Colorful summertime blooms are now growing beautifully in the beds of a new cutting garden.
Earlier this year, I began developing a more formal cutting garden down by my chicken coops. It had been my vegetable garden for several years, but now that I have a giant half-acre vegetable garden closer to my home, I decided the former space would be dedicated to flowers, where varieties would be organized in sections by size, color, and bloom time. It has come through quite a transformation. Many of the flower seeds are from Johnny's Selected Seeds, Bakers Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and Vilmorin.
Enjoy these photos.
Once the ground was warm enough, the entire enclosure was cleared, cleaned, rototilled, and fed.
By spring, Fernando started creating the raised garden beds. Landscape twine was used as a guide, so every bed and footpath was perfectly straight.
After all the beds were completed, it was time to plant the flowers, which were started from seed in my greenhouse.
And now, many of the beds are bursting with blossoms.
One of the big showers right now is the zinnia, a member of the aster family and native to Mexico and Central America.
Zinnias prefer full sun and well-drained soil.
They are highly attractive to pollinators, particularly butterflies.
The leaves of the zinnia are lanceolate, ovate, or oblong in shape, dark green, with prominent veins.
Zinnias have a wide range of heights, growth habits, and flower colors. Colors include yellow, orange, white, pink, purple, lavender, red, and rust.
The best time to cut zinnias is in the morning or evening when it’s cooler and when the stems are stiff and upright.
Delphinium flowers have showy, spiky blooms on tall stems. Blue is the most common color, but delphiniums also grow in shades of pink, lavender, red, white, and yellow.
Also known as cornflower, Bachelor’s Buttons are wonderful grown en masse. Once established, Bachelor’s Buttons sprout in the same spot year after year and produce lots of seeds, which attract small birds.
This is the tall foxglove plant, Digitalis purpurea. These add lovely vertical interest to any garden. Foxglove flowers grow on stems which may reach up to six feet in height, depending on the variety. The downward-facing, tapered, tubular flowers are spotted inside with dark purple edged in white on the lower lip, which serves as a landing platform for pollinators.
This is Alcea rosea, also known as the hollyhock. These plants can reach five to eight-feet tall. The flowers are large and are borne up and down a single tall stem.
Hollyhock leaves are large with a rounded heart-shape.
I have long loved snapdragons, Antirrhinum majus, and have a bed of these growing in the garden. Snapdragons are available in most colors except blue and coordinate well with other garden bloomers.
Snapdragons are known for wispy jaw-like upper and lower petals. A single stem averages 10 to 15 of these unique blooms, grouped closely together.
The snapdragon’s alternate, lanceolate leaves are arranged in a spiral around the stem.
Scabiosa, also known as Pincushion Flower, is a versatile cut flower. With its spiky ball center and strong wiry stems, it is popularly used fresh and dried.
I also have my potted figs in this garden and this season, there are so many fruits! Figs, Ficus carica, are members of the mulberry family and are indigenous to Asiatic Turkey, northern India, and warm Mediterranean climates, where they thrive in full sun.
The fig tree has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant.
I hope your flower gardens are also doing wonderfully this year.
Part of good potted plant maintenance is knowing when it's time to repot.
Out in my Winter House courtyard is a handsome potted Pittosporum - a dense, low-maintenance evergreen with delicate bold green foliage. The specimen had been in the same pot for quite some time and was in need of a more spacious container and fresh nutrients. My head gardener, Ryan McCallister, selected a pot that was slightly larger than its original vessel with good drainage and went to work.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Pittosporum is a tough evergreen tree in the family Pittosporaceae. It is sometimes also known as sweet pittosporum, native daphne, Australian cheesewood, Victorian box or mock orange.
One of the many tasks on our long garden “to do” list is to repot this Pittosporum. The plant is top-heavy and may fall over easily, so it is important to re-home it before the pot and the plant are damaged.
The replacement pot is about 30-percent larger. When selecting the next size, it is important not to get a pot that’s too big. Potting soil holds on to excess water, and the more soil that’s in the pot, the more water will remain – that’s good for moisture-loving plants, but not for those that prefer to be well-drained.
And always make sure there are drainage holes in the bottom of the pot. I prefer those with at least one drainage hole. It allows extra water to escape, which prevents the soil from becoming waterlogged. Drainage holes also help reduce salt buildup in the soil, since water flowing out of the hole will take the extra salt with it.
Ryan removes some of the soil from the top of the root ball.
He uses a Hori Hori to carefully go around the inside edge of the pot to loosen the root ball.
This is a Hori Hori knife. It is a Japanese gardening tool with a heavy, serrated steel blade that can be used for a variety of jobs, such as digging, cutting, weeding, planting, splitting, and transplanting. It’s one of my favorite most essential gardening tools.
Next, the pot and plant are carefully turned sideways. Notice, Ryan works on a tarp to collect any soil or debris. This makes the entire job much easier to clean up afterward.
Ryan holds the plant gently by the center stem and pulls the plant from its current vessel until it slides out completely.
The Pittosporum is now out of its pot and ready to place into its new, larger container.
Shards of broken pots are saved and used to cover the drainage holes of the new vessel and prevent soil from spilling out when the plant is watered.
