It's always so exciting to see how the gardens grow and thrive around my farm.
In 2020, we planted hundreds of hosta plants down behind my chicken coop yard across the carriage road from my allee 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.' Now two years later, they're doing excellently, filling the space with verdant foliage.
Here are some photos.
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. Remember the gardening rule of thumb – the first year the plants sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap.
In the spring of last year, we mulched the entire area. The hostas are already looking quite strong. All the hostas are planted under a grove of dawn redwoods, Metasequoia. These trees grow faster than most trees. I planted these about 12 years ago.
And here are the hosta plants now – so big and so vibrant. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi.
Unlike many perennials, which must be lifted and divided every few years, hostas are happy to grow in place without much interference. 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.
The plant flowers feature spikes of blossoms that look like lilies, in shades of lavender or white. The bell-shaped blooms can be showy and exceptionally fragrant.
These flowers have six tepals, six stamens, three cavities in the ovaries and the stigma at the top of the pistil has three lobes.
Here is a white hosta flower. Hosta flowers are also very attractive to hummingbirds and bees.
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.
Hosta leaf textures can be smooth, veined or puckered. Their surfaces may be matt, shiny or waxy but are usually satiny.
‘Elegans’ has huge, rounded, blue-gray leaves with white flowers that bloom mid-summer.
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.
Some hosta clumps can grow to more than six feet across and four feet high.
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.
A shade garden need not be dull – experiment with shade-loving plants. Hostas, with their palette of so many different colors, textures, and sizes have tremendous landscape value and offer great interest to any garden. I am so pleased with how well this garden is doing.
Enjoy this encore blog posting which originally ran on July 1st, 2020. It features my visit to a wonderful plant nursery in Long Island, New York.
I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting plants and trees. I love visiting different nurseries to see what specimens they have for my ever-evolving Bedford, New York farm.
Last weekend during a brief trip to Long Island, I stopped by one of my favorite sources, Landcraft Environments, Ltd., a pre-eminent wholesaler of tropical, tender perennials, shrubs, bulbs, and unusual annuals located in Mattituck on the North Fork. Landcraft Environments is owned by garden designers Dennis Schrader and Bill Smith who have been in business together since 1982, initially specializing in landscape design. Realizing a tremendous need for unusual plant material, Dennis and Bill purchased the property in 1992 when it was just an overgrown potato and corn farm. Now, it features their beautifully restored 1840s farmhouse, a lovely four-acre public garden, and thousands of local and exotic plants from around the world - all encircled by 10 acres of rehabilitated meadows with mowed paths for viewing native plants and wildlife.
Enjoy the photos Kevin Sharkey and I took. Dennis and Bill also formed the Landcraft Garden Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to inspiring, educating, and promoting gardening, horticulture, and the preservation of its natural environment. Follow Dennis and Bill on their Instagram pages @Landcraft_environments_ltd and @Landcraft_garden_foundation. For information on where to get their plants, click on this link for a listing of garden centers.
It was great to see Dennis. Here we are in one of the gardens – keeping a safe distance apart. We are surrounded by Jasmine ‘Fiona Sunrise,’ Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’ “Blue Rambler Rose,” and Japanese Iris.
Dennis and Bill also live on the property. Here is a view of the house from the back lawn.
Each year, Dennis and Bill change out many of the pots and displays. This year they planted Bromeliads, succulents, black petunias, and Anigozanthos “Kangaroo paws” which are tufted evergreen rhizomatous perennials with vibrant flower colors atop fans of narrowly strap-shaped leaves.
This is the step down to the lawn area made from an old millstone. I love these antique millstones and also have a few at my farm.
Dennis and Bill created this garden on the east side of the pool. It features a dental pattern bluestone planted with sedum and thyme. There are also clipped little leaf linden trees with boxwood, yew, and Hakonechloa, the Japanese forest grass.
In this area, one can see the native Long Island Opuntia blooming yellow.
In these containers – slow-growing Kalanchoe orgyalis ‘Copper Spoons’ with Pilea.
On this long table for 12 on the west dining terrace, Dennis and Bill arranged a variety of topiaries – rosemary, myrtle, and variegated myrtle.
This is the meadow garden. It is filled with Verbascum chaixii Alba, Salvia sclarea var. Turkestanica, Eryngium, Euphorbia Ascot Rainbow, Mexican feather grass, and some lavender.
This is Eryngium ‘Mrs. Wilmott’s Ghost’ with its luminous spiny collar of silvery-white bracts surrounding an egg-shaped flower head and tightly packed with flowers, initially pale green, then changing to steel-blue.
