We're making lots of progress with our long list of late spring chores here at my farm.
This time of year can be very hectic - my gardeners and outdoor grounds crew are busy keeping up with all the rapid growth in the garden beds. Many days are spent mowing the fields, trimming and pruning the hedges and shrubs, tending the vegetable and flower gardens - and of course, weeding and watering. Last week, the crew tackled the terraces outside my Winter House - clipping and grooming the bright golden barberry.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here I am earlier this month grooming one of the boxwood shrubs outside my stable with one of my favorite tools, my STIHL HSA 26 battery-powered garden shears. I always instruct my crew to “use the right tool for the right job,” and this handy garden tool is perfect for clipping and shaping the boxwood here at the farm.
It’s also perfect for trimming the bright golden barberry outside my Winter House. This is my upper terrace parterre, where I have four quadrants, each with a large boxwood shrub surrounded by a square hedge of boxwood and golden barberry. This is a look before the barberry is trimmed.
One can see the growth here. It definitely needs some shaping and grooming, but I am so pleased with how well it is doing.
Golden barberry, Berberis thunbergii, is a deciduous shrub that is compact, adaptable, very hardy and shows off striking small, golden yellow oblong leaves.
At least once a year, we groom and prune the boxwood and the golden barberry. Both are known for being robust when grown under lots of sun. Golden barberry also takes on its brightest coloring if it gets at least six hours of direct sun a day.
STIHL makes a lot of wonderful and dependable garden tools, but the hand-held HSA 26 garden shears is what I use most when I prune and groom. It comes in this easy-to-carry case, so all the accessories can be safely transported from one area to another.
Here it is unrolled – it contains the shears, the two blade attachments, the battery, and the charger.
The battery on the right is small, light, and fits into the handle of the tool.
The hedge shear attachment with double-sided cutting blades cuts in both directions. Phurba starting on the golden barberry, which has a moderate growth rate of about one foot annually.
Phurba likes to use this attachment for the tops of the barberry, which is trimmed so it is just a few inches taller than the boxwood.
Here, one can see how precise and clean the cuts are using the shears. Phurba goes over the top lightly again to make sure everything is straight and level. One can see the area he has trimmed and the area he still has to do.
The tool’s two blades are easy to switch. Phurba just removes the hedge shear from the bottom. Here is a view of the motor inside.
And then here is the grass shear cutting attachment. This blade is about four-and-a-half inches wide and has a cutting width of about 12-centimeters.
Phurba likes to use this blade for the sides of the barberry which are also showing lots of growth.
The grass shear trims the barberry very precisely and is so easy to maneuver. Occasionally, Phurba stops to look at the work he has done and to make sure it is straight and well aligned with hedges in the other quadrants.
Phurba is able to switch the blades easily as he works.
Once everything is trimmed, the terrace looks so much better – all the hedges are all level around the boxwood and each other. This view looks at the two north quadrants of the upper terrace parterre.
And here is a look at all four quadrants with my antique sugar pot in the center. Sugar kettles were used on 19th century Louisiana plantations for the production of sugar. In the winter, I use it as a fire pit when entertaining. The terrace looks great – and “check,” another task is completed from our long list.
"Sleep, creep, leap" is an adage many gardeners use to describe the yearly phases a perennial goes through to reach its full mature size - and what a difference the time makes.
In 2020 here at my farm, we planted hundreds of hosta plants down behind my chicken coop yard across the carriage road from my allée of lilac. I first got the plants as bare-root cuttings and kept them in a cold frame for several months until they were big enough to transplant. In all, more than 700 hostas in a variety of cultivars including 'Wide Brim,' 'Francee,' 'Regal Splendor,' 'Elegans,' and 'Blue Angel.' That first year they "slept," the second year, they "crept," and now three years later, they're "leaping," filling the space with beautiful, verdant foliage.
Enjoy these photos of their development.
In early 2020, this garden bed behind my chicken coops was cleared and cleaned. This area is shaded by a grove of tall dawn redwoods, Metasequoia, which I planted about 13 years ago.
My plan was to plant lots and lots of hostas in this garden bed. Their lush green foliage, varying leaf shape, size, and texture, and their easy care requirements make them ideal for many areas.
Before planting, the hostas were strategically positioned and spaced, paying attention to variety, color, and growth habit.
Here they are after they were all planted in April of 2020.
In the spring of 2021, we mulched the entire area. The hostas are already looking quite strong.
Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi.
Hosta leaves rise up from a central rhizomatous crown to form a rounded to spreading mound. Most varieties tend to have a spread and height of between one and three feet.
Here are the hosta plants in August of 2022. In summer, blooms on long stalks extend up above the clumping hosta foliage.
Hostas are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
Hosta leaf textures can be smooth, veined or puckered. Their surfaces may be matt, shiny or waxy but are usually satiny.
And here they are this spring – the leaves are so large and lush.
Look at how full the garden is. Vigorous growing hostas can reach mature sizes in three to five years. Giant and slower growing hostas can take a little longer. I am so pleased with how well they’re doing.
Unlike many perennials, which must be lifted and divided every few years, hostas are happy to grow in place without much interference.
‘Elegans’ has huge, rounded, blue-gray leaves.
Some hosta clumps can grow to more than six feet across and four feet high.
This variety is called ‘Francee’ with dark green, heart-shaped leaves and narrow, white margins. A vigorous grower, this hosta blooms in mid to late summer.
This is ‘Wide Brim’ with its dark green leaves and wide, yellow, irregular margins. This variety prefers full shade for most of the day.
And this hosta has light green leaves with darker green margins.
Hostas thrive in sites where filtered or dappled shade is available for much of the day, but they can survive in deep shade.
And always make sure your hostas are planted in good, well-drained, nutrient-rich soil with compost, well-rotted manure, and phosphorous.
