A BRIEF HISTORY

I have been working on a history of the farm and gardens for the past few months and thought, this month, i would share a bit of it with you. For those of you unfamiliar with Bucks County, we are a place unusually rich in American history, having been settled in the 17th Century by immigrants from Europe even in advance of the arrival of William Penn in 1682. Our little town, Wrightstown, was first incorporated in 1692 and, by 1787, was a flourishing little township of 4 peaceable hamlets, 364 inhabitants, and 58 handsome, stone dwellings.



Ours, situated in a little valley about a mile east of Wrightstown center, was begun by William Warner, one of Wrightstown’s earliest settlers, who purchased the land from William Penn in 1690, but is believed to have immigrated from Blockley in England, where he was a captain in the service of Oliver Cromwell, as early as 1658. William was a member of the first assembly of Pennsylvania, and both the local deputy sheriff and justice of the peace. Although a primitive timber dwelling clearly existed prior to the present stone one, the earliest part of our house, a modest stone cabin: one room up, one down, was completed in 1723.



The second section of the house was built in 1746 by David Daws, the Wrightstown Quaker minister, who purchased 115 acres of William Warner’s tract, including the rudimentary house. This section was approximately twice as big as the earlier one, with a real second floor and attic, wide plank floors, and ammunition drawers under the north and south facing windows. Tragically, David Daws died a brief two years later, thereupon leaving the property to his daughter Elizabeth, who subsequently married John Warner, the boy next door and grandson of William, happily reuniting the parcels and reestablishing the original Warner acreage. By 1770, the recombined property was a substantial holding of 300 acres known locally as “Warnerland”.



In 1793, when the end of the American Revolution had restored peace and prosperity to the region, Isaiah Warner, son of John and Elizabeth, built the third and final section of the house. It is a courtly box of a stone dwelling, joined to the others like the biggest block in a row of three, with impressive cornerstones and a fine paneled parlor stained “original blue” with essence of blueberry. The "Isaiah Warner House" was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.



It was in the 19th Century that the Warners married into the local Thompson family, who had established one of the first, big grain mills on nearby Pidcock Creek in the hamlet of Wycombe. It was then that the road from house to mill was named “Thompson’s Mill Road”. The amalgamated Warner/Thompson clan ran the mill in Wycombe and farmed their property right into the 20th Century, their cleared acreage being given over to dairy herds and corn.



Around 1860, when the prosperity signaling the end of the Civil War again revitalized the region, two immense dairy barns were constructed on the farm, then outbuildings for storing the milk, carriage and equipment sheds, and a corncrib for the storage of winter sustenance for the herds. At the back of the house, across little Fire Creek, a small holding pond was built to keep the big canisters of milk cool in hot weather, as well as a stone icehouse.



And so the family of farmers and millers and devote Quakers of sound fortune prospered until 1918, when the last of the Warners to inhabit the property was forced to sell the historic homestead. By 1933, as the Great Depression tore through the solvency of the district, the fortunes of "Warnerland" hit rock bottom, and the property, by then so derelict it was known locally as “Skunk Hollow”, was sold at sheriff’s sale for $370.91. The former Warner seat continued its slow, poignant decline into disrepair, until 1980, when, by then reduced to a scant 15 acres, we, guided by what was surely blind providence, chanced upon it.



We began the resuscitation of the farm, the initiation of the gardens,and the acquisition of what now constitutes 100 of "Warnerland's" original 300 acres that same year. And the rest, as they say, is history.

ROSES TRIUMPHANT

The brilliant greening of spring has finally drawn to an artful close as June begins and the gardens here at the farm push towards full throttle mid-summer madness. It's a slightly an in-between time, with only a few perennials (salvia, early astilbe, the last of the baptisia) adding sparkle to the borders, and the mock oranges and deutzias picking up the post-azalea slack a bit in the wooded areas. However, on full tilt, magnificent display right now are roses everywhere I turn my head, and it is a few of these I choose to share with you this month.



As much as I admire them, I eye roses with a slightly jaundiced eye as so many of them can be whiney and tempermental if they're not sufficiently coddled and cosseted, and anyone who has weathered the devestations of an onslaught of Japanese beetles will thoroughly understand a certain amount of hesitancy on my part. Yet, that said, there are plenty of rose types that seem to be doing swimmingly here on the farm right now with only a modicum of maintenance or consideration.



Our most magnificent must surely be the white "Bobbie James" rambler, with a multiple trunk the size of a small grove of saplings, that climbs a Boulevard Cypress in the perennial borders. Planted nearly twenty years ago now, it has consumed the cypress, which it uses for all intents as a servicable tuteur. It's been so successful, that we've planted more "Bobbie James" and "Wedding Day" on the other three of the quartet of cypresses puctuating the middle of the borders, and will simply allow them to consume their proprietary trees as well.



Rivaling it at the top of the pine and dogwood allee must surely be the immense pink shrub rose (name forgotten)that inhabits the 18 foot tall urn that is the visual punctuation point there. The whole affair must be twenty-five feet tall on its stone plinth, which is alot of rose. In the nearby lane to the Italian Garden, Fairy Roses dance above stands of Nepeta and commingle with Pink Carpet Rose, and, in the perennial borders, a quartet of Pink Fairy Roses enliven their space, with white shrub roses cascading on the post and rail fences behind them.



