Plant Profile: Acanthus mollis

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A 17th century Gouache on parchment image of acanthus by Johannes Simon Holtzbecher

This week I am starting the first entry in my winter project: create a plant profile for each garden plant we feature in the various MacKenzie Childs gardens. My hope is to create a property personal data base of everything I have planted. This feature should provide visitors who are interested in knowing more about the specific choices I have made, what each plant’s care needs are, and in what gardens that plant can be found.

A Roman example of the use of acanthus leaves in stone carvings

Acanthus mollis, common name, Bear’s Breeches, is an ancient plant that originated in Southern Europe. The leaves of Acanthus have been immortalized in the sculpted designs of Greek Corinthian columns as far back as the fifth century B.C. The 10 inch leaves have been featured in carvings and artwork for centuries.

Acanthus leaves carved into the Baroque capitals on the facade of the Duomo di Siricusa in Sicily

It is a large, statuesque plant that spreads three feet and has flowering stalks shooting up to four feet. According to Armitage, who calls the spiky flowers lovely, and somewhat unnerving, it thrives in moist, rich soil but is drought tolerant once established. It is one of those amenable plants that will grow in partial sun and full sun. The glossy leaves are said to be evergreen but they will get quite tattered in a cold climate like ours (USDA zone 5).

It is easy to see the appeal of the glossy leaves

 

Around here, acanthus is a bit hard to find. I have had plant envy since my undergrad days at Cornell where the Plantations had the stunning (and sharp) A. spinosus as part of the groundcover collection. I was able to buy a plant for my home garden twenty years ago and nurtured it into a presentable colony before I moved. The leaves are reminiscent of Scotch Thistle, our emblem; since the plants are much more desirable and much less invasive that Scotch thistle, I have been on a plant quest since I began designing the property gardens. I was not able to find it in MacKenzie-Childs quantities until last spring. We planted 50 plugs into the was black hole that is the white garden with hopes that it would believe it was  in a zone 6 garden and would survive. I will update this spring.

William Morris Acanthus Wallpaper

January Tasks

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Lucky, one of our three barn cats and self proclaimed King of the Cats, supervises our winter task completion progress. Number one on his list is “Pet the King a lot”.

Some time ago, in November, Crystal commented to the blog with the following question” What do you do around the fall and winter months? What important tasks are there for gardeners to tend to during this time when the flowers are not blooming? Are you also the one who does the beekeeping? I read briefly about it on the blog but not much, is that project still ongoing?”

This fall we, and by we- I mean the people inside who actually know how to work the internet and things more complicated than a trowel, revamped the blog and moved its address. In that process, Crystal’s question got missed. In the dead of the winter, I work a lot from home- this is when I unearthed her comment and decided it would be a great blog post! It may take even more than one posting to answer her.

Firstly- In November, when she asked the question, I still had a huge number of garden jobs to complete before the “year end”. We were in the thick of Holiday decorating, in the middle on garden clean up, and not even started on the 16,000 plus bulbs I had ordered for fall planting. We had a long way to go before we would have the leisure to read seed catalogs next to a wood fire. So, where to begin; should I start from when the flowers stopped blooming or chronicle by calendar sequence? For organizational ease, I will start in January. If I am a good blogger, this will be a monthly feature.

Katie captured this beautiful sunset last night. Reason #3549 the east shore of Cayuga Lake is the best place to locate a business.

Garden Jobs:

  • Take down Holiday wreaths, trees, garlands. Compost plant components, store away bows, cones, test lights, organize, inventory, and store until next November
  • If gardens are free from snow cover, continue applying 2-3 inches of compost, taking care not to bury crowns
  • If heavy snows, knock snow off evergreens, especially arborvitae and boxwood, to avoid splitting damage

Animal Jobs:

  • Pick through fleeces, removing tags and vegetative debris to prep for sending off to wool mill for cleaning, carding and spinning
  • Check vet records of cows, sheep and cats to schedule annual vet checks and shot boosters
  • Check bee hives on warm days, add nutrient patties toward end of January to encourage queen to begin laying
  • Arrange for Libby, Brothaigh, and Dulcie to return from their “breeding holiday” with Odin

Property Jobs

  • Keep drives, parking lots, walks clear of snow and ice
  • Scrape and prep greenhouse
  • Re-install cold frame sashes
  • Wash and sanitize pots for plants
  • Extract and bottle fall harvested honey

Armchair Gardening Jobs

  • Review 2012 garden purchases, projects. Sort out the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
  • Plan 2013 projects
  • Review 2012 bulb planting, assemble lists, by garden
  • Plan and order seeds and plants for gardens 2013
  • Compose plant profile for every plant in gardens since 2007- this is my big goal for this year
  • Create a year beekeeping plan- order supplies as needed
  • Work with creative director and marketing director planning estate events for the year.

