The next few posts will be articles I wrote for the North Star Monthly, a Danville, Vermont journal first published starting in 1807 and reestablished in 1989. I love the paper and you will too. info@northstarmonthly.com.
Summer
Gardens
It’s a beautiful morning at the flower farm. The sun
is already bright, the sky is cloudless and the birds are everywhere. The
Winooski River parallels the south side of the flower farm fields and it serves
as a direct flyway from Lake Champlain and everything in between. Each day we
are gifted with birds of all types and sizes and our visitors are able to see
birds they have never seen before. Guaranteed! The retail areas around our
office building are decorated with hanging baskets and now that other summer
flowers are in bloom, hummingbirds and all sorts of butterflies, moths and
other pollinators are plentiful and fun to see.
The period of time from when spring ephemerals fade
and early summer blooms arrive is a colorful transition that gardeners love. The
colors of daylilies, ironweeds, garden phlox, the asclepias and the various
helianthus and heleniums are just a few perennials that welcome us each year.
This timeframe has lots to see and it is always a perfect time to evaluate your
gardens and decide if there are colors, heights, or leaf textures you are
missing. A trip to a nursery or botanical garden is a way to see what others
are growing and what might work well in your gardens.
At our flower farm we grow about 600 different hostas
and 700 daylilies. June and early July are when hostas are in their glory and
daylilies are beginning to bring smiles to all gardeners. We specialize in
these perennials and are always happy to share our experience. Our hosta
display garden has mature specimens of almost every hosta we sell and this
offers you an opportunity to verify how much space you need to leave so your
garden will look balanced as surrounding plants mature too. We point out the
hosta display garden to all visitors but remember to feel comfortable asking us
for a tour if you wish. We always explain how to plant hostas so they will grow
well and we explain that although water is the best fertilizer for hostas (not
a problem this year!!) we use Epsom salts/magnesium sulfate (2 cups to 4.5
gallons of water) liberally on all our perennials, hostas included! This salt encourages root growth and for
perennials such as hosta, more roots means more leaves in less time. Give it a
try.
This morning as I write, primulas are like garden
lights that have turned on here and there in the gardens. Some early varieties
are going by but Japanese primroses are growing taller each day with 4 or 5
circular tiers of color that look so nice among the hosta leaves, the yellows
of Ninebark ‘Nugget” and popping up in the middle of the 6” dwarf Korean Solomon Seal, Polygonatum humile. The
Siberian iris, in various stages from buds to “almost bloom” are short on bloom
time but long on color and they surprise many gardeners in their adaptability
to damp or dry conditions and little care. Baptisia is a plant that hybridizers
have been very successful with in recent years and each year we offer 4 or 5
varieties we have not offered before. Unlike the older varieties that grew and
grew and grew, the modern hybrids exhibit more self-control and their height
seems to hold at 34”-36” and they do not spread “for miles” like the first
blues we might remember. Although their spreading habits have come under
control, the depth their roots grow to strongly suggests that as gardeners we
should decide where we want to plant them so we are not forced into extreme
labor to move them later on. Moving any baptisia is like moving a nine year old
peony or a 5 year old Hosta Empress Wu. Stretching exercises and sometimes the
recruitment of strong friends is a prerequisite!
Gardens are a welcome therapy to a world that offers
daily challenges. There is a peace to viewing what we have accomplished and a
sense of quiet that is nice too! If you have not tried flower gardening yet,
stop by and ask for some advice, get some questions answered and see what
perennials grow well in Vermont. Our flower farm is located at 2263 US 2, just
half a mile west of Marshfield village. We are open 9-5 every day until
mid-October. Bring a friend!
