The terraces at Skylands are brimming with plant life and color once again.
I spent the Memorial Day weekend at my home in Maine to carry out my annual task of planting the large urns, pots, and planters that adorn the exterior of the house. It’s quite an undertaking, but I always enjoy the time, especially with the group that accompanies me from year to year. The greenhouse at Skylands isn’t large enough to accommodate the big plants during winter, so many of the tropical and exotic specimens are stored in a hoop house at my Bedford, New York farm, and then carefully loaded onto a trailer and delivered to Maine for the summer months. As soon as I get there, I design the layout of where things should go, and then we get right to work.
It's always a wonderful time - enjoy these photos.
It’s a tedious job to get everything planted over one weekend, but it’s a trip I look forward to every spring. Here I am starting with this agave. Once it’s out of the pot, I trim off any spent or damaged leaves. Caring for agaves is easy when planted in the right location. Agaves need full sun – my large terrace here at Skylands is the perfect place.
Here are some of the bigger plants taken out of the trailer and placed on the driveway. I decide where each plant will go before they are moved – staying organized saves lots of time and energy.
I always bring the doggies with me whenever I go to Maine – they all love it up here. Here are my four dogs – Bete Noire, Creme Brulee, Empress Qin, and Emperor Han. “Which way do we go?”
Here are some of the smaller potted agaves on the West Terrace. Agaves are long-leafed succulents with shallow roots and showy, spiked leaves.
We had a varied selection of plant material for all of the urns. Some of these plants were grown in my greenhouses. Propagating this way saves a lot of cost.
Ryan carries this agave out to the large terrace. A little extra care should be taken whenever working with sharp plants.
The plants are lined up by type and then placed near their designated urns and pots. Everyone takes turns doing everything – from moving and preparing the plants to moistening the potting mix, to filling the pots, to planting.
Look at all the plants waiting – agaves, alocasias, palms, ferns, and so many more. This day was cool, but still very comfortable for gardening.
This container is filled with clay shards to use at the bottom of the pots for drainage. Before we start planting, we make sure all the supplies are ready – the urns, pots and planters, the tools, the potting mix, and of course the plants.
For planting, we use Pro-Mix BX Biofungicide + Mycorrhizae – a general-purpose growing medium that is great for a wide variety of plants and transplanting applications. A good potting mix will include a mix of sterile soil, very well rotted leaf mold, and compost.
It’s always a good idea to prepare a tarp for catching any soil and trimmed foliage. This will save a lot of time cleaning up in the end.
Here’s Wendy Norling, one of our gardeners at Skylands. She’s planting the stone trough I bought at Trade Secrets several years ago. It has worked perfectly here at Skylands, and looks beautiful planted up with succulents.
To protect the rather porous and fragile pots, I like to line them with garbage bags, so the pots don’t soak up too much water. The garbage bags have drain holes at the bottom and are neatly tucked inside the pot, so they are not visible. I also put in a layer of bubble wrap – this is a great way to reuse and repurpose all that bubble wrap that may have accumulated over the winter months from package deliveries. Filling the bottom of large planters with something other than soil also benefits plantings in several ways – it is more economical, easier to move, and better for drainage and root growth.
Here it is all finished in this Eric Ellis Soderholtz pot.
Here is my handsome Emperor Han watching over all the activity.
The Frenchies are on the lookout from the West Terrace for any small creatures running to and fro.
Here’s the finished planted trough. Echeveria species are popular as ornamental garden plants. They are drought-resistant, although they do better with regular deep watering and fertilizing. This will fill out so nicely over the summer.
This is one of two giant Soderholtz pots – Eric Ellis Soderholtz was a pioneer in American garden pottery at the turn of the last century, turning concrete into these gorgeous vessels. I planted it with Bird of Paradise. The Bird of Paradise is best known for its banana shaped leaves and bird shaped tropical flowers.
The Western Terrace is among my favorite summer meal spots. The pergola is covered with kiwi vines that are original to the home. The faux bois pots are planted with Bismark palm, Bismarckia nobilis, which grows from a solitary trunk, gray to tan in color, and slightly bulging at the base. The nearly rounded leaves are divided to a third its length into 20 or more stiff, once-folded segments. The entire area begins to take on more life with all the planted specimens.
Here is a potted blue agave with its beautiful gray-blue spiky fleshy leaves. Do you know… tequila is actually distilled from the sap of the blue agave? Tequila is produced by removing the heart of the plant in its seventh to 14th year, depending on its growth rate.
Here are more kiwi vines growing on my home. Kiwi vines can tolerate a lot of different light conditions, but more exposure to sun brings out better colors in the leaves, some of which can be variegated. On both sides of the planter are my glazed terra-cotta sphinxes watching over the terrace. These sphinxes were designed by Emile Muller.
On the back porch, we filled all these planters with ferns – and ferns also hang from above. Ferns can add dramatic beauty to any planter. A fern is a member of a group of roughly 12-thousand species of vascular plants. In general, ferns are low-maintenance, hardy plants. They require lots of shade and ambient sunlight.