The plant search involves lots of reference material, various highlighters, and good coffee.

Well, this is a start. I can be kept quite busy with strictly administrative and planning type work in the “non-growing” portion of the year. With as estate as large and as diverse as MacKenzie-Childs, there is always something that needs doing. If I were only gardening for myself, likely I would not have quite so many tasks- that said, this list is much like the list we had as I was growing up on the farm. Clean and sharpen your tools, fix what is broken, plan for a better year, and hibernate a little.

Fred Bertram, one of our decorators, is also a fantastic photographer whose work we have been privileged to show on the blog. He shot this image of the Farmhouse last night as well.

 

Winter Has Arrived!

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A New Year. I start every January full of optimism and plans for the coming season; I think most of us do. For me there is always the need to make a list, improve the things I did not quite like, make big plans, and do a spring cleaning (early in winter!).

On the farm, we start the year with a jobs list. Our wreaths, garlands, lights, and trees that have been up since right before Thanksgiving are usually taken down after the first full week of January. I like to leave evergreens and a few white lights through the dark winter days (we are in a snowy climate) but the overtly Holiday trimmings get tucked away for another year.  The past few winters have been- in an old farming term- open winters. Maybe a little warmer than usual (a lot warmer last year) and no snow; the winds off the lake and over the fields can be biting and raw with no moisture. This year we have had some lovely (or pesky- if you have to plow and shovel it) snow. Not just a dusting but honest-to-goodness-snowman-building-let’s-sled snow. The evergreen and white lights look appropriate against the whiteness.

I will be making my seed and plant shopping lists. This year is really the year I want to do some amazing things in the production garden. The Barnsale Barn got a fresh coat of paint this fall- I want the herb squares and vegetable beds to hold up their end of the bargain. We get so many visitors; I really want that area to shine this year.

I was lucky enough to lunch with Josh and Brent of the Fabulous Beekman Boys before Christmas when they visited for a book signing. They are truly fabulous; I had a wonderful time talking shop with them about plants, bees, gardens, animals, and cheese. I was especially keen to meet them; they hail from my home county, Schoharie, in a very rural area of upstate New York. The people there have had some pretty tough breaks in recent years so it was heartening to hear how they have created a place of warmth and prosperity for the hard working folk in the area. Stay tuned, we discussed the possibility of collaborating on a special project.

So, here at the start of another year I have my clean pads of paper, my favorite pens, seed and plant catalogs, and a head full of plans to list off and begin implementation. I love the idea of the whole season ahead.

Busy Bees

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It has been a long time since I have taken the time to post anything on the blog. A busy fall with many tasks kept me away form my computer for anything but administrative duties. With the dual challenges of planting over 17,000 bulbs (whose idea was it to order that many!?) and getting the property appropriately decked out for the holidays, I just could not wrap my brain around a good garden story. I had this film in the wings, waiting to be made into a post.

Way back in August we were privileged to host master beekeeper Peter Loring Borst, who just may be one of the coolest beekeepers alive, as is demonstrated here. Peter checked over our four hives with us at midday on one of the 90 degree days (remember those?) we had last summer. We sweated up a storm but the bees were busy and content.

Katie, our super talented in house photographer and video queen, filmed our hive check with Peter. We got a unique opportunity to assess our hive care with a master. I am hoping our implementation of his suggestions will help carry our four colonies over the winter. So enjoy the video with my carefully time narration!

 

My Top Narcissi Picks 2012

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Fred Bertram, one of our decorator/teacher trainers in furniture deco, took this beautiful sunrise shot on an early fall morning

Last week I wrote about my top tulip picks. This week, I give you my top Narcissi selections. I confess, in my bulb catalogs, usually the tulips come before the narcissi. Sometimes I find myself so worn out by all the decisions I have made in selecting the tulips that I give the narcissi short shrift. It is really unfair since narcissi work so much better for creating a predictable display. They are better perennializers, rarely asking for more than an occasional dividing; with attention to selecting varieties, it is possible to have six weeks of bloom; their foliage is very tolerable as it ripens, blending into the landscape; and, most importantly, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and voles do not eat them.
A simple glance at any bulb catalog or website provides a plethora of choices. Years ago, to help sort it all out, I bought the fantastic Daffodils for North American Gardens by Brent and Becky Heath. This book helped me venture beyond Trumpets and paperwhites. Here are a few of my favorites.

