My Bedford, New York farm is covered with several inches of white, fluffy snow this morning, but inside my home - beautiful, healthy, lush houseplants.
Houseplants bring life to any room, especially during the cold, dreary days of winter. I love container plants, and over the years I have amassed quite a collection of tropical specimens. This week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, selected a lovely group of succulents and orchids to decorate my Winter House.
Enjoy these photos.
It’s always so nice to see beautiful container plants when I am home. Here are three potted succulents ready to be displayed in my indoor porch where there is plenty of light. If you like growing plants, but don’t really have the time to care for them properly, I encourage you to consider growing succulents. Succulents are so easy to maintain and are able to survive prolonged drought because they store moisture in their fleshy stems, roots, and leaves. Some succulents look like smooth stones, while others feature perfect rosettes like these.
Here’s Ryan bringing in a crate of beautiful orchids.
This is a potted rhipsalis, native to the rainforests of South America, the Caribbean and Central America. Rhipsalis is a cacti genus with approximately 35 distinct species. I have many types of rhipsalis growing in my greenhouse. Rhipsalis specimens have long, trailing stems making them perfect choices as indoor plants on pedestals or tall tables.
Here’s a closer look. Also known as chain cactus or mistletoe cactus, the thread-like succulent stems are narrow, green and can grow several feet long.
And here is another rhipsalis. These plants prefer bright, indirect light. Rhipsalis plants also appreciate a good misting now and again and watering about once a week, or whenever the soil becomes dry.
My melodious red factor canaries are watching all the plants being brought indoors – I think they appreciate the variety of plants they see.
In a blog posted last month, I shared how to force flowering bulbs. These are some of the hyacinth bulbs. Forcing is the process of speeding up a bulb’s development by simulating the conditions of winter and spring – it’s a way of fooling Mother Nature and tricking the bulb to bloom before its time. Hyacinths are excellent for this technique as their flowers are both attractive and fragrant. These are growing perfectly.
This is another pot of hyacinth bulbs. Each hyacinth bulb generally produces one flower stalk that stands eight to 10-inches tall.
The bulbs can be forced in either water or soil. These are planted in containers filled with soil and sand and then top dressed with gravel. I also have some being forced in water. I can’t wait to see all of them open. I will be sure to share those photos with you.
Succulents grow in so many different and interesting formations and colors. Succulents are best planted in clay or terra cotta pots with proper drainage holes because the vessels dry quickly, and prevent water from building up.
Echeverias are some of the most attractive of all succulents and they are highly valued by plant enthusiasts for their gorgeous colors and beautiful shapes. The leaves are also fleshy and have a waxy cuticle on the exterior. The echeveria plant is slow growing and usually doesn’t exceed 12 inches in height or spread.
Here are two cactus plants flanking a rhipsalis. The trip looks so nice in front of this window.
Inside my sitting room are these orchids. Most orchid genera are epiphytic, meaning they grow on trees and rocks rather than in soil. Orchid roots need to breathe and therefore cannot live buried in dirt. Orchid pots with holes on the sides are specially designed to allow air to circulate through the loose medium and around the leaves and roots.
Although generally thought of as a tropical plant, orchids grow on every continent, from the Arctic Circle to the southernmost jungle, except Antarctica. The size of orchids depends on the species. They can be quite small or very large. However, every orchid flower is bilaterally symmetric, which means it can be divided into two equal parts.
When keeping orchids in your home, south and east-facing windows work best. West windows can be too hot in the afternoon and north-facing ones are usually too dark. This plant has gorgeous white blooms with dark pink markings.
This is a “slipper orchid” – one of my favorites. The key to growing these plants is to keep the root systems strong and healthy. These plants have no bulbs or stems to store moisture and nutrients, so it is important to maintain their roots.
A rule of thumb for potted orchids is the leaf color. when provided with a proper balance of light, humidity, and temperature, these plants will have healthy bright green leaves. Too little light would make the leaves very dark. Most of my potted plants are kept in the greenhouse, where they can be maintained properly.
Dendrobium is a large orchid genus with more than a thousand species. This one is Dendrobium ‘Nora Tokunaga’ with a sweet fragrance and interesting white flowers with purple marked lips.
