My azaleas are putting on quite a show at my Bedford, New York farm.
Of all the shrubs that flower in spring, azaleas provide some of the most brilliant displays. I have hundreds of them planted together in a garden that starts just outside my Summer House and runs along two sides of the carriage road all the way down to my stable. When they bloom this time of year, this area of my property erupts with spectacular color - from pure white to shades of pink, crimson, yellow, and orange. Azaleas can thrive in a wide variety of growing conditions, which makes them so useful in many different landscapes. They are popularly referred to as the “royalty of the garden,” long adorned for their brightly colored flowers and evergreen foliage.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Are your azaleas blooming? The azaleas here at my farm are looking more beautiful than ever.
My azalea collection starts in a lightly wooded area where they get lots of filtered sunlight throughout the day. A few years ago, I extended the garden down the carriage road and planted more than 300-azaleas.
These are two of my mature specimens – and they continue to flourish year after year. Plant height ranges from about three to six feet for most varieties, but rare plants can range from under one foot to well over 15-feet tall.
Azaleas are flowering shrubs in the Ericaceae family, which includes blueberries and mountain laurel. They are also all rhododendrons and members of the genus Rhododendron.
Azaleas are generally healthy, easy to grow plants. Some azaleas bloom as early as March, but most bloom in April and May with blossoms lasting several weeks.
Here they are flowering among the tree peonies. The large mounds of bold pink look so gorgeous surrounded by all the green foliage. Azaleas are native to several continents including Asia, Europe, and North America.
The tube-shaped base of the flower contains a stamen that protrudes from the center.
The leaves are often evergreen with wooly undersides. The length of azalea leaves ranges from as little as a quarter-inch to more than six inches. Leaves of most azaleas are solid green, with a roughly long football-shape.
When I expanded the azalea garden, I added a variety of different azaleas and arranged them by color.
Azaleas thrive in moist, well-drained soils high in organic matter. They benefit greatly from a few inches of acidic mulch applied around the base to protect the roots and help conserve moisture.
Azalea petal shapes range from narrow to triangular to overlapping rounded petals. They can also be flat, wavy, or ruffled.
Azalea flowers can be single, hose-in-hose, double, or double hose-in-hose, depending on the number of petals.
Many azaleas have two to three-inch flowers and range in a variety of colors from pink to white to purple, red, orange, and yellow.
Here are some beautiful, crisp white azaleas.
The best time to shop for azaleas is when they are in bloom, so one can see their bright colors and forms.
Buy plants that are sturdy, well-branched, and free of insect damage or diseases. And, avoid plants with weak, spindling growth and poor roots.
When selecting a location for planting, be sure you know the mature size of the plants so they can be grouped accordingly in the landscape – tall plants in the background and short plants in the foreground.
These beautiful bold orange azaleas are at one end of the grove closer to my stable. Azaleas prefer morning sun and afternoon shade, or filtered light.
Azaleas have short root systems, so they can easily be transplanted in early spring or early fall. Be careful not to plant too deep and water thoroughly after transplanting.
Prune azaleas after they bloom to remove tall, lanky growth or vigorous suckers that detract from the overall form and shape of the plant.
And never eat azaleas. Like its cousin the rhododendron, the azalea is a toxic plant, and all parts of the plant are poisonous, including the honey from the flowers.
Azaleas are so stunning in any part of the landscape. I am so proud of this garden – its beautiful display gets better and better every year.
It's always so exciting to see how the gardens develop and thrive around my farm.
In 2020, we planted hundreds of hosta plants down behind my chicken coop yard across the carriage road from my allée of lilac. I first got the plants as bare-root cuttings and kept them in a cold frame for several months until they were big enough to transplant. In all, we had more than 700 hostas in a variety of cultivars including 'Wide Brim,' 'Francee,' 'Regal Splendor,' 'Elegans,' and 'Blue Angel.' Now four years later, they're doing excellently, filling the space with verdant foliage under the dappled shade of the stately dawn redwoods.
Here are some photos.
I tour all the gardens on a daily basis. I check how much the plants have grown, how healthy they are, and whether they need more food or water. I also assess what areas need more filling, or if plants need moving. Right now, so many of the gardens are just brimming with color and vitality – in particular, my hosta garden.
Just three weeks ago this garden was pretty bare. I instructed my outdoor grounds crew to top dress the bed with a generous layer of mulch, but there wasn’t much to see except the bit of green from the growing plants.
A week later, the hostas were up, some opened, and others were just beginning to unfurl.
And this is the garden now – hundreds of bold, green, gorgeous hosta plants are thriving.
This garden is planted under the shade of tall dawn redwoods, Metasequoia. In this photo, one can also see the allée of lilace across the carriage road.
The area is also planted with viburnum, cotinus, Spanish bluebells, and bleeding hearts, Dicentra.
It’s hard to miss these beautiful flowers. Dicentra is an elegant, easy-to-care-for perennial for shady gardens. More commonly known as bleeding heart, it is named for its heart-shaped blossoms that dangle from slender, arching stems. Dicentra is a great companion for other shade loving perennials such as hosta, astilbe and ferns. Here it is in pink.
… And here it is in red.
Viburnums have long been one of the most popular flowering landscape shrubs. This large group of plants consists of more than 150 species and numerous named cultivars. Viburnums include deciduous and evergreen specimens as well as small trees, mostly native to North America or to Asia. The leaves of viburnum ranges from glossy green to a dull, dark green, velvet appearance to foliage that is thick and leathery.
