garden, where we planted hundreds and hundreds of azaleas.
The garden behind my Summer House is always a favorite stop on the tour. The boxwood look very lush and green. Ryan pointed out the tall, old Ginkgo tree at the back – the focal point of this garden.
They also saw the blooming Cotinus at the edge of the Summer House terrace.
Here are more shapely boxwood shrubs – these surround my massive herbaceous peony bed. Ryan explained how we care for the boxwood and cover all the shrubs with burlap every winter to protect them from the elements. He also explained how we use TopBuxus to keep them looking so healthy.
The group walked down the carriage road and saw my stand of tall bald cypress trees. Look closely, do you remember what the small structure beneath the trees houses? It’s my basket house – filled with dozens and dozens of baskets I’ve collected over the years.
On the left, my winding clematis pergola, with the clematis just starting to bloom on each granite post. Most species are known as clematis, but it has also been called traveller’s joy, virgin’s bower, old man’s beard, leather flower, or vase vine.
Over a section of my pergola are the climbing vines of my beautiful Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’ – the violet rambler also known as ‘Bleu-Violet’, ‘Blue Rambler’, ‘Blue Rosalie’ and ‘Violet Blue’ that bloom from May to June. Climbers always do best when well supported by a trellis or fence – one that is the appropriate height, width, and strength for the climber. It should be strong enough to hold the weight of a full-grown rose plant in both wet and windy weather. From the carriage road, one can see the abundance of pretty blooms – my guests loved to stop, take photos, and “smell the roses.”
Guests had the opportunity to walk through the main greenhouse and my flower cutting garden. Every group experiences a different tour when they visit the farm depending on what is blooming at the time.
There were still many lupines showing off their lovely colors.
And these delicate and beautiful irises.
I stopped to take this photo of Kevin and two guests from his group as they exited the flower garden – where to next?
The groups then strolled under the shade of my great pin oaks, Quercus palustris, with such distinguishable lower, middle and upper branches forming a most interesting growth habit.
The Boxwood Allée always grabs everyone’s attention.
And then at the end of the tour, we set up tables in my stable for our refreshments. These Cotinus branches with their billowy hairs looks so pretty and different.
We served delicious Black Diamond caviar on Melba toasts I made earlier in the morning. The parsley from the garden was so pretty, we used it to decorate the edges of platters.
If you’re wondering what to pair with Stilton Cheese, try it with brown butter shortbread – it is so delicious.
And of course, we had Martha’s Chard – play hard and drink Martha’s Chard. It was such a fun afternoon for all. Be sure to see more on an upcoming episode of “Martha Gardens” exclusively on The Roku Channel.
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