The youngest residents at my Bedford, New York farm are growing and thriving.
Last month, I shared images of 54 cute, fluffy, and very healthy chicks that arrived from Murray McMurray Hatchery, a 104 year old company in Webster City, Iowa. Among them - Whiting True Blue, Whiting True Green, French Black Copper Marans, and Silver Laced Wyandottes. Upon arrival, they were housed in my stable feed room, where we set up three brooders – heated enclosures that provide warmth and protection. Yesterday, they were all big enough and strong enough to move down to my chicken coop "nursery," where they will stay for several more weeks, until they can mingle with the rest of the flock.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
If you follow this blog regularly, you may recall the arrival of these adorable chicks. They arrived in a well-ventilated cardboard box – all wide awake and peeping.
Right away, they were moved into the feed room at the stable. Each brooder designated for a specific breed. The room is kept warm very warm and these babies are checked several times a day.
The babies were just a couple days old, but already very alert and curious.
Yesterday was moving day to the chicken coops. I have four coops where I house my chickens, Guinea hens and turkeys. The first coop is always used for the young chicks, so they can be closely monitored during these initial weeks.
And look how big they are now. What a difference two-and-a-half weeks make! These youngsters are so happy to be in their new brooder, where they have much more room to roam and stretch their wings.
The chicks are taller, more slender and very eager to explore their new surroundings – a sign of good health. At this stage, they are still confined to an indoor space, with sliding doors for fresh air, but in a few weeks, they will have access to a small outdoor area that is still separated from the bigger birds.
Every time the chicks are moved, they are reintroduced to their food and water dishes, so there is never any confusion. Chickens are also omnivores. Once mature, chickens will eat small insects in addition to their seeds, grass and grains.
These chicks are still on starter. A good chick starter feed will contain protein for weight gain and muscle development, plus vitamins and minerals to keep them healthy and to build their immune systems. The chicks are fed organic chick starter feed for the first six to eight weeks.
These chicks have several feeders and several waterers in the brooder. A chick should never have to “wait in line”. On average, about 10-chicks can consume approximately one-pound of chick starter feed per day. For 54-chicks, that adds up to more than five-pounds of chick starter feed per day.
This is the first time the different breeds are able to mingle. The chicks are getting to know each other. Different chicken breeds can live successfully together in what’s called a mixed flock. Some breeds are known to be very docile and calm, while others have a more dominant personality. I am very glad all my chickens get along very well together.
Chicks drink a lot of water. Baby chicks should drink about one-and-a-half to two times the amount of food they eat. Without it, they will dehydrate very quickly. The water is kept plentiful, clean, and fresh at all times. To drink, they dip their beaks into water and tip their heads back, which allows the liquid to drip down their throats.
Chickens love to roost – and they start practicing within days of hatching. Here’s a chick perched atop the feeder. It’s not far from the ground, but one must start somewhere.
Most birds, including chickens, hear well. Birds have ears on both sides of their heads, and unlike humans, birds do not have external flaps on their ears. Instead, the opening of the ear is covered by a special tuft of feathers. These feathers protect the ear without impairing perception of sound.
Chickens have their own personalities – some are more active or more curious than others. They also have very keen memories – they can recognize more than 100 different faces.
Chicks can be messy. they kick shavings, they kick food, they kick anything that gets underneath their feet. They’re experimenting with foraging and keep busy moving from one side of the brooder to the other.
It’s hard not to notice the large feet, but it won’t take long before these birds grow into them.
Chickens are gentle, shy birds, but because these are being raised around a lot of activity, they will be well-socialized and friendly. This duo is checking out the rest of their flock from a distance.
At this time, most of the chicks stay in their breed groups – birds of a feather, flock together. However, they are also learning to communicate with everyone in the flock. Chickens are capable of at least 30 different vocalizations, each meaning something specific – everything from “I am hungry” to “there’s a predator nearby.” These chicks are already chirping quite a bit.
I am so happy with this group of peeps – they are all strong good eaters, and will be a great addition to my flock.
And in a few months, these hens will start laying pretty, nutritious, and delicious eggs. I’ve raised many different chicken breeds and varieties over the years – they are all wonderful.
The plants and trees continue to show off their fall colors.
This time of year, because of the changes in temperature and length of daylight, the leaves stop their food-making process. When this happens, the chlorophyll breaks down and the green color disappears, making way for all the shades of autumn. Here at my Bedford, New York farm, we're still waiting for a hard frost, but the colors across the landscape are beautiful - various shades of orange, yellow, brown, red, and evergreen.
Enjoy these photos - they were taken using a Google Pixel 5G.
There is always something new to see around the farm this time of year. The colors change daily. Here’s a view looking up at a sugar maple above my tree peony garden bed. These trees display gorgeous colors in fall – the leaves turn vibrant shades of yellow, burnt orange, and red.