It is always so much fun planting at Skylands. Here is the terrace after a hard day’s work. It is looking excellent – I can’t wait to see it all filled out – bold and lush later in the season. In my next blog, I’ll share photos from all the great foods we ate and places we visited during this trip to Maine.
It takes a lot of time and patience to develop a garden. Here at my Bedford, New York farm, I pay close attention to all the beds - how the plants grow, what varieties work best, and what areas need filling. And then, every spring I add a few more colorful and interesting specimens.
Over the holiday weekend in Maine, I visited several nurseries - Surry Gardens, Frost Farms, Plants Unlimited, and Dublin Gardens. I was able to bring back a nice collection of beautiful plants including physocarpus, peonies, irises, baptisia, and some stonecrop sedums to add to the wall below my terrace parterre. Yesterday, Ryan, Brian, and Phurba got them all planted before today's expected rain.
Enjoy these photos. And tomorrow, I'll start sharing images from my Memorial Day weekend at Skylands.
The pool is surrounded by two developing hedges. On the inside of the fence, about 170 purple columnar beech trees, Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck Purple’ which will grow to 40 to 50 feet in height and only 10-feet wide which makes them perfect for tight spaces. Here, on the outside – an interesting combination of alternating shrubs – one phsyocarpus and then one cotinus, etc. We added a few more physocarpus to this area to replace specimens that were not growing as robustly or were needed elsewhere.
Physocarpus, commonly called ninebark, is an upright, spreading, somewhat coarse, deciduous, Missouri-native shrub which is closely related to the genus Spiraea. It boasts deep burgundy foliage with ovate to rounded, usually three to five-lobed leaves that are dull green in summer changing to an undistinguished yellow in fall and bronzy red by the time the leaves fall in late November. Physocarpus blooms now in early June with these white button-like flowers.
I also added a few more tree peonies to this border planted in semi-shade under a stand of giant sugar maples across from my Summer House. Many of the specimens were transplanted from my Turkey Hill garden, while others I’ve added over the years.
Some of the tree peonies are still blooming, but unfortunately the tree peony season is very short – only seven to 10 days. These unimaginably large, and often fragrant yellow, white, pink, and burgundy flowers are some of my favorites – I look forward to seeing them every year.
The pink varieties are more fragrant than the darker maroon flowers. This one has slightly wavy petals with a gold center.
In my flower cutting garden, Brian plants another iris. There are about 300 species in the genus Iris. This large group includes plants that grow from bulbs such as Dutch irises, as well as traditional perennial types of iris, such as the bearded irises, and Siberian irises.
These distinctive, six-petaled flowers have three outer hanging petals called “falls” and three inner upright petals called “standards”.
Irises bloom best in full sun, and they unfurl their stunning flowers from spring to early summer.
I’ve been working on this flower cutting garden for several years and it has developed more and more every year. I wanted the plants to be mixed, so every bed in this garden would be interesting and colorful.
This is stonecrop sedum ‘Chocolate Ball’ – I planned these for the wall and steps surrounding the terrace outside my Winter House kitchen. Sedums really work well in rock gardens. Sedum is a large genus of flowering plants, also known as stonecrops. Sedums are members of the succulent family. They have fleshy, water-storing leaves and are drought tolerant.
Ryan divides the plants from the tray into smaller sections to fit some of the crevices in the wall and between the stone steps.
Traditionally, creeping sedums are grown for their colorful foliage – blue, yellow, copper, maroon and more – or for their draping form which softens the edge of containers and rock walls. Sedum, like other succulents, retain water in their leaves and can thrive in dry climates. They need little soil and water to survive, which makes them excellent for planting here. Ryan is wearing my Martha Stewart MTS-GLVNP2-SL-M All-Purpose Non-Slip Garden Gloves – available at my shop on Amazon.
Once sedums become established, they require very little supplemental water to thrive.
Here, Ryan tucks the sedum in a corner, where the steps meet.
Once he finds a suitable hole, he presses some potting soil into the crack.
And then places the sedum securely into the same crevice. To provide interest, Ryan tries to plant the sedum next to different types along the wall.
Most sedum has a trailing nature and will begin cascading down the side of the wall as it grows.
Once the roots take hold, the plant will wedge itself in and begin to spread.
Here is an already established sedum that has spread across these stones.
Sedums thrive nearly anywhere as long as they get good drainage.
We first planted sedums here in 2012. And every so often, we add more and more – it is growing so nicely on this wall. A rock garden is an easy, low maintenance way to add beauty around any home.
Early June is such an exciting time at the farm because so much is growing and blooming, especially in my flower garden.
The perennial flower cutting garden is located just outside my main greenhouse at the foot of my long clematis pergola. Every season, I add a number of flowering plants to this collection. And right now it is bursting with vibrant colors - the poppies, roses, lupines, goat's beard, columbines, and dianthus are all blooming. I am so proud of how well it has developed.
Here are some recent photos, enjoy.
