I hope you caught a glimpse of my pergola garden on @MarthaStewart48 - it is putting on such a colorful and gorgeous display.
Soon after I bought my Bedford, New York farm, I built a long pergola along the carriage road leading to my home. Over the years, I've added lots of bulbs and perennials that bloom at different times throughout the season. Right now, the Camassia and alliums are covering the area in an eye-catching palette of blue and purple.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Across from my stately bald cypress trees is my long and winding pergola. This pergola starts just outside my flower cutting garden and runs along one side of the carriage road leading to my Winter House.
The uprights for this pergola are antique granite posts from China – originally used as grape supports in a valley that was going to be dammed and flooded to create a reservoir. The cedar rafters were just replaced earlier this year.
Bordering the garden on both sides are these boxwood shrubs. There are more than 300 boxwood shrubs planted here. These boxwood shrubs were grown from small saplings.
This is the pergola garden late last month – lots of fresh, healthy green foliage.
This is the garden now filled with varying hues of purple and blue – it’s breathtaking.
The most prominent plant right now is the Camassia – it’s blooming profusely and so beautifully.
Camassia leichtlinii caerulea forms clusters of linear strappy foliage around upright racemes.
On this, one can see the six-petaled, two-inch, star-shaped flowers of Camassia.
Camassia is a genus of plants in the asparagus family native to Canada and the United States. It is best grown in moist, fertile soil and full sun.
Camassia also comes in this lighter shade of blue.
Both the lighter and darker shades look so good growing together in this garden.
The flower stalks stand 24 to 30 inches tall and display dozens of florets that open from the bottom up.
Alliums are often overlooked as one of the best bulbs for constant color throughout the season. They come in oval, spherical, or globular flower shapes, blooming in magnificent colors atop tall stems.
An allium flower head is a cluster of individual florets and the flower color may be purple, white, yellow, pink, or blue.
Alliums require full sunlight, and rich, well-draining, and neutral pH soil. Alliums are rabbit-resistant, rodent-resistant, and deer-resistant, but adored by bees, butterflies, and pollinators.
Alliums pop up above the Camassia throughout the garden adding color and texture.
Spanish Bluebells, Hyacinthoides, are unfussy members of the lily family, and native to Spain and Portugal. They are pretty, inexpensive, and good for cutting – they add such a nice touch of blue.
Behind the pergola and across the “soccer field,” where my grandson, Truman, loves to play whenever he visits, are six matched standard weeping hornbeams, Carpinus betulus ‘Pendula’. Weeping hornbeams can grow to be about 50-feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 40-feet. These are very rare and precious trees.
In the center and at the ends of this winding pergola are wisteria standards. One can see them in the back of this image. Right now, these beauties are cascading over the pergola and giving off the most intoxicating fragrance.
Wisteria is valued for its beautiful clusters of flowers that come in purple, pink and white. Looking closely one can see flowers drape down from the soft green heads of foliage.
I am so proud of this pergola garden. It is among the first one sees when they arrive at the farm, and some of it can also be viewed from my terrace parterre outside my Winter House kitchen.
Here is a view from the carriage road beneath my allée of pin oaks. My gardens are looking stunning this spring.
I always try to make the most of business trips by visiting beautiful and interesting places in between scheduled commitments.
During a recent visit to Maryland I had the opportunity to visit Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, just north of Baltimore. Ladew features more than 100 larger than life topiary forms across 22 acres and surrounding an historic Manor House designed and developed by topiary enthusiast, Harvey S. Ladew. As luck would have it, I not only toured the exquisite gardens, but also attended its 17th annual Garden Festival - a specialty plant, garden ornament, and antiques sale with more than 40 vendors from around the region.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
When Harvey Ladew first purchased his Maryland property, he decided he would take on the task of planning and landscaping the gardens himself. I am sure he would be proud of what it looks like today. This is a view across the Great Bowl to the Terraces of the Ladew Manor House. (Photo by Jim Lockard Photography)
The 18th century historic Manor House was completed over three centuries and houses Harvey’s collection of English antiques and equestrian-themed art. The Manor House was a great inspiration for the gardens. (Photo by Helen Norman)
Harvey Ladew began developing his gardens in 1937. After seeing many European gardens, he decided his would have two cross axes to allow for long vistas. The axes would intersect at a swimming pool placed in the center of what is called the Great Bowl. (Photo courtesy of Ladew)
These topiaries are yews, Taxus, and create the wall of the Great Bowl.
Here is a reproduction of what inspired Harvey’s love for topiaries. He had passed a similar sculpted scene during a hunt in England – topiary hounds chasing a fox. In his rendition, he also added riders on their trusted mounts.
Here is one planted over a fence. It is one of the most well-loved topiaries in the garden.
In all, there are more than 100 larger than life topiary forms at Ladew. (Photo courtesy of Ladew)
Here is another topiary on the terrace – simple in design, but wonderfully sculpted.
Here I am at the top of the steps into Harvey’s Garden of Eden. The steps are inscribed with one of his favorite Chinese proverbs – and one of mine, too. It says, “If you want to be happy for a week, take a wife, if you want to be happy for a month kill your pig, but if you would be happy all your life, plant a garden.”