This is the green roof of the “ruin” planted with sedum. The stump on top looks like it goes through the roof to form the chandelier below.
And here is a very hardy kiwi in the “ruin” grown from a cutting I gave to Dennis and Bill from Skylands, my home in Maine.
Kevin and I admired the stone details in the “ruin” floor.
This is Berkheya purpurea ‘Zulu Warrior’ is a deep-rooted and drought-tolerant South African native perennial. When in bloom, these have magnificent three-inch single, dahlia-like, smoky-lavender flowers with dark purple centers.
Here is a group of hardy and beautiful calla lily blooms, Zantedeschia aethiopica ‘White Giant.’ This three-foot-tall plant has large white flowers up to 10-inches long that surround a creamy yellow fingerlike center. These bloom from late spring to mid-summer.
In this area, Acanthus hungaricus, Nesella, Yucca rostrata, and Alchemilla mollis.
I love this view down the large leaf linden allee with a golden leaf elm at the end, a medium-sized deciduous tree that has a vase shape when young, but develops a more rounded canopy as it matures.
Dennis also gave us a quick tour through the greenhouse. Here I am with the Spanish moss used to keep the humidity up for the vanda roots.
This table displays just part of the succulent collection. I love succulents and also have an expansive collection in my greenhouse – one can never have too many interesting succulents.
Dennis and Bill have hundreds of beautiful topiaries. In this section are rows and rows of myrtle topiaries.
These are Santolina standards and one double myrtle in front. Santolina topiaries are aromatic, evergreen, and have silver-gray foliage.
And here is a section of golden Italian cypress trained as standards.
Agave ‘Ivory Curls’ are hard to find succulents. They show off long, wavy leaves that are a deep green with half-inch wide ivory margins.
Carex ‘Toffee Twist’ is an evergreen to semi-evergreen sedge with interesting arching bronzy leaves and fine foliage.
There are also columns of beautiful Helichrysum petiolare. I often use Helichrysum in my large container plants. Commonly called licorice plant, Helichrysum is grown for its silvery, densely-felted foliage and trailing habit. It is a shrubby, woody-based tender perennial that typically grows one-to-two-feet tall but spreads to as much as three to four feet wide on upright to trailing stems densely clad with soft, woolly, oval-rounded, gray-green leaves.
These rustic urns are planted with agave and echeveria.
This is the Peony Garden. Dennis and Bill keep this area as a protected spot for the bees, figs, and of course, the monkey puzzle tree.
What a fun and very informative trip to Landcraft. Please follow Dennis and Bill on Instagram and learn more about their great Foundation.
Here's an encore blog from my visit to Virginia last year. This one originally ran on June 9th, 2021.
I always try to make the most of every business trip I take - visiting gardens and other interesting places that inform and inspire me.
Earlier this spring, during a brief visit to Northern Virginia for a garden club appearance, I stopped in Upperville, to tour the former estate of prominent philanthropists, Paul and Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. The 700 acre property includes the Main Residence, gardens, and the Oak Spring Garden Library - all maintained by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. OSGF is a nonprofit organization created by Bunny and dedicated to sharing her gifts and ideas. Its main mission is to support and inspire fresh thinking and bold action on the history and future of plants, including the art and culture of plants, gardens and landscapes.
Enjoy these photos.
Paul and Bunny Mellon maintained residences in Europe, North America and the Caribbean, but their primary home was this estate in Upperville, Virginia called Oak Spring Farm. This is the front facade of the home. An Asian pear tree is espaliered against the front wall. (Photo by Max Smith, Oak Spring Garden Foundation)
This is a view into the brick hallway in the Mellon’s residence and the front door.
Outside the Dining Room is this display of ceramics belonging to the Mellons. Most of Mrs. Mellon’s ceramics were sold at Sotheby’s after her death in 2014, but a selection of pieces were kept and used here.
Paul Mellon was the son of Andrew Mellon, one of the longest-serving U.S. Treasury Secretaries. Here are Andrew’s monogrammed place settings in the Dining Room. Embroidered linens were designed by Hubert de Givenchy.
This is a facsimile of “The Melon” by Edouard Manet, c. 1880, oil on canvas in the Dining Room at Oak Spring. The original was donated to the National Gallery of Art by Paul and Bunny.
This is the Blue Kitchen, or Sunday Kitchen, at Oak Spring. Portuguese tiles, featuring Bunny’s signature blue diamond patterned floor, are beautifully maintained. The windows offer great views of the garden.