Large Cupped Audubon

The Large Cupped Narcissi Audubon is one of my favorites from hybridizer Grant Mitsch. This April bloomer is the what would typically be called a pink daffodil, a misnomer, as they are really coral.

Large Cupped Raspberry Ring

Another “pink” narcissi, Raspberry Ring in a fragrant April daffodil that graces many of the gardens. I have planted several hundred in the Rose Garden, where I decided to feature only pink hued narcissi

Double Tahiti

I do not always fancy double flowers but I have quite a fondness for Tahiti; it seldom “blasts,” a condition where the flower fails to open, and has stems strong enough to support the weight of the double flower. Tahiti is featured with the red and orange tulips of the Bus Stop Garden.

Jonquilla Beautiful Eyes

Beautiful Eyes is fragrant and blooms late April, early May. This beauty, bred by Brent Heath, has multiple flowers per stem.

Double Manly

Oh my gosh, I just love this one. I think I have planted it everwhere.

Poeticus Actaea

This photo shot in the Farmhouse Garden features one of my tulip picks, China Pink, with the heirloom narcissi Actaea. When I think of narcissi, this is the one that first comes to my mind

Jonquilla Dickcissel

Dickcissel is a sweet Jonquilla that reverses the usual dark cup with a light corona that is typical of most bi-color narcissi. Blooming in May, the cup gets even paler as the flower matures.

Jonquilla Sailboat

I do not plant many single variety narcissi in the White Garden since the garden came about as a result of planting 5000 bulbs in a naturalizing mix. I make exceptions for this graceful ivory colored cutie.

Large Cupped Suada

Suada is what bulb growers call sunproof; it is a strong April bloomer that provides weeks of bright blooms.

Cyclamineus Jetfire

I love this little early blooming cyclanineus narcissi. Because it blooms so early in the spring, I locate it at critical points in the gardens, like at the Shop sign, so that I can be sure our visitors see it.

This list, as with my Tulip list, is a combination of the narcissi that strike my fancy today and, sadly, what I have pictures of. I am sure next spring I will have a new “Oh, that is my favorite” on a daily basis. As with tulips, my favorite go to sources are here and here. I also pick up a few here and here- they tend to carry the more unusual varieties.

My Top Tulip Picks 2012

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Delicious variations of Tulip Mix Melony Day

Finally, a nice, long, rainy day. We have been so busy for so long trying to keep up with the weeds and the deadheading and the harvesting and the panting (yes, still!) that gloomy, overcast day- the kind you leave your desk light on all day for- is just what we needed. I have spent the morning compiling my list of bulbs I have ordered so that we can put their images in my annual planting album- more about that later. A little lunchtime blog reading got me thinking I should post.

The greatest percentage of my selections is tulips. We treat our tulips as annuals, preferring to dig them immediately after bloom rather than allowing the foliage to ripen in place. We give the spent bulbs to our fellow employees. The reason we do this is threefold. 1). Tulips look best the first year they are planted 2). I do not label the bulbs; it would be difficult to supplement the existing bulbs either to pump up the planting or replace missing/eaten bulbs and 3). Tulip foliage is ugly and big as it ripens down.

Because I plant new bulbs every fall, I have an opportunity to change up or vary the selection. Some tulips are mainstays, necessary every year to the look of the garden, and of course, the bulb companies introduce, or reintroduce new varieties every year. Here are my top ten (This year- always subject to change)

Salmon Parrot Tulip

I love many of the colors of the exotic Parrot Tulips; Salmon Parrot, with its creams, pinks, and soft salmons, shines in most of my pink based borders

Single Late Tulip Bleu Aimable

Bleu Aimable is a color that works in all my borders, it really pops pinks and provides a striking contrast in hot color combinations. In addition, it is a late bloomer that bridges the late bulb/ early perennial display in the borders

Hot Colored Parrot Tulips

Okay- this is a cheater entry. I just love this combination of Estella Rijnveld, Flaming Parrot, and Rococo. It is a wonderfully flamboyant mix that puts an over-the-top look to the Bus Stop Border

Single Late Tulip Dordogne

Dordogne is another late bloomer I like to incorporate in many of my gardens. It brings warmth to the more pink combinations and melds beautifully with stronger yellows and reds in my hot borders

Peony Tulip Cretaceous

Cretaceous is a Peony Flowered Tulip that behaves like a blend. Some will be mostly yellow, some red, most are a luscious orange that glows and drawns you in from across the parking lot. They are floppy- but with these colors- who cares!