Along one side of my carriage road across from the long pergola is a stand of bald cypress trees, Taxodium distichum. This section is always the first to turn in autumn. Bald cypress trees are deciduous conifers that shed their needlelike leaves in the fall. In fact, they get the name “bald” cypress because they drop their leaves so early in the season. Their fall colors are tan, cinnamon, and fiery orange.
Outside my Winter House kitchen is this beautiful Nyssa sylvatica, or black tupelo. Its summer leaves are a dark green, but in the fall its foliage turns yellow, orange, bright red, purple or scarlet – all colors that may appear on the same branch.
In the fall, linden tree leaves turn a spectacular bright yellow color. Lindens, Tilia, are also known as basswoods, and have sturdy, straight trunks and profuse foliage. This allee runs from the old corn crib to my allée of boxwood.
I loved the linden allee so much, I extended it to the chicken coops. Here is the newer section – planted about four years ago. I am so pleased with how well the trees are growing.
Over the years, I’ve planted many different types of trees in hopes that they would shade, provide climate control, and change color at different times, in different ways. Here is some of the autumn color seen across one of my paddocks.
This is one side of my allee of pin oaks, Quercus palustris. They are turning a gorgeous russet brown. These trees have done so well on my farm. They have such an interesting growth habit – pendulous lower branches, horizontal middle branches, and upright upper branches. Pin oaks normally reach 60 to 70 feet tall but can reach heights of 100-feet.
This is my grove of American beech trees, Fagus grandifolia. These American beech trees offer a beautiful autumn show every year. American beech is native to the eastern United States and Canada. It is a deciduous tree with smooth gray bark.
Not far from the American beech tree grove is the winding road leading to my hayfields and woodlands. This is always a popular viewpoint – in every season.
For fall color, the sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, is hard to beat. Its glossy green, star-shaped leaves turn fiery shades of red, orange, yellow and purple this time of year.
The foliage of American sycamore trees is a vast crown of large leaves. In autumn, sycamore tree leaves turn shades of yellow and brown.
These are the large, glossy leaves of the tulip tree – changing from green to gold. My tulip trees are the tallest at the farm – these trees can grow more than 120-feet. In the late spring bright yellowish-green and orange flowers bloom. They resemble tulips in shape. The silhouette of the tree’s leaves is also tulip-shaped – look closely at these leaves. Together, these features give the tulip tree its name. The tulip tree is also known as tulip poplar, yellow poplar, whitewood, and tulip magnolia. Some of these names can be deceiving, as the tree is not a true poplar. Instead, it belongs to the magnolia family.
This is a Norway spruce – an evergreen. Although these lose some needles every year, their closely spaced branches make the loss less noticeable than on pines.
This is a mature Japanese Stewartia, Stewartia pseudocamellia, just outside my Summer House garden. Native to Japan, this tree is known not only for its brilliant shades of orange that emerge in fall, but also for its interesting exfoliating bark and delicate blooms. I love Stewartia trees – do you know why? Here’s a hint: it’s in the name.
These are the leaves and seed pods of the Styrax japonicus ‘Marley’s Pink Parasol’ trees that line both sides of the carriage road to my tennis court. The leaves transform to a bright and cheery lemon yellow in fall.
Not far from the Styrax are the Osage orange trees, which in the fall turn bright yellow before the leaves drop. The Osage orange, Macular pomifera, is more commonly known as a hedge apple, bow wood, or bodark.
The bright yellow-gold trees are both American larch, Larix laricina, standing out in the pinetum. This tree is commonly called tamarack, eastern larch, American larch or hackmatack. This deciduous conifer will drop all these showy needles just as winter approaches.
Ginkgo biloba, one of the world’s oldest tree species, turns an amazing yellow this time of year and then all at once drops its leaves – it’s another complex phenomenon of nature.
Oak trees have some of the most vibrant fall foliage – the leaves often turn a reddish-brown color.
I love how the smaller Japanese maples look under the canopy of taller maples and tulip trees in the Japanese maple tree woodland. I planted so many Japanese maples here – hundreds of cultivars with countless forms, leaf types, and sizes.
The perimeter around my paddocks displays such wonderful shades of amber, brown, orange and green. Rinze, Bond, and Banchunch are surrounded in fall splendor. What does autumn look like where you live? Share your autumn descriptions with me in the comments section below. Happy fall!
This season's tree-planting project continues at my Bedford, New York farm with a group of young, healthy Japanese maples.
Every year, I try to add a few interesting and rare trees to my Japanese Maple Grove. I love this area of the farm and my gardeners, outdoor grounds crew, and I have been working hard to keep it looking its best. Recently, I purchased 27 more of these remarkable trees to add to my collection. All the new specimens came from Summer Hill Nursery in Madison, Connecticut. With so many cultivated Japanese maple varieties available, one can find suitable specimens to grow beautifully in sun, shade, containers, and even bonsai. These trees provide countless variations in size, leaf shape, and color - I am looking so forward to watching them develop in this shady woodland.