Here is a statue of Mill Reef in the Broodmare Barn courtyard. Mill Reef was probably Paul Mellon’s most successful racehorse. He raced in Europe between 1970 and 1972, where he won the Epsom Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Here is a topiary American Holly tree standing over planting beds shaped like butterflies and a small reflecting pool. Bunny Mellon developed a love of plants and gardens at a young age. She began collecting botanical books when she was just 10 years old. She also loved garden design. In fact, you may know that Bunny designed gardens for some of her dearest friends, including the Rose Garden and the East Garden at the White House for Jacqueline Kennedy.
Many of Bunny’s garden designs at Oak Spring remain intact. Tulips and Narcissus line the beds surrounding the square garden. This view looks south toward the Mellon’s residence.
This tree is Malus ‘Katherine’. Malus is a genus of about 35 species of deciduous trees and shrubs from Europe, Asia and North America. The name comes from the Latin for apple. ‘Katherine’ is an upright, spreading crabapple that matures to 20 feet tall. It was discovered as a chance seedling in Rochester, New York in 1928. Pink buds open to pinkish-white, double flowers in spring, then fade to white. The flowers are followed by greenish-yellow crabapples blushed with red that mature in fall and persist into early winter.
Here’s a view toward the schoolhouse along the wall beds. Tulips fill out the wall beds on the northern side of the garden. Apple trees are trained against the wall in the candelabra style of espalier.
A burbling fountain extends from the wall of the Honey House and feeds a linear stream that cuts across a portion of the garden adjacent to the croquet lawn.
Inside the Honey House is a carved stone bird bath by William Edmondson (c.1874-1951), the first African-American folk art sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Here’s an arrangement of baskets on the ceiling of the Mellon’s Basket House. When Mrs. Mellon was alive, this room was a place for rest and relaxation. It is now used as a meeting and education space for visitors to the Oak Spring Garden Foundation who come to participate in workshops, short courses, and other programs.
This is a reflecting pool in front of the Formal Greenhouse. Sitting at the end of the pool is the Cake House – a gazebo so named because it was used to shade the wedding cake when Bunny Mellon’s daughter, Eliza Lloyd, married Derry Moore, the 12th Earl of Drogheda in 1968.
Looking directly up at the vaulted ceiling in the central room of the Formal Greenhouse is this decorative chandelier.
The central room of the Formal Greenhouse is surrounded with a mural in the trompe l’oeil style by the french artist Fernand Renard. The work was commissioned by Bunny and serves as a sort of visual biography of her, depicting many real world objects she owned and things about which she was so passionate.
Sometimes the real physical objects in the greenhouse can be hard to distinguish from the objects painted on the walls. Look closely…
A few feet further is the inside of the Formal Greenhouse – still filled with plants.
Back outside – a replica finial on top of the Formal Greenhouse. The original was designed by the Tiffany artist-jeweler Jean Schlumberger. Exposure to the elements and deterioration led to the original being taken down for conservation in 2018. It is now on display in the nearby Oak Spring Gallery.
This is the main gallery of the Oak Spring Garden Library. The library contains around 19,000 rare books and objects relating to plants, gardens, and landscapes – some dating back as early as the 14th century. The library was built close to the home in 1981 as a gift from Paul to Bunny. It was expanded in 1997 to contain her growing collection of books, manuscripts, and art. Mrs. Mellon’s wish was that this collection continue to be a resource for scholars after her death. In 1993 she established the Oak Spring Garden Foundation with the purpose of maintaining and sharing those collections. (Photo by Max Smith, Oak Spring Garden Foundation)
And here’s the original Greenhouse Finial on display. It is being featured as part of an exhibit about its designer, Jean Schlumberger, and his creative partnerships with Bunny Mellon.
Here, OSGF Head Librarian, Tony Willis, shows me a selection of works from the Oak Spring collections by exceptional women artists. (Photo by Max Smith, Oak Spring Garden Foundation)
This view from the Road of Rokeby shows the Blue Ridge in the background. This was the Mellon’s first foothold in Virginia, purchased in 1931 by Andrew Mellon for his son, Paul. Here you can also see the mile-long airstrip that the Mellons used for their private jet.
And this is one of Oak Spring’s most recognizable features – the arbor of pleached Mary Potter crabapple trees. In mid-April, the trees bloom, filling the arbor with soft white blossoms. When they begin to fall, it is like a snow flurry – I am sure it is breathtaking. The Oak Spring Garden Foundation is not open to the public for general admission, but its facilities are used to host researchers, artists, and writers who come through a Fellowship or Residency program. The OSGF also hosts short courses and workshops relating to plants, gardens, and landscapes. Please go the web site at OSGF.org to learn more.
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