I always enjoy growing my own plants, but there’s something even more gratifying about rooting and growing them from cuttings.
I love boxwood, Buxus, and have hundreds of shrubs growing on my property. I use boxwood in borders and hedges, as privacy screens, as accent plants in my formal gardens, in my living maze, and of course as part of the long allée to my stable. When I can, I like to grow my own boxwood from cuttings. This process takes time and patience, but seeing them mature is very rewarding. Recently, I received hundreds of young boxwood branches that were ready to root in a cold frame behind my main greenhouse. It will be fun to see them develop.
Enjoy these photos.
I am extremely proud of the growing boxwood around my farm. I designed every border and bed. This garden has both a boxwood hedge and individual shrubs on the terrace outside my Winter House kitchen.
This is a section of my long 450-foot Boxwood Allée. It runs from my stable all the way to the carriage road that leads to my hayfields and woodlands. It is so lush and green. I take very special care of these specimens.
These boxwood shrubs surround my herbaceous peony garden.
This is my sunken Summer House garden – a more formal garden with both English and American boxwood. Boxwood is a very ancient plant. Its ornamental use can be traced back to 4000 BC Egypt. The early Romans favored it in their courtyards. The wood itself is harder than oak and its foliage is dense and compact. Because of its growing habit, boxwood can be sculpted into formal hedges, topiaries, and other fanciful shapes.
In 2017, I decided to line both sides of my clematis pergola with boxwood. There are more than 300-shrubs planted here and they continue to thrive.
This year, I designed and planted a new boxwood garden in this front bed outside my greenhouse.
I received two large boxes of boxwood cuttings. They were delivered to me by my friend and boxwood expert, George Bridge, owner of George Bridge Landscape Design Inc.
This is one of two large cold frames behind my main greenhouse. A cold frame is a transparent-roofed enclosure, built low to the ground that utilizes solar energy and insulation to create a microclimate suitable for growing or overwintering plants. Historically, cold frames were built as greenhouse extensions tucked against the outer walls with southern exposure outside Victorian glasshouses.
I always save nursery containers, so I have a good supply whenever I need them. These have large holes in the bottom for good drainage.
Ryan fills crates with these plastic reusable containers to prevent them from falling over and to keep them tidy in the cold frame.
We use Miracle-Gro® Moisture Control® Potting Mix, which feeds plants for up to six months.
Ryan spreads the potting mix across all the pots to fill and then levels the top and removes any excess.
Ryan then removes any leaves from the bottom two to three inches of each boxwood stem, so they can be placed deep enough into the potting mix.
When preparing the cuttings, make sure to only use healthy stems with no insect damage or discoloration. These cuttings are in excellent condition.
Boxwood is popular for its versatility in the garden, its foliage, and its year-round greenery. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Boxwood has dark green glossy leaves arranged opposite from each other, making pairs. Leaf shape depends on the variety; some are round while others are elliptical.
Rooting hormones increase the chance of cuttings taking root. It comes in a powder and is easy to find at most garden shops and online.
Ryan rolls the lower end of the cutting in powdered rooting hormone and taps the stem to remove the excess. Then, he sticks the lower end of the cutting into the rooting medium. He presses it firmly just enough to make it stand up straight.
This is just the first batch of cuttings. When complete, this entire cold frame will be filled with growing boxwood. It can take up to three months before roots appear.
Keeping the cuttings here in the cold frame will ensure they get lots of warmth and access to indirect sunlight. They will also be kept moist to encourage growth.
Ryan gives all the newly potted cuttings a good and thorough drink. These cuttings will remain here through the winter and then be transplanted in the outdoor “nursery” garden once they have well-established roots. And in two to three years, they will be beautiful shrubs ready to place in the gardens!
One can tell the cuttings have rooted if there is a slight resistance when gently pulling on the stem, or if new roots or growth can be seen from the bottom of the pot. It will be exciting to see how these look in the new year!
I have thousands and thousands of trees. Many were already well-established when I purchased the property, but the rest I've planted - in allées, in groves, as privacy hedges, around my pool, and in rows within my living maze. One type of tree, however, stands out this time every year - the ginkgo.
Ginkgo biloba, commonly known as ginkgo or gingko, and also known as the maidenhair tree, is the only living species in the division Ginkgophyta. It is found in fossils dating back 270-million years. Native to China, the ginkgo tree is widely cultivated, and was cultivated early in human history. Ginkgo trees have beautiful green leaves that turn a luminous golden-yellow in autumn. This time of year, the female trees also start dropping their fruits all over the ground. Ginkgo nuts are a delicacy in China, Japan, and Korea, and are prized for their flavor, nutritional value, and medicinal properties.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This year, I have so many ginkgo fruits. Female ginkgo trees produce tan-orange oval fruits that fall to the ground in October and November.
They start off high up in the tree like this before falling. This ginkgo is outside my Summer House garden and it is full of fruit.
And this ginkgo tree, another female, is the main focal point of my sunken garden. It is about 250 years old.
In June, it’s filled with beautiful bright green foliage.
In October, it is a gorgeous golden yellow. The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees. It prefers a minimum of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The ginkgo has a cone-like shape when young, and becomes irregularly rounded as it ages.
Here are some leaves as they started to change color. The leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze.
And now, the tree is bare. Typically, on one day after the hard frost sweeps down the east coast, this ginkgo, along with others at my farm and countless more in the area, drops its leaves, but with such mild temperatures this autumn, the “great fall” seems less dramatic.
The leaves fall all over the boxwood hedges…
… and in the garden beds, covering the entire area in yellow.
The ginkgo leaves are easy to identify.
They are often deeply grooved in the middle of the leaf, producing two distinct lobes, hence the name Ginkgo biloba, meaning two lobes.