These dainty orchid blossoms have a wonderful chocolate scent. In general, most orchid plants are actually long-lived. In fact, divisions or propagations of orchids discovered in the 19th century are still growing and flowering today.
I am always looking out for rare and interesting plant species. Ryan placed this gorgeous orchid on the center table in my foyer. It is blooming profusely with large, star shaped, fragrant, white flowers.
Here’s a closer look at one of its blooms. This plant can produce two to six flowers per stem. I feel so fortunate to have such an amazing collection of extraordinary plants to share with my guests and to enjoy myself. What houseplants do you keep? Share your comments with me below.
My Bedford, New York farm looks so eerie shrouded in a blanket of thick fog.
As many of you know, I live in close proximity to the Cross River Reservoir, where patches of fog are quite common. Fog is essentially made up of condensed water droplets - a result of the air being cooled to the point where it can no longer hold all the water vapor it contains. Yesterday started off cold and rainy with extremely icy road conditions. As the day progressed, it also became very foggy - in fact, the fog seemed to get heavier through the afternoon and into the evening. The low visibility made it difficult for driving or even walking in some areas.
Here are some photos of the dense fog at the farm, enjoy.
By afternoon, the fog was so thick, one could barely see the trees around the farm. The giant dark green stand of tall white pines is visible here, but the trees behind it are all blocked by the fog.
The view through this grove of dawn redwoods, Metasequoia, looks mysterious in such thick fog. Fog can form in two ways: either by cooling the air to its dew point or by evaporation and mixing – this happens often when the earth radiates heat at night or in the early morning.
Looking into the peafowl pen, many of my peacocks and peahens are perched on their favorite tree – they don’t seem phased by the fog at all.
Here’s a look across the paddock to one of two linden tree allees. This one runs from the old corn crib all the way down to the vegetable garden. I am so pleased with how well these trees have grown since we planted them.
This is a view looking up through a section of the same linden tree allee. At the end is the carriage road to my home – hard to see, but it’s there.
This is the carriage road to my Winter House. The beautiful bald cypress trees are on the left and my long pergola is on the right. All the boxwood hedges and shrubs are now covered in protective burlap.
This is the garden behind my Tenant House. All the garden beds are now put to bed for the season. My charming Basket House is seen nestled among the bald cypress trees.
And here is the Pin Oak Allee. Again, it is so hard to see past the stand of trees. The fog is thick everywhere. The foggiest place in the world is the Grand Banks off the island of Newfoundland, Canada. It gets more than 200-days of fog per year.
This view is from one end of the pool. I placed the pool in this location, so one could see the gorgeous vistas, but on this winter fog-filled day, even the tallest of trees are hard to see.
This is one of the most popular vantage points at the farm – the foot of the carriage road leading to the woodlands and hayfields. In this photo, it’s difficult to see where the road leads, making it quite mysterious and even ghostly.
Down the road is this view of the lower hayfield and the weeping willows. Can you see the willows? Some describe fog to be “as thick as pea soup”. This was originally used to describe the dingy yellow smog from burning soft coal common in Europe. Such fogs occurred in London until the Clean Air Act of 1956.
The fog appeared to cover every area. The thicker the fog, the longer it takes to dissipate. This view is just outside what I call my Contemporary House, where there are several old apple trees original to the farm.
This view is just past the apple trees looking down the hayfield from the other end – and yes, there is an expansive field out there.
To the left is my small pond – hard to see the reflecting water with all the fog.
Fog reduces visibility to less than one-kilometer, or six-tenths of a mile. It can really impair driving or even walking. Here’s a look over the old stone wall and through the woodland.
This is the back hayfield. This is a giant open space, but hard to see across the landscape.
At one end of the back hayfield is my giant sycamore tree, the symbol of my farm. This tree is among the largest of the trees on the property. If you look closely, there is also a screech owl house on one side of the tree – I wonder if there are any occupants inside.
Don’t confuse fog with mist – mist is actually easier to see through. Visibility is at least one-kilometer with mist. Visibility below this is fog.
Fog also covers the run-in paddock for my horses. On the right, one can see the run-in shed. Some areas, including parts of northern New England, the Appalachians, and the Pacific Northwest are more prone to fog.
Hours later as the sun begins to set, a soft pink tint could be seen through the clouds. The fog remained thick through the night. And today, we’re expecting sun and clouds with temperatures in the mid-30s. How much fog do you get where you live? Share your comments below.