Darwin Tulip Akebono

This peony tulip opens into an multilayered yellow kissed with apricot. Fantastic in my Farmhouse Garden

Peony Tulip Creme Upstar

Creme Upstar Peony Tulip is very similar to Akebono, but softer. It has such a beautiful infusion of cream laced with pink- reminds me of raspberries and Jersey cream

Single Late Tulips Cum Laude, Queen of the Night, and Lily Flowered China Pink

This entry is a combination because I did not have a shot of each separate. China Pink is the quintessential pink tulip for my gardens: clear, blue pink that I repeat in various forms and saturations. The creams and purples I select are chosen to play off pinks that are the backbone of the gardens. Cum Laude and Queen of the Night are the dark purples that I incorporate by the hundreds to set off the pinks.

Oh, the challenge to narrow my choices to my top picks! I order between 50 and 70 different varieties every year but these are some of my must haves.

I placed my bulb orders in July but there is still lots of time to make selections. Some of my favorite sources are here, here, and here. Corinne, Ashlee, Sam, and I are now waiting for the crates and boxes to show up. What would you pick?

Rain on the Way

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Echinacea and summer grasses

Locally, as in many parts of the United States, we have been experiencing very dry weather. I have been gardening for 18 years and my experience has been that this happens nearly every year. In the days before many of my gardens had irrigation systems, there was very little gardening that could be done in August.

Here at MacKenzie-Childs we are very fortunate to have an extensive system that, when all is working well, keeps the lawns and gardens well supplied with water. We have a pond that serves as the reservoir for water we draw up from the lake. From the pond, a system of pipes and sprinklers distribute the water to most areas around the estate.

A Storm is Coming

From my perspective, it seems like these sprinklers were mainly designed to ensure the grass stayed green, not to water the gardens completely. In the summer, an important part of our workload is to water the spots that were inadequately watered by the irrigation system. This means hauling hoses, setting cell phone timers to move systems, and trying to avoid watering the visitors. The rest on our time is spent removing the weeds that grew so well because they got watered. However, all of the hoses and irrigation systems in the world cannot replicate a good soaking rain.

Rain across the lake

It is always a relief when September comes in with the promise of shorter, cooler, and wetter days. Last weekend was our first taste of the lovely, soul renewing autumn days to come. Ellie, one of my garden helpers and photographer extraordinaire, shot some pictures of the rain as it approached.

Rain, almost here

The Lambs are Here!

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Libby got dressed up MacKenzie-Childs fashion, Annick could not be bothered

Last fall, I made the decision to shoot for a later lambing season than we had in 2011. Additionally, I felt since our lamb opperation is more about cuteness than production, I really only wanted to have Libby and Annick have lambs this year. Our 2011 lamb ewes, technically, could have had lambs but I thought it wise to give them another year’s growth before motherhood. Small ewes are more likely to have problems at lambing. With that in mind and only one space housing all my sheep, I send Libby and Annick off to the farm we bought them from for a “date”. 

My calculations gave me May 9th for earliest likely lambing date. May 11th Annick gave birth to two ram lambs.

Annick and the boys, Cedric and Cè

Libby, remember, the Drama Queen, made sure she got her share of attention by having her ram and ewe lamb on Mother’s Day. So BAM! we got it over with. Now we just get to enjoy the lamb races.

 

Cosmos

 

Corinne (someone campaigned heavily to have a lamb named after her...) doesn't she look kind of like a Honey Badger?

 

Corinne and Cosmos share a sibling moment The essential "scale photo"

 

We knew Corinne would be the athletic one

 Simon seems to feel like day old bread (it is all in her very little brain)

 

 

And Lucky is intrigued

 
 
 

 

 

 
 

 

A Rainy Thursday

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We had some lovely rain last week; it gave us some time to get out there and take pictures before all the bulbs were finished blooming. Enjoy the slideshow by clicking on the image to move through the pictures. Check back later this week for lambing news and pictures!

[slideshow id=7]

 

 

 

Summer in March!

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Spring always comes early in the greenhouse. Here a selection of our perennial plants await transplanting into larger pots before getting planted in the gardens.

