Our annual seedling planting project continues at the farm.
My gardeners and outdoor grounds crew recently potted up hundreds of bare-root trees and other small seedlings. Yesterday, they also transplanted a large grouping of young hollies in a section of my vegetable garden where they can be carefully maintained until they are large enough to move to more permanent locations.
Enjoy these photos.
Holly is among the most recognizable plants with its shiny leaves and red berries in fall and winter. Known botanically as Ilex, holly is a genus of about 480 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae. The species include evergreen or deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbers from tropics to temperate zones worldwide.
I have both male and female holly specimens. To grow holly berries, one needs to plant both for pollination. Holly’s glossy leaves look crisp and beautiful all year long. They have alternate simple leaves, and the leaves of many species have wavy margins tipped with spines. These leaves are from Holly ‘Blue Boy’ – a handsome shrub with glossy, blue-green leaves and purple stems.
And these leaves are from Holly ‘Blue Girl.’
For this planting project, Phurba uses leftover jute twine to create nice straight lines that will guide the planting. Here at the farm, I encourage the crew to reuse, repurpose and recycle whenever possible. It’s important to me that we continue to be mindful of our environment.
Phurba secures twine at one end of the fence and walks it backwards to the other end.
Once he gets to the other side, he measures the width of the section to ensure it is exactly the same as the previous one. These lines are about a foot-and-a-half apart.
Next, Phurba looks at the line and measures the width again – just to be sure.
The twine is well-secured at both ends and easy to see.
Here is a top view of the spacing we created using the twine. This will be just enough room for the young holly bushes.
Here, a generous amount of triple super phosphate is sprinkled on the existing soil. This an enriched source of phosphorus. This will help root growth, and fruit formation.
Once the twine is secure, the seedlings are placed evenly along the length of the twined row.
The seedlings are perfectly lined up under the twine. Until established, these holly plants will need at least weekly watering.
Next, Brian begins digging holes for each of the seedlings. He is using a small pointed shovel, which is specially designed with a sharp angled head that can slice through hard soil and gnarly roots when planting, edging, weeding, or transplanting.
Here, one can see that these holly plants are also lined up with the young boxwood growing nearby. The boxwood seedlings have already grown quite a bit since they were planted one year ago.
Each hole is about four-inches deep. We had a lot of rain earlier in the week, so the soil was still moist and soft.
Brian carefully plants each specimen in a hole.
Here is one just removed from its pot. These two to three year old seedlings are only a few inches tall, but they will thrive in this nutrient-rich soil. Holly bushes have very deep, strong roots. They grow between 17 and 25 inches below the dirt. The root system is a taproot. This means holly bushes have one large root that grows straight down and then smaller, less hearty roots that spread out.
Large bright markers are used to identify which are the male plants and which are the females.
In general, it takes one mature male per acre of females to provide the pollen for honeybees to pollinate the flowers and to create the berries. It will be so nice to see these develop.
Holly bushes make attractive additions in the landscape. It is wonderful to be growing these gorgeous specimens right here at my farm. I will continue to share photos with you as they mature.
Time for some high pruning and maintenance for the trees at my Bedford, New York farm.
Yesterday, my longtime arborists at SavATree came with a crew to do some upkeep on various trees including a grove of old sugar maples located outside my Summer House. These trees are original to the farm and provide dappled shade over a collection of tree peonies and azaleas. The arborists from SavATree are well-trained and use different climbing methods to reach some of the high dead branches that needed to be removed.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This day was perfect for some maintenance tree work – mild temperatures and very little wind. While my own outdoor grounds crew can tackle many of the smaller tree jobs, I occasionally call in a crew from SavATree to do the larger tasks, like cutting the dead wood out of these tall sugar maples.
This is a view of the maples from last fall. Acer saccharum, the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the primary source of maple syrup and for its brightly colored fall foliage.
SavATree has been caring for my trees since I purchased the property. The crews include well trained arborists with all the necessary equipment for safely and efficiently maintaining all kinds of trees. The safety belts with all the carabiners and ropes can easily weigh about 25-pounds.
Ricardo prepares his double line with what is called a “Blake Hitch Knot” which is a friction, or slide and grip hitch. It is often used by arborists for ascending and descending.
Ricardo uses a traditional method for climbing this tree. First he assesses his route and ensures his lines are all secure.
Ricardo starts carefully by finding a clear spot on the tree to ascend. The crew is very careful not to disturb any of the plantings below or the climbing hydrangea vines on the trunk of the tree.
Ricardo uses both legs of the line to climb up the side of the tree. He uses his body to bring himself up. This technique is one of the first climbers must learn, and one of the safest to use.
This technique is also one of the quickest and most effective ways of ascending a tree. It took only minutes for Ricardo to reach the necessary point.
He also uses two lines tied in two places in the tree. The climbing line is tied at the higher point, while the climber moves the lower tie to where he is on the tree.
Once Ricardo is at the right spot, he carefully cuts down the needed branch that is already tied to another line. When the branch is severed, it goes down slowly to the ground instead of dropping.