Enjoy these photos.
These 27 young Japanese Maples were just picked up and brought back to my farm. Many of my Japanese maples are varieties of Acer palmatum – trees that have been cultivated in Japanese gardens for centuries. These will be great additions to this garden.
Over the years, I’ve planted hundreds of Japanese maples in this area. Japanese maples prefer dappled sun or part shade. I purposely planted them beneath larger trees such as tulip trees and other maples. The varying heights add a nice texture to the grove.
Some of the varieties in this group include Acer palmatum ‘Beni Shichihenge’ – a pink variegated Japanese maple. New growth emerges as a show stopping collage of red, pink, orange, cream and green and then changing to this nice cream and green. Later this fall, the color is a distinctive shade of orange. ‘Beni shichihenge’ grows as a beautiful vase shaped tree when young turning more round topped with age.
Acer palmatum var. dissectum ‘Garnet’ is a deciduous, graceful, small tree with lacy, deeply cut dark red leaves that retain their color into fall. This variety is very durable and vigorous with a pendulous, spreading growth habit.
Acer palmatum ‘Roseo Marginatum’ is a slow-growing, dome-shaped tree with blue-green leaves with deeply cut, often curved lobes, margined with shades of white and pink. Later this season, the foliage turns deep scarlet red.
‘Green Threadleaf’ maples have smooth branches and feather-soft green foliage that cascade to the ground.
Acer palmatum ‘Ever Red’ is a charming dwarf tree with a delicate weeping form. The foliage holds beautiful deep red color throughout summer before dropping in fall.
Acer palmatum ‘Sumi Nagashi’ is an upright, bright mauve red maple. It is a hardy and vigorous grower with a bold crimson red in fall. Here one can already see the changing color.
This is Acer palmatum ‘Orange Dream’. In spring this tree is stunning with leaves of orange-yellow, edged in red. In summer it is a cool combination of green and red tips. And, in fall it explodes into a fire-ball of orange and umber.
This is ‘Emerald Lace’ Japanese maple – a fast-growing, deciduous small tree with deep emerald green, lacy foliage. ‘Emerald Lace’ features finely dissected leaves that emerge bright green in spring with red petioles that remain red throughout the season. Summer color lightens to light green with red highlights. ‘Emerald Lace’ has great fall colors that run yellow to orange and finish up with fiery red.
This is Acer palmatum var. dissectum ‘Waterfall’. It displays beautifully cascading branches with large, finely cut green leaves and golden fall color.
Acer palmatum ‘Shishigashira’, commonly called the lion’s head maple, is a very popular and striking cultivar. It is a slow upright grower with dense tufts of crinkled deep green foliage on each branch, looking somewhat like the mane of a lion. It also tends to be one of the latest Japanese maples to color in the fall.
This gorgeous specimen is Acer japonicum ‘Branford Beauty’. It shows off rich green, rounded leaves in spring and summer with seven to 11 pointed lobes sharply and irregularly toothed. This fall color is gorgeous mix of yellow and crimson.
Acer palmatum ‘Butterfly’ is a slow growing shrub-like variety. It features silvery white margined green leaves on densely held branches. These leaves become scarlet magenta in late fall.
Acer palmatum ‘Volker’s Cream’ has such interesting foliage – creamy white reticulated variegation in spring and yellow to orange color in fall. The dark veining contrasts so beautifully with the lighter leaf color.
Once the new trees arrive at my farm, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, positions them where they will be planted.
Ryan strategically places each specimen – keeping in mind the tree’s color, mature height, and spread.
After the trees are positioned, Domi begins digging the holes. A crucial step in growing healthy trees is to plant them at the proper depth. Planting a tree too deep can kill it. Plant it only at its flare – the bulge just above the root system where the roots begin to branch away from the trunk.
Once the depth of the hole is correct, the hole is amended with fertilizer. We use Roots with mycorrhizal fungi, which helps transplant survival and increases water and nutrient absorption.
As with all the plants and trees we plant, we always scarify the root ball. Scarifying stimulates root growth. Essentially, Pasang breaks up small portions of the root ball to loosen the roots a bit and create some beneficial injuries. This helps the plant become established more quickly in its new environment.
The tree is placed into the hole to gauge the necessary depth. A good rule of thumb is to plant it to the same height as it was in the pot. And then, Pasang adds a little more fertilizer to the top of the root ball.
Pasang then backfills, adding a little more new soil where needed. After putting a new tree into the ground, be sure to keep it slightly moist for the first year as it takes root.
We’re expecting a good soaking rain this weekend, so these trees will get a nice drink.
This grove grows more beautifully every year. Few trees are as stunning as the Japanese maple. With more than a thousand varieties and cultivars including hybrids, the iconic Japanese maple tree is among the most versatile small trees.
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