On the side of the chicken house, the marvelous old-fashioned hybrid musk "Sally Holmes" spreads her charms above the herb garden, and, in the French Garden, the 1930 heirloom "New Dawn" is scrambling up the rose hoops around the perimeter of the garden, encircling the box-edged parterre beds in a happy blush of color.



Down below the terraces on the south side of the house, a bevy of the incredibly easy care and long-blooming new Pink "Knock Out" roses are strutting there stuff. A tough and hardy shrub type, Pink Knock Outs are blissfully drought and mildew tolerant, blackspot resistant, and will continue blooming right until first frost.



But my favorits must surely be the exquisite David Austin rose "Sweet Juliet", also currently in bloom down below the terraces. An almost peony-like peachy blossom flushed with yellow, it has the most ethereal, sweet, lemony scent imaginable, and I have cut armloads to lavish our rooms right now. Surely, roses can be a trial to culture but, equally surely, they are one of the garden season's most intoxicating triumphs.

A NEW FRUIT BORDER

We have been gardening at Hortulus Farm for 30 years now and, in that time, we have established a total of 22 separate gardens, linked by lawns and paths, on about 30 of our 100 acres. In recent years, however, although we have made a few in roads into expanding some of the gardens, I had, frankly, thought we had reached our limit, both in terms of available square footage and our ability to manage another square inch of cultivated terra firma.



Therefore, I was completely surprised two late summers ago to find myself positively yearning for another garden. I had just finished the second volume in my edible gardening trilogy 75 Remarkable Fruits for Your Garden, and had made the acquaintance of so many fascinating fruit varieties previously unknown to me that I was determined to have them for my own. To wit: an exotic fruit border. A strip of loamy, up-turned soil planted just as one would a decorative border, with the crawly groundcover types at the front, mid-sized plants and shrubs in mid-border, and the tall brutes and viners at the back.



But my problem was: where? What patch of our precincts had the requisite amount of sun, was within a companionable distance to the house, and would provide the correct aesthetic particulars? Mother Nature swept aside the veil of improbability as I rounded the corner of the upper barn one August day and chanced upon a stretch of accomodating post and rail fencing enclosing the western curve of the riding ring. Across it, one could glimpse our three Suffolk sheep (the Mitford sisters) in the adjoining pasture and, in the distance, the tumble of the pool garden fountain in its shimmering disc of water: a view that was, in truth, a bit too naked from that vantage point and crying out for some suitable green screening.



I got out my marking paint and described an undulating bed joined to an old stand of elderberry and peonies at the north end and the upper corner of the barn at the south end. Then I started ordering -- mainly from Raintree Nursery and One Green World, two estimable purveyors of exotic fruits. The main anchors would be several Sea Buckthorns (Hippophae rhammnoides) up against the fenceline, a variegated Cornus mas in place of honor, a Wolfberry (Goji) (Lycium barbarum) on the fenceline, and the deep burgundy elderberry (Sambucus nigra) "Black Beauty" up against the barn.



In mid-border, I planted 3 varieties of Honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea var. edulis), "Blue Sky", Blue Pacific", and "Kamchatka", 2 Goumis (Eleagnus multiflora) "Sweet Scarlet, a "Toyo Nishiki" Quince (Chaenomeles), and 2 types of Gooseberry (Ribes hirtellum), "Jahn's Prarie" and "Captivator". And, finally in the front row, some nice clouds of the Strawberry "Tristar" the Lingonberry "Red Pearl", 8 dwarf Blueberries "Tophat", and the Arctic Rapberries "Beta" and "Sophia".



All specimens were mightily infant upon arrival and, now, in their second full season, are just beginning to gain sufficient stature to give a flavor of their future glory. Most have put on a dainty spring show of flowers and I am hoping for a starter crop of berries from a few of them come mid-summer, each of these offering a bandbox complement of health benefits and taste treats. Come back, however, in a couple of years to get the real picture i hold so firmly in my imagination, when I, harvest basket dangling from the crook of my elbow, will truly reap what I have sown. Ah: the glories of gardening!

Although you would hardly know it with the snows swirling and the winds wailing, there's a touch of spring afoot in Bucks County.



At Hortulus Farm Nursery, we have been busy preparing the greenhouses and perennial fields for a grand new opening in May.



For Hortulus Farm Nursery, Spring 2009 will herald a return to the fine, owner-run and stocked horticultural experience you have so generously supported in the past.



Please visit us then to browse what we promise will be an extraordinary collection of the truly rare and exotic, fantastic standards, topiaries, espaliers, and tropicals, and the most unusual and attractive perennials and annuals available anywhere.



We look forward to welcoming you in the spring. Stay warm!