In this corner is a bench in a nook built into the wall of the Rose Garden. The arch features Rosa ‘New Dawn’.
In almost every view around the Manor, one sees mature and meticulously groomed topiary forms.
In the foreground is Nepeta, also known as catmint. In the background is Stachys byzantina ‘Helene von Stein’ with underplanting emerging roses.
Here, topiaries also accent the tulip beds in the Croquet Court.
And this is a view of the Victorian Garden fountain through a bed of rhododendrons and towering Cryptomeria.
On this day, I was lucky to also attend Ladew’s 17th annual Garden Festival.
Hundreds attend this event every year to browse the more than 40 vendor tents. (Photo by Jim Lockard Photography)
Ornamental garden fountains, urns, and furniture can be found at the Festival…
… along with many rare and interesting perennials and annuals, and small trees. Some of the proceeds of the event go to the maintenance and preservation of Ladew.
Here is a colorful selection of Salvia nemerosa, also known as meadow sage.
And this is Sarracenia or pitcher plants – they’re carnivorous.
Here I am with renowned hellebores expert, David Culp. I’ve known him for may years. You may have seen him on my television shows. It was good to catch up with him at Ladew.
Visitors can pick up their purchases at a designated spot. It is very well organized and managed.
And here I am with David, the Garden Festival co-chairs Lynn Janney, Stiles Colwill, Dudley Mason, and Ladew Director, Emily Emerick. If you’re ever in the area, I encourage you to visit Ladew Topiary Gardens.
This encore blog was originally posted on April 16th of last year.
Do you know why the Japanese stewartia tree is one of my favorites? "Stewart" is my last name after all.
The Japanese stewartia, Stewartia pseudocamellia, is a small, slow-growing, all-season performer that shows off fresh green leaves in spring, white flowers resembling single camellias in summer, and colorful foliage in autumn. It's also well-loved for its attractive exfoliating bark, which peels away in strips of gray, reddish-brown, and orange. Yesterday, my outdoor grounds crew planted a stand of young stewartia trees behind my Gym building in an area not far from my main Greenhouse, my winding pergola, and of course, my stewartia garden.
Here are some photos.
I love stewartia trees and have several different kinds of stewartias growing at my farm. This is a view of my Stewartia garden behind my Tenant House in late spring. The stewartias planted here include Stewartia gemmata, Stewartia x. henryae, Stewartia pseudocamellia ‘Ballet’, Stewartia monadelpha, Stewartia rostrata, and Stewartia henry ‘Skyrocket’.
One of its appealing features is the stewartia’s bark.
And these are the flowers of a Stewartia pseudocamellia – cup-shaped, camellia-like white blossoms up to two-and-a-half inches in diameter with showy orange-yellow anthers.
Over the weekend, I purchased a selection of stewartia trees to plant along the carriage road behind my Gym Building. Here, they will get full to partial shade and be somewhat shielded from any winds.
A crucial step in growing healthy trees is to plant them properly. The hole should be two to three times wider than the diameter of the tree’s rootball and two to three inches less than the height of the rootball.
Chhiring cuts off the wire basket so it can be removed. Wire baskets were designed to support the root ball during loading, shipping, and transplanting. Some cut the cages and leave them in the ground, but I prefer to remove them completely, so there is nothing blocking the growing roots.
He also removes the burlap wrapping that holds the root ball together.
All the wire cages and wrapping are piled up and discarded.
Chhiring rolls the root ball slowly and carefully into the hole and then looks at the tree from all sides to ensure it is perfectly straight and its best side is facing out toward the carriage road.
Chhiring is now sprinkling fertilizer. I always say, “if you eat, your plants should eat.” The soil in the planting hole is also amended with fertilizer.
The biodegradable resin coated shells allow for a slow release of the fertilizer.
We use Miracle-Gro® Shake ‘N Feed Flowering Trees and Shrubs Plant Food, which contains natural ingredients to feed microbes in the soil and provides continuous release feeding for up to three months.
The branches are just beginning to show spring growth. Stewartias have alternate, simple, elliptic, dark green leaves that grow five to nine-centimeters long.
This tree is placed at the right depth – at its flare – the bulge just above the root system where the roots begin to branch away from the trunk. When fully mature, the Stewartia can reach up to 30- to 40-feet tall.
The surrounding tree pit is given a nice edge…
…And then the hole is backfilled completely and tamped down to create good contact between the soil and the root ball..
It’s a good idea to use a tarp to hold any of the removed soil and sod – this will save lots of clean-up time and effort later.
I think the trees look so pretty in this area. And remember, always remove any tags that are on the tree. If left too long, these tags will eventually cut into the bark and potentially cut off the flow of nutrients.
While these trees are slow-growing and only about six-feet tall now, they have ample room here in this location.
They are some of the first flowering trees guests will see when they visit. Across is my long pergola, and on the left, the handsome tall trees are bald cypress, Taxodium distichum. I am looking forward to watching these trees grow and flourish.
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