The garden is divided in large sections showing the different varieties. Hostas, with their palette of so many different colors, textures, and sizes have tremendous landscape value and offer great interest to any garden. If you have the space and the right conditions in your yard, plant some hostas – you’ll love them for years to come.
This year, everything seems to be blooming earlier in the gardens - my flower garden is bursting with so much color and life.
The perennial flower cutting garden is located just outside my main greenhouse at the foot of my long clematis pergola. My gardeners and I spend a lot of time caring for this garden - carefully placing and planting each specimen. Right now it is already showing off many lupines, poppies, columbines, irises, dianthus, alliums, peonies, and more. Such a gorgeous welcome to summer this Memorial Day Weekend.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
My large flower cutting garden, which measures 150-feet by 90-feet, is growing more and more lush each year. I wanted the plants to be mixed, so every bed is planted with a variety of specimens. Every row of flowers is interesting and colorful. Right now, we have so many lupines!
Lupinus, commonly known as lupin or lupine, is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. The genus includes more than 200 species. It’s always great to see the tall spikes of lupines blooming in the garden. Lupines come in lovely shades of purple, pink, white, yellow, and even red. Lupines also make great companion plants, increasing the soil nitrogen for vegetables and other plants nearby.
The leaves of lupine are grey-green with silvery hairs. They are palmately compound in groups of nine to 17. Leaflets are two to five inches long, and up to an inch wide.
I grow so many alliums here at the farm and they continue to bloom so beautifully interspersed with other blooms. These easy-to-grow bulbs come in a broad palette of colors, heights, bloom times, and flower forms. They make excellent cut flowers for fresh or dried bouquets. What’s more, alliums are relatively resistant to deer, voles, chipmunks, and rabbits. This allium is ‘Globemaster.’
‘Globemaster’ is one of the biggest alliums. Small, silvery purple florets form stunning eight to 10-inch flower heads.
We continue to plant more and more flowering plants in this garden. Here is Brian planting Baptisia I recently purchased from this year’s Trade Secrets. When planting, always remember to tease the roots to stimulate growth before putting into the ground.
Baptisia produces loads of sturdy spikes filled with rich pea-like blossoms that emerge in mid to late spring.
The showy terminal flower spikes are followed by inflated seed pods. The pea-like flowers are attractive to butterflies and other insect pollinators.
This is Baptisia ‘Carolina Moonlight’. This plant produces loads of sturdy spikes filled with rich buttery yellow pea-like blossoms that emerge in mid to late spring.
And here are also lots of gorgeous poppies blooming everywhere – those colorful tissue paper-like flowers that look stunning both in the garden and in the vase. Poppies are flowering plants in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. They produce open single flowers gracefully located on long thin stems, sometimes fluffy with many petals and sometimes smooth.
Poppies are attractive, easy-to-grow herbaceous annual, biennial or short-lived perennial plants. Flowers have four to six petals, many stamens forming a conspicuous whorl in the center of the flower and an ovary of two to many fused carpels. The petals are showy and may be almost any color. Poppies require very little care, whether they are sown from seed or planted when young – they just need full sun and well-drained soil.
The plants typically grow to about two feet in height forming colorful flowers during spring and into summer.
Oriental poppy blossoms, Papaver orientale, last only a week or two, but during that time, they provide one of the high points of the gardening season with its bold colors. The flowers appear to be fashioned of crepe paper and can be more than six-inches across on stems up to three-feet in height.
Iris flowers can begin blooming in late winter to early spring. A range of varieties provide extended color in the flower bed. Iris care is minimal once the growing iris is established. I have many iris cultivars growing in the garden. Iris flowers bloom in shades of purple, blue, white, and yellow and include many hybridized versions that are multi-colored. Iris × hollandica, commonly known as the Dutch iris, is a hybrid iris developed from species native to Spain and North Africa. The bulbous iris has narrow linear green leaves and bears largish blue to yellow to white flowers.
Anyone who visits this garden admires the bearded irises. These flowers get their common name from their blooms, which consist of upright petals called “standards,” pendant petals called “falls,” and fuzzy, caterpillar-like “beards” that rest atop the falls.
The columbine plant, Aquilegia, is an easy-to-grow perennial that blooms in a variety of colors during spring. With soft-mounding scalloped leaves and delicate blossoms nodding on flower stems, columbine is ideal for borders, cottage gardens or naturalizing wooded areas. This columbine is a rich, dark purple with white tips. The bonnet-like flowers come in single hues and bi-colored in shades of white, pink, crimson, yellow, purple and blue.
Here is a white columbine flower. On this, bright apple-green foliage forms under the tall stems bearing pure white flowers and short curled spurs.
Here is a perennial poppy commonly called Moroccan poppy. Papaver atlanticum hails from Spain and Morocco and shows off soft apricot-orange, semi-double three-inch flowers.
Dianthus flowers belong to a family of plants that includes carnations and are characterized by their spicy fragrance. Dianthus plants may be found as a hardy annual, biennial, or perennial and most often used in borders or potted displays. There are numerous types of dianthus – most have pink, red, or white flowers with notched petals.
Here is another dianthus – very different with its fringed blooms.
Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris, grows along both sides of the path of my cutting garden. It is a clumping perennial which typically forms a mound of long-stalked, circular, scallop-edge light green leaves, with tiny, star-shaped, chartreuse flowers – they’re so pretty.
And, among my favorite flowers is the peony. The peony is any plant in the genus Paeonia. Peonies are considered rich in tradition – they are the floral symbol of China, the state flower of Indiana, and the 12th wedding anniversary bloom. The peonies are stunning this year – wait until you see the herbaceous peony bed filled with large pink and white flowers. What flowers are blooming in your gardens?
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