Hyacinthoides hispanica, commonly called Spanish bluebell or wood hyacinth, is a bulbous perennial native to Spain, Portugal and northwest Africa. Each bulb produces a clump of two to six strap-shaped leaves from which a rigid flower stem grows, typically containing up to 12 to 15 hanging, bell-shaped, bluish-lavender flowers that rise from the center.
I planted lots of these Spanish bluebells around the farm.
Another favorite is Continus – a few are also planted in this space. The smooth, rounded leaves come in exceptional shades of clear pinkish-bronze, yellow, deep purple, and green.
Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi.
Hostas are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
These beautiful plants have been opening more and more every day, showing off their gorgeous leaf structures.
Hosta leaf textures can be smooth, veined or puckered. Their surfaces may be matt, shiny or waxy but are usually satiny.
This variety is called ‘Francee’ with dark green, heart-shaped leaves and narrow, white margins.
‘Regal Splendor’ is a large hosta featuring thick, wavy-undulate, blue-gray leaves with irregular creamy white to pale yellow margins and cuspidate tips.
‘Elegans’ has huge, rounded, blue-gray leaves with white flowers that bloom mid-summer.
This is ‘Wide Brim’ with its dark green leaves and wide, yellow, irregular margins. This variety prefers full shade for most of the day.
The hostas were strategically positioned and spaced, paying attention to variety, color, and growth habit.
Unlike many perennials, which must be lifted and divided every few years, hostas are happy to grow in place without much interference. In summer, blooms on long stalks extend up above the clumping hosta foliage.
Hostas thrive in sites where filtered or dappled shade is available for much of the day, but they can survive in deep shade. If you have a shady area, experiment with shade-loving plants. Hostas, with their palette of different colors, textures, and sizes have tremendous landscape value and offer great interest to any garden. I am so pleased with how well this garden is doing.
The beds in my vegetable garden are filling up quickly.
My gardeners and outdoor ground crew have been very busy in the vegetable garden. After cleaning, cultivating, and adding nutrient rich compost to all the raised beds, they started planting a number of crops. Many plants are started from seed indoors, such as the brassicas, also known as cruciferous vegetables - broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and cabbage. Other seeds are planted directly into the soil. Soon the entire garden will be filled with rows of wonderful produce.
Enjoy these photos.
In March, once the weather is warm enough to work in the beds, we start preparing them for planting.
This giant half-acre vegetable garden is doing so well. My gardener and I decide what plants will go where – always keeping in mind where crops were planted the preceding year. Rotating the vegetables gives various nutrients to the soil and improves soil stability by alternating between crops with deep roots and those with shallow roots. Pests are also deterred by eliminating their food source on a regular basis.
Look at all the beautiful beds now ready to be planted. It is very easy to plant in raised beds because of the light, fluffy, well-drained soil, which encourages vigorous plant growth.
Some of the first plants we get into the ground include the brassicas. Brassica is a genus of plants in the mustard family. Members are informally known as cruciferous vegetables, cabbages, or mustard plants. They are also sometimes called cole crops – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale – all started from seed in the greenhouse.
Ryan thinks through the measurements of each bed to assess how many rows of each vegetable can be planted in the space. He takes into consideration the number of plants and the size of the vegetables when mature. Ryan places as many as he can in the bed without compromising the needs of each plant.
This is one of our cabbage plants grown from seed. Cabbage has flat or curly, tight, or loose leaves; and comes in green, white, red, and purple colors.
My gardens are often photographed and videotaped for television, print, and social media – from the ground and from up above, so it is crucial that they look their best. Ryan lines up the plants so they can be planted in perfectly straight rows.
Josh carefully plants each one. They should be planted in holes just slightly deeper than the container depth – about half the stem should be buried. Brassicas also require exposure to full sun – at least six to eight hours per day. Lack of sunlight may produce thin, leggy plants and subpar heads.
For planting Josh uses a narrow trowel. it is made of stainless steel, with a five-inch by three-inch blade and a five-inch handle.
Josh places the plant in the hole, backfills, and then lightly tamps down on the soil around the plant.
Here’s the cabbage bed all planted.
These are Chinese cabbage plants. Here, one can see how they are planted so they all have enough room to grow. The plants are about 12 inches apart. The trick to growing brassicas is steady, uninterrupted growth. That means rich soil, plenty of water, and good fertilization.
Chinese cabbage takes about two months to mature. The plant produces dense, barrel-shaped heads of pale, thin, tender leaves.
In this bed, we planted kale. Kale grows best in full sun and likes fertile, well-draining soil to grow fast and produce tender leaves.
Depending on the variety, kale can have long, crinkly leaves ranging from pale green to almost black, with a nutty, earthy flavor. Curly kale has tightly ruffled, slightly bitter leaves, varying from bright green to purple-tinged.
Wooden markers are used to identify all the rows, so we know what varieties do best.
At the end of the beds, we also plant herbs. This is oregano, an herb from the mint, or Lamiaceae family, which adds a peppery bite and slight sweetness to foods.
We also planted a bed of broccoli. Broccoli is ready to harvest 50 to 90 days after transplanting, depending on the variety.
Broccoli is one of the healthiest vegetables and is high in vitamin-C and fiber.
There’s a lot more planting to do, but it’s a great start to the planting season. Have you started planting in your vegetable garden?
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