Ryan pours a fresh layer of suitable potting mix into the pot. We use Scotts Miracle-Gro Potting Mix that can be used for indoor and outdoor container plants. It is designed to help plants thrive by including lava rock, which is a porous and lightweight material that provides the necessary drainage and support growth.
The root ball is scarified to stimulate growth, put in its new container and backfilled. Note how much more balanced the plant looks in its new pot.
Make sure the plant is centered and that its best side faces out.
Here, Ryan gives the Pittosporum a good drink of water. Pittosporums are not particularly thirsty plants, but do need regular watering to establish themselves and look full.
Pittosporums prefer full sun, but will also grow in part shade. In my courtyard, this plant gets six hours or more of direct sunlight.
Pittosporum has woody stems that average about eight to 12 inches in length branched with several laterals and filled with densely compacted green leaves.
Other larger potted plants in this courtyard near the Pittosporum include this pair of ponytail palms flanking the gate. The ponytail palm is drought tolerant, slow-growing, and requires very little care. It’s also called Bottle palm, Elephant’s foot tree, Elephant’s foot palm, Flask lilia, and Nolina palm.
These potted Eugenias are in the upper courtyard. Eugenia topiary, or an Australian Brush Cherry tree, Syzygium paniculatum, is an evergreen tree or shrub with shiny dark green leaves native to Australia and New Zealand.
Pittosporums can be used as hedges, clipped into shapes, or grown in large containers. It looks great in its new pot here in my sunken courtyard where I can enjoy its greenery every day.
How are your tomato plants doing? Mine are growing excellently with careful planning and maintenance.
Tomatoes, Solanum lycopersicum, grow on vines, so it is crucial to provide strong structures to which the vines can cling and climb. Some use pre-made tomato cages. I like to use bamboo for the supports. Bamboo is attractive, easy to find, and can be reused year after year. I also use natural jute twine to carefully secure the plants to the bamboo canes. Last week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, did some maintenance to the tomato crop - trimming unwanted growth and suckers, and tying the vines to keep the growing fruits off the ground.
Enjoy these photos.
We planted our tomatoes at the very end of May. Some I got from a friend, some came from Bonnie Plants, one of my longtime trusted vendors, and some were planted from seed in my greenhouse. Tomatoes grow best when the daytime temperature is between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. They stop growing above 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Tomatoes also need full sun and warm, well-drained soil.
My tomato plants are always planted deeply. Doing this helps the plant to develop more roots, and more roots mean more ability to take up water and nutrients. The stronger root system also helps the plant better survive the hot weather. This applies to tomatoes planted in the ground, in a raised bed or in a container.
My bamboo tee-pee like structures were put up last year and then re-secured this spring. Never use chemically treated wood or other material for staking climbers, as the chemicals would likely run off and go into the soil.
Two tomato plants are placed next to each upright stake. With nutrient rich soil and warm days they grow pretty quickly.
Here they are just a couple weeks after planting – already looking so robust. In all, I have a 120-tomato plants this year.
By the end of June, they were knee-hi and taller.
All the stakes are pounded into the ground at an angle, so they touch each other at the top.
Horizontal bamboo canes are also secured across all the bamboo uprights. Twine is used at each joint. Securing the tomato plants is a time consuming process, but very crucial to good plant growth and performance.
I use jute twine for all the farm projects – everything is kept uniform and as natural as possible.
By July, the tomato plants are nearly doubled in size.
It takes about 50 to 90 days for tomato varieties to reach maturity. At this stage, it is time for the plant vines to be lifted and secured off the ground.
Here are some of the first cherry tomatoes growing perfectly on the vine.
Norman wraps jute twine around the entire bed. He does this twice at different heights to secure the plants at high and low levels.
They look much better already. Tomatoes can get very heavy – one of the heaviest tomatoes I’ve grown was four pounds!
Tomato leaves have serrated, or wavy and pointed, edging along the entire perimeter. Tomato leaves are compound with multiple leaflets growing along a common stem, called a rachis. These leaves are also slightly fuzzy to the touch, which is caused by the trichomes, or multi-cellular hairs, on the plant.
At the bottom, each plant is tied to the bamboo stakes where needed. A simple figure eight knot is used. I teach all the gardeners and grounds crew members to use these figure eights, so the stems are not crushed.
Each plant is now carefully propped up and secured.
Nearby, Ryan trims off any dead or extra unwanted growth to redirect energy back to the fruits. He also removes yellowing leaves to improve the plant’s appearance and prevent disease. Periodic maintenance and pruning controls the size of the vine and encourages larger tomatoes. This can be done every 14 days until about one to two weeks before the first tomato harvest.
Ryan also removes any suckers he sees — those vigorous stems sprouting in-between a “V” of the stem and side branch. He removes the suckers beneath the first fruit cluster so they won’t slow the development of the fruit. It also keeps the plant open, allowing for good air circulation.
And, in addition to selecting different varieties for different cooking and eating qualities, consider planting varieties with different days to maturity to ensure more harvests during the season. Growing early and midseason varieties will ensure a good supply from midsummer to fall.
Maintaining the plants and checking them regularly will go a long way in keeping them healthy. There are so many tomatoes growing, Very soon, we will have many to enjoy. I can almost taste them now.
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