This garden bed is just outside my fenced flower cutting garden – both are among the first ones seen when visiting my farm. My cutting garden is several years old now and has developed more and more every year. I wanted the plants to be mixed, so every bed in this garden would be interesting and colorful.
Anyone who visits this garden admires the bearded irises. These flowers get their common name from their blooms, which consist of upright petals called “standards,” pendant petals called “falls,” and fuzzy, caterpillar-like “beards” that rest atop the falls.
Bearded irises need full sun, good drainage, lots of space, and quality soil. They come in just about every flower color, both solids, and bi-colors. Branched flower stalks range in height from eight-inch miniatures to 48-inch giants – and all make excellent cut flowers.
I grow many alliums here at the farm and they continue to bloom so beautifully. These easy-to-grow bulbs come in a broad palette of colors, heights, bloom times, and flower forms. They make excellent cut flowers for fresh or dried bouquets. What’s more, alliums are relatively resistant to deer, voles, chipmunks, and rabbits.
These are the large leaves of Rodgersia – a genus of flowering plants in the Saxifragaceae family. Rodgersia are herbaceous perennials originating from east Asia. The common name is Roger’s Flower.
And here are the Rodgersia flowers. These tiny white to pink flowers arrive in late spring into midsummer.
Robust and beautiful, Nectaroscordum siculum, or Sicilian Honey Garlic, displays showy clusters of gracefully drooping bell-shaped flowers in late spring to summer.
Ornithogalum umbellatum, commonly known as star of Bethlehem, is a bulbous perennial that is native to the Mediterranean region. Narrow, semi-erect, grass-like, linear leaves grow in a basal clump with each stem bearing 10 to 20 starry white flowers in an open, umbel-like, terminal cluster. Flowers are striped green on the outside. Flowers open near noon and close at sunset or in cloudy weather.
Aruncus dioicus, commonly called goat’s beard, is a Missouri native plant which occurs in moist woodlands and along bluffs in the central and southeast part of the State. A tall, erect, bushy, clump-forming plant typically growing four to six feet high features pinnately compound, dark green foliage and showy, plume-like spikes of tiny, cream colored flowers which rise well above the foliage in early to mid summer.
But don’t confuse this Aruncus dioicus with the Astible, which is a smaller plant with straight upright plumes.
Right now, there are gorgeous poppies blooming everywhere – those colorful tissue paper-like flowers that look stunning both in the garden and in the vase. Poppies are flowering plants in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. They produce open single flowers gracefully located on long thin stems, sometimes fluffy with many petals and sometimes smooth.
Poppies are attractive, easy-to-grow herbaceous annual, biennial or short-lived perennial plants.
The plants typically grow to about two feet in height forming colorful flowers during spring and into summer.
Flowers have four to six petals, many stamens forming a conspicuous whorl in the center of the flower and an ovary of two to many fused carpels. The petals are showy and may be almost any color. Poppies require very little care, whether they are sown from seed or planted when young – they just need full sun and well-drained soil.
There are numerous types of dianthus – most have pink, red, or white flowers with notched petals. This is Dianthus ‘Sweet William.’
Here is another dianthus – very different with its fringed blooms.
And here is a dark pink variety – also heavily fringed.
I have many roses in my flower garden. Some of them were transferred here from my home in East Hampton. I am so happy with how well they’re doing. In the last couple years, I’ve added to this collection of roses – David Austin roses and various varieties from Northland Rosarium. A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae. There are more than a hundred species and thousands of cultivars.
Roses come in many different colors, such as pink, peach, white, red, magenta, yellow, copper, vermilion, purple, and apricot. And many different shapes. This one is also very fragrant.
Here is a beautiful rose in light pink and white. Single blooms are fully opened and almost flat, consisting of one to seven petals per bloom.
Johnny Jump Ups are a popular viola. They are native to Spain and the Pyrennes Mountains and are easy to grow. Small plants produce dainty, fragrant blooms – some in deep purple and yellow.
And here are some of the first lupines of the season. These flowers are attractive and spiky, reaching one to four feet in height. Lupine flowers may be annual and last only for a season or perennial, returning for a few years in the same spot in which they were planted. The lupine plant grows from a long taproot and loves full sun. The flowers are produced in dense or open whorls on an erect spike, each flower about one to two centimeters long. The pea-like flowers have an upper standard, or banner, two lateral wings, and two lower petals fused into a keel.
Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris, grows along both sides of the path of my cutting garden. It is a clumping perennial which typically forms a mound of long-stalked, circular, scallop-edge light green leaves, with tiny, star-shaped, chartreuse flowers.
Geum, commonly called avens, is a genus of about 50 species of rhizomatous perennial herbaceous plants in the rose family, widespread across Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa, and New Zealand. They produce flowers on wiry stalks, in shades of orange, white, red, and yellow. Geum is a relative of the strawberry. Its bright and showy, cup-shaped flowers appear in late spring.
Flowers open every day in this garden and we continue to plant more and more flowering plants here. I will share more photos as new blossoms appear.
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