On another tree, Alejandro prepares himself for a single line rope wrench technique. Alex helps him at the base. This method incorporates a rope wrench with tether, foot locks, and a chest harness.
All the climbers are trained in tying a variety of safety arbor knots.
Alejandro uses his feet to grip the rope and advance up the climbing line. Climbers who use this technique must already be very experienced in using the traditional double line method.
Here, one can see how Alejandro climbs the rope using his arms to pull him up and his feet to grip the single line.
Once he is at the needed height, he positions himself at a sturdy crotch of the tree.
Then he secures himself with the proper arbor tie.
And cuts the dead wood.
The crew from SavATree also uses STIHL equipment. These arbor saws are lightweight and easy to transport when climbing.
The branches that are taken down are brought over to the SavATree chipper nearby.
After all the wood is chipped, it is dumped in my compost yard and used later for wood chip dressing.
The crew then carefully puts all their equipment – ropes, harnesses, and belts away, so they’re all ready for the next job.
Proper, regular pruning removes dead, diseased or damaged branches. Maintaining the tree’s structure also helps to enhance the tree’s natural shape, ensures enough sunlight, air, and moisture get through the branches, and mitigates the risk of broken limbs and falling branches. I look forward to seeing these beautiful mature trees with all their bold green foliage later this season.
Although we're expecting partly cloudy skies and some showers this week at my Bedford, New York farm, the gardens are still showing off lots of springtime blooms.
The garden beds are changing every single day. Trees are beginning to leaf out and various flowers are bursting with color and energy - muscari, Chionodoxa, corydalis, Cornus mas the cornelian cherry tree, and of course the daffodils.
Enjoy these photos.
More and more daffodils are opening every day. I plant early, mid and late-season blooming varieties so that sections of beautiful flowers can be seen throughout the season.
The classic yellow-and-white daffodil is a welcome sign of spring. With more than 25-thousand named varieties, daffodils are one of the most hybridized flowers in the world. The blossoms come in many combinations of yellow, orange, white, red, pink and even green.
Here’s another daffodil in its gorgeous splendor. Daffodils are some of the easiest spring flowering bulbs to grow, and are perennial, so they reliably come back year after year.
Look at the foliage – so green and plentiful. I cannot wait to share photos of the swaths of daffodil flowers blooming along the border that stretches down one side of my farm.
Many of the crocus flowers are still blooming beautifully. These are beneath my allee of pin oaks.
Hello my blue boy! Here is one of my mature blue peacocks enjoying the mild weather and flowers outside his pen.
Chionodoxa, known as glory-of-the-snow, is a small genus of bulbous perennial flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, often included in Scilla.
They also come in dainty pink. The flowers have up to 10 star-shaped, six-petaled clustered pale flowers with white centers atop dark stems and sparse, narrow foliage.
Puschkinia is a genus of three known species of bulbous perennials in the family Asparagaceae. It is native to the Caucasus and the Middle East. Puschkinia grows so beautifully in clumps – I have several areas filled with these delicate small flowers.
Remember the hellebores? The hellebores continue to show beautifully at the farm. Hellebores are members of the Eurasian genus Helleborus – about 20 species of evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. They blossom during late winter and early spring for up to three months. Hellebores come in a variety of colors and have rose-like blossoms.
Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia that produce spikes of dense, most commonly blue, urn-shaped flowers that look like bunches of grapes in spring. Muscari is also known by its common name for the genus – grape hyacinth.
Bright colorful flowers rising above neat mounds of delicate foliage make corydalis perfect for shady borders. Of the 300 or so species of corydalis with differing colors, these are dark pink flowers growing outside my studio.
Here is one of the many peonies just waking up from its winter slumber. This one is in my Summer House garden.
Outside my Summer House is this Cornus mas, commonly known as cornelian cherry – a deciduous shrub or small tree that is native to central and southern Europe into western Asia. It typically grows over time to 15 to 25 feet tall with a spread to 12 to 20 feet wide. Yellow flowers on short stalks bloom in early spring before the leaves emerge in dense, showy, rounded clusters.
These are the buds of a weeping cherry tree with its cascading branches. I have two outside my stable. They only bloom for a short while. These trees are big eye-catchers when guests are lucky enough to see them filled with white flowers.
Some of the magnolia trees are also blooming. Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol. Growing as large shrubs or trees, they produce showy, fragrant flowers that are white, pink, red, purple or yellow.
From the carriage road looking up above the pinetum, one can see the gorgeous golden yellow of the weeping willows.
The trees’ long, tube-shaped flower clusters called catkins make their appearance just before weeping willow leaves reappear on the branches. The flower clusters are filled with nectar, which insects carry for pollination.
The darker blue flowers are Siberian squill. Native to Russia, these plants grow to about four to eight inches tall and spread out and bloom profusely.
Just off the carriage road leading to my run-in horse paddock are several red Japanese barberry shrubs. Most striking are the deep reddish purple inch-long leaves that stand out this time of year.
And look at all the growth erupting in front of my greenhouse. The bed is filled with white lilies, which will be in bloom later this summer.
The gardens are coming alive – it’s a gorgeous time of year. What spring blooms do you see around your home? Share them with me in the comments section below.
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