Mixed with the fallen leaves is a group of newly fallen ginkgo tree fruits. The most noticeable thing about these is the smell – it is hard to miss, and the stench is quite disagreeable. The outer, nasty smelling pulp is known botanically as sarcotesta.
Inside is a single hard-shelled seed enclosing an edible kernel. The kernels are often roasted and used in Asian cuisines.
The ginkgo seeds contain urushiol, which is the same chemical that causes poison oak, ivy, and sumac, so always wear gloves and protect your skin whenever handling the fruit.
Here is a closer look at the fruit and seed. It is small and fleshy – about the size of a small jujube, or Chinese date.
Ginkgo trees are dioecious, meaning that male and female reproductive parts develop on separate plants. Ginkgo trees typically reach sexual maturity around 20 to 30 years old. Male trees do not drop fruit. This young ginkgo tree is in the northeast corner of my herbaceous peony bed. It has lost most of its leaves.
This tree is in a field east of my chicken coops and off a carriage road to my run-in paddock. It still has many leaves left on its branches.
This ginkgo is outside my raised bed vegetable garden. It is the first to lose its leaves here at the farm.
These are my newest ginkgo trees, six Ginkgo biloba Goldspire™ Obelisk trees, which I planted by my pool last May. They too have lost lots, but not all, of their leaves.
In September, I gathered the new ginkgo seedlings that started growing near their parent tree outside my Summer House. I repotted them so they could be nurtured in one of my greenhouses until they are transplanted in more permanent locations. It’s a cycle of growth, fruiting, abscission of leaves, and then dormancy for the mighty ginkgo.
This time of year, my grove of Japanese maple trees is aglow with autumn color - bright yellows, oranges, and reds.
Many of my Japanese maples are varieties of Acer palmatum - trees that have been cultivated in Japanese gardens for centuries. Over the last several years, I’ve planted many of these trees in one section of a shade garden not far from my chicken coops and tropical hoop houses. They were planted in honor of my late sister, Laura Plimpton, who adored these trees. These specimens provide countless variations in size, leaf shape, and color, creating a landscape of beauty and texture that gets better and better every year. This week, my outdoor grounds crew turned their attention to this grove, adding nutrient-rich composted mulch to each specimen, covering their bases just to the root flare, so they are all well-protected during the colder season.
Enjoy these photos.
Every year, all of us here at the farm wait for this woodland to burst with color. With more than a thousand varieties and cultivars including hybrids, the iconic Japanese maple tree is among the most versatile small trees.
Japanese maples are native to areas of Japan, Korea, China, and Russia. In Japan, the maple is called the “autumn welcoming tree” and is planted in the western portion of gardens – the direction from which fall arrives there. I love the contrast between the bright reds, oranges, yellows, and greens in this grove. The heavy leaf cover on the ground also enriches the soil and adds even more fall color.
But those brilliant fall colors aren’t a guarantee. The colors are a result of climate, weather, and environmental conditions. Here in the Northeast, fall weather usually arrives in September, with temperatures cooling off rapidly at night even when the days are still warm. These cool nighttime temperatures trigger the leaf-changing process. Unusually warm early fall weather may even prevent the leaves from turning red. This is because the color changes occur with gradually cooling temperatures – not cold snaps.
The deciduous trees above have already lost all their foliage leaving all the gorgeous colors down below.
Leaf color best develops when nighttime temperatures remain above freezing but below 45-degrees Fahrenheit. A sudden cold snap could turn the leaves more plum-brown seemingly overnight, skipping the vibrantly red stage altogether.
This year, the warmer weather lasted longer than usual, and it’s been unusually dry, but we’ve watered where necessary and these trees are still giving a good show.
Red leafed cultivars are the most popular, followed by green shrubs with deeply dissected leaves.
I also have more rare varieties. These leaves are deeply divided, but each lobe is also dissected, giving them a lacy effect.
This compact Japanese maple has narrow, sword-like leaves that are deep red to plum in color.
Japanese maple forms can be weeping, rounded, dwarf, mounding, upright, or cascading. Japanese maples typically grow about one-foot per year for the first 50-years, but they can live to be more than a hundred.
Many of the Japanese maples with green spring leaves will eventually turn to an orange color in the fall. This orange can range everywhere between a darker burnt orange and a bright, almost florescent orange.
With the right conditions, the fall colors of the Japanese maple may last for several weeks. Unfortunately, as it gets colder the colors begin to dull.
My crew is busy adding composted mulch to the base of every Japanese maple in this grove. I am fortunate to be able to make lots of compost here at my farm.
As each wheelbarrow is filled, Alex manually drops a certain amount around each tree depending on its size. The composted area around a tree should extend to the drip line of the branches, or at least cover a four to five foot diameter area around the trunk.
The crew is doing this just in time. They noticed a couple of trees had lost soil around their bases caused by run-off. Composting now ensures all the trees will be well-protected during the cold season.
Here, José uses a hard rake to spread an even layer around the tree base.
It is important to only cover up to the root flare. The root flare is a swelling at the base of the trunk where the roots begin to spread out. It’s usually visible at or near ground level.
When mulching, start the layer about four to six inches from the trunk and spread it out wide. The mulch should be just a few inches thick, and not mounded directly around the trunk.
Adding composted mulch is good to do in spring and in the fall. Not only does this look great, but it prevents weeds, gives the trees essential nutrients, and insulates the roots.
Looks great, José and Alex! This week, daytime temperatures dipped into the 50s, so it was good to get this task done.
As the weather cools even more and daylight hours shorten, the leaves of the trees continue the autumn process of drying out, and falling off until the tree bare. And then come spring, new leaves emerge again.
This project is almost complete, and the trees look excellent.
I am sure my sister Laura would be very happy to know I am taking such good care of these Japanese maples.
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