Here in Bedford, New York, we've been pretty lucky this winter. So far, temperatures have been relatively mild and we've been able to get many tasks done around the farm.
This week, my outdoor grounds crew is busy caring for all sorts of potted saplings I have waiting to be transplanted into the ground. These saplings, or young trees, were originally ordered as bare-root cuttings, which are plants that are removed from the earth while dormant and stored without any soil surrounding their roots. I order some every spring and then nurture them in containers behind my stable for a couple of years until they are ready to plant in more permanent locations.
Enjoy these photos.
Here is the area behind my stable where I keep most of my potted tree saplings. I like this spot, so they can be closely monitored and well-watered. Every few months, we take stock of the inventory, and do some maintenance work – these trees need to be repotted and re-organized into neat and tidy rows.
Here is a group of them when they were first potted last April. Bare-root cuttings are difficult to identify when there are no leaves, so it is important to keep them separated by cultivar and always properly marked.
They’ve all grown quite a bit – some are now more than four feet tall.
These are the feathery needles of the bald cypress tree. My mature bald cypress trees have already lost all their foliage for the season, but these young specimens are still showing off their beautiful russet brown leaflets. Like trees with leaves, bald cypress trees drop their needles in the fall leaving the tree – well, bald.
These young trees are osage orange trees. Despite its name, it is not related to oranges at all. It is actually a member of the fig family. Macular pomifera is more commonly known as a hedge apple, bow wood, or bodark.
And these spiny branches belong to the Helmond Pillar Barberry – a very striking vertical deciduous shrub, growing four or five feet tall, but staying just one or two feet wide. It has rich, deep-purple to red leaves, which hold their color throughout spring and summer, and then turn bright red in fall before falling and revealing the many spines on the branches.
We use composted manure and top soil for potting. Composting manure above 131-degrees Fahrenheit for at least a couple weeks will kill harmful pathogens, dilute ammonia, stabilize nitrogen, kill weed seeds and reduce any objectionable odors. I am so proud of the nutrient-rich soil we make here at the farm.
Once a good mound of compost is unloaded, Domi adds some good fertilizer and then mixes it into the compost. Here, we are using Bio-tone Starter – an all-natural plant food enhanced with bio-stimulants, beneficial bacteria, and mycorrhizae. It helps to to prevent transplant loss, promote faster establishment, deeper roots, and good soil structure.
The weather has been cold enough to freeze the potted trees in their their pots. To loosen them, Phurba places them in a large tub of water for several seconds while each plant absorbs the liquid.
And then carefully pulls out the rootball – still intact.
The trees are lined up and ready to go into their new, larger pots.
We save pots whenever we can – they always come in handy for projects like these, and I always encourage the crew to reuse supplies whenever possible.
Each pot is laid out with a small layer of soil ready for the tree and backfill. The crew has devised an efficient production line process for potting massive amounts of trees.
When planting, Phurba places each tree at the same level it was grown in the original pot. More soil is then gently backfilled around the root ball. Lastly, Phurba pats the soil gently to ensure good contact.
In order to get all the seedlings re-potted as quickly as possible, it was “all hands on deck.” The crew still has many more to repot, but look at all the’ve done in just a few hours.
Pasang works in the aisles placing the newly potted trees in organized rows and raking up any debris left over.
Any detritus is collected in my Multi-Purpose Reusable Heavy Duty Tote Bags – so useful for carrying, organizing, and storing so many things indoors and out. My crew loves these bags and uses them every day. Look for them at my shop on Amazon.
There are hundreds and hundreds of healthy young specimens. I am so glad they are thriving here at the farm.
Here, one can see how we used garden rope to corral the trees in the space – hopefully, this will keep them all standing strong through the rest of this cold season.
Trees are very important to our environment – they help combat climate change, provide habitat and food for birds, and other animals, and release oxygen for us to live. In fact, in one year, an acre of mature trees can provide enough oxygen for 18-people. I have planted thousands of trees since I purchased my Bedford, New York property. They look so pretty planted in allees, in groves, and as privacy hedges. I feel very strongly about giving back to the earth – the more trees planted, the better. I always look forward to spring, when many more of these young trees will be transplanted in the ground.
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