Such strange weather we have had this year. I kept waiting and waiting for winter; it never really came. Last week we had  70° and even 80° (!) days, in March, when the ground is normally still frozen. Corinne, Ellie, and I are working in flower beds, pulling weeds and flufing compost, in March. Doug has been busy raking up winter debris, worrying about grass seed, and, this week, mowed the lawn, in March. We have to choose between planting up perennials and vegetative annuals and working outside, in March. We sheared the sheep last Monday and I was relieved they would have their heavy fleeces off before it got too hot later in the week; they were panting Sunday, panting, in March. This never happens.

The sheep look like they are HUGE. We were calling them hooved dustmops.

 Here is another picture of the sheep before shearing.

Really, they look like people in those big puffy coats. Warm, yes, but they do nothing for your figure...

This is a post shearing shot…

Post shearing the girls are positively svelte, if only I could shed my winter pounds with a hair cut!

 

Okay, my rant is over. On the blog this year, I plan to offer a listing of what is in bloom and what plants might be of particular interest each week. I had not thought to start that feature so soon, or at least, not thought my list would be so extensive this early. There are a few plants that are doing their usual thing, at their usual time, but I am seeing many blooms and buds a month to 6 weeks earlier than normal. By the end of last week I had at least half a dozen of the variety specific clumps of Narcissi blooming and many more of the unknown, to me at least, varieties blooming in the White Garden, where I used a mix. Early tulips have even begun to bloom.

One of my honey bees hones in on the pollen and nectar from a blue squill

So, of course, the Galanthus nivalis (Snow Drops) bloomed on time and first. Over the past week the Scilla siberica (Blue Sqill) has hurried up to be the next to bloom after the snowdrops. Instead of blooming in April and being welcomed by all as the first bright blooms after snowdrops, they have had to compete against narcissi and cherry blooms.

Hellaborus 'Ivory Prince' is one of my favorites. We normally would see them blooming this early, but not so many flowers out at once.

The wonderful Helleborus ‘Ivory Prince’ (Lenten Rose) has really come out this past week. In a normal year, I would expect a few blooms this early but it is in full swing. Through working with the plant for 4 years now I have come up with reliable cultivation practices that have resulted in strong stands of these lovely plants. Helleborus is one of the few plants I do not cut back in the fall. I have found that they survive the winter much better if their foliage is left in tact. Technically, helleborus is considered an evergreen plant but I have found that here in zone 5- 6, evergreen perennials usually look pretty ratty by the time even December is through. When the hellebores start to bloom in March and April, last season’s leaves are very tattered and brown. I trim them off and they are soon replaced by new, glossy leaves. Both the blooms and leaves are great additions to arrangements and effective in the garden for many months.

Helleborus 'Cherry Blossom' another lovely hellebore, not as vigorous as 'Ivory Prince'.

In years past the earliest narcissi blooms occurred in early April, my earliest being the 12th. This year I have great swaths of February Gold blooming in the entry groves and the earliest yellows are open in the White Border, Long Border, and Shop Entry Gardens. One of the most surprising blooms is that of the Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnallis ‘ (Autumn blooming Cherry). The cherries came fully into bloom by the end of last week. They are still beautiful this week; unlike the lovely Magnolia trees that went from glorious blooms to sad brown trees in the span of 12 hours when the weather changed from 60° to 20° this past Monday. Cherries are used to a bit of cold weather.

This is a shot of the Narcissi 'February Gold' we planted by the front entry Fall 2010

 The White Garden looks as full of blooms as it usually is in late April.

This is an image that we normally see a month later than now. Thousands of bulbs begin blooming in the White Border.

The Cherry Blossums are welcome food for our bees. 

All of the cherries, including our Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnallis' are in bloom in our area

So, we are very busy doing all the work of April AND March. As I work in the gardens, it is very tempting to start bringing plants out of the greenhouse and just planting them straight into the ground, skipping the whole process of potting them up into gallon pots. I have some lovely violas and pansies that would perform just wonderfully if I knew the days would be above 45° and the nights no colder than 30°. But it is March; I am telling myself we have two full months before our last frost free date and at least 4 weeks before the cold hardy plants are usually safe to set out. We usually still get 20° nights into April. Farmers and Gardeners, they can never be happy with today- they always fret about tomorrow.

A very sweet viola called 'Etain'

This week’s plants of note: Narcissi cyclemineus ‘February Gold’, N.  cyclemineus ‘Itzim’, N. cyclemineus ‘Tracy’ ,N. ‘Pink Charm’, N ‘Professor Einstein’, Tulipa humilis violacea, Helleborus ‘Ivory Prince’, Scilla siberica, and Prunus subhirtella ‘Auntumnallis’.