This is another moment when, through a sterling combination of impressive seasonal showmanship and tried and true performance, we are compelled to swoon over a particular genus of plant. At this time of year, when we’re awfully happy for any sustaining blossom, our vote goes to that gorgeous autumnal garden stalwart, the hydrangea, so here we will stop to laud a few varieties that have worked well for us on the farm. Probably the world’s most popular hydrangea is the “PeeGee”, correctly Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’, which can grow to a spectacular nine feet tall, although ours are grafted as standards onto some accommodating rootstock and stand sentinel in a group of six around our pool. The name "paniculata" comes from the fact that the blooms are cone rather than ball-shaped, ‘Grandiflora’, of course, signifying extremely impressive ten inch panicles of white/green aging to rusty-tipped splendor. Also notable is the brawny Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva’: we have planted an allee of them, interspersed with white pines, caryopteris ‘Longwood Blue’ and bordered with yellow-blooming potentilla, up above our pool garden, and they never fail to impress. All of the paniculatas are nicely hardy to Zone 3, may be pruned anytime save when they begin forming blossoms in summer, and, unlike many hydrangeas, can take a full day of sun if they get adequate moisture.



The hydrangea we most identify with summer, seen in our mind’s eye banking white clapboard houses with blue clouds of blossom amidst emerald lawns, are the lovely white, pink, or blue “mopheads” and “lacecaps” of the species Hydrangea macrophylla (“big-leaved hydrangea”). Some of the varieties that have worked well for us, all being small, deciduous shrubs hardy to minus twenty degrees, are the “mopheads” ‘Ami Pasquier,’ ‘Hamburg‘, ‘Nigra‘, and ‘Nikko Blue‘, and the “lacecaps” ‘Blue Wave‘, ‘Geoffrey Chadbund‘, ‘Mariesii‘, and ‘White Wave‘. Another valuable hydrangea variety is the laudable quercifolia or “Oakleaf” Hydrangea, as its large, deeply lobed leaves resemble those of the oak, which we have used in combination with magnolias and shrub chestnuts (aesculus parviflora) on the southern bank of the big pond.



An all season stunner, the quercifolia’s cinnamon-colored bark lights up the winter landscape as surely as the red or yellow whips of a witch hazel, then is followed by richly textured, bright green leaves green in spring, huge, conical heads of brilliant white florets in summer, and, finally, as autumn arrives, a dazzling show of red, orange, and maroon foliage. 'Snowflake' is probably the most popular variety, with its impressive size, and large pale green flowers turning to white, then gradually fading to a lovely rosy pink. Also nicely hardy through Zone 4b/5a. And finally, let us recommend the fantastic climbing hydrangea Hydrangea anomala petiolaris, which currently decorates the side of one of our barns. Although a bit slow to acclimate, this rangy, hardy to Zone 4 rambler will cling handily to eventually cover a wall with bright, cinnamon-colored branches, handsome shiny green foliage, and gorgeous white blossoms blooming in mid-June.



Let us deal here with the idea of changing a given hydrangea cultivar’s color from pink to blue or visa versa. First of all, yes, it is possible, although it is much easier to change a hydrangea from pink to blue than it is from blue to pink, and one cannot change a white hydrangea at all. Changing a hydrangea from pink to blue entails adding aluminum to the soil; moving the color dial from blue to pink requires the reverse i.e. the subtraction of aluminum from the soil. To get one of those marvelous deep blue types, simply apply a solution of 1 teaspoon of aluminum sulfate per gallon of water to plants throughout the growing season, taking care not to burn the roots. However, to insure that the aluminum is made available to the plant, it is important that the pH of the soil be lower than 5.5: the lower the pH, the bluer the flowers. Plants grown in soil with a pH level higher than 7 may also lack iron, and iron may need to be added in some dosage as well.



Also, a final word on cutting hydrangea blossoms for drying, which is just the thing to do this month. Don’t do it at the height of their color: fresh, recently opened blooms, rarely dry well in the open air. Hydrangeas do best when allowed to dry a bit on the plant before picking, so try harvesting right now when the petals have begun to take on a vintage look. As well, if left on the shrub a bit longer, many blooms will take on interesting shades of burgundy and pink in the bargain. Picked at the correct moment (why not today?), these stately dried blossoms will provide a handsome decorative statement in your home right through till spring.

Last week I was lucky enough to be asked by my friend Patrick Chasse, the eminent garden designer and founder of the Beatrix Farrand Society in Mount Desert, Maine, to lecture for them and tour a few Maine gardens in the process. For those of you who don't know, Beatrix Farrand, niece of Edith Wharton, was one of our earliest and greatest American female landscape architects, and designed such notable gardens as the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, the gardens of Princeton University and the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.



She founded a horticultural study center at Reef Point, her family home, in Bar Harbor, Maine, which she ran until the early 1950's, when she was unable to raise ongoing funding and, dismantling her ancestral home and garden, moved to nearby Garland Farm for the last three years of her life. The mission of the Beatrix Farrand Society is to preserve Garland Farm as a nexus for information, research, and activites concerning Beatrix Farrand, including a Design and Horticultural Reference Library, a Design Archive, and a Center for Internship Studies in Horticulture and Design.



In any case, it's a fine mission and worthy of our suppport, and I was all too happy to donate my lecture to the cause. In repayment, I was happily squired by Patrick to some of the notable gardens he has worked on in Maine, including Martha Stewart's "Skylands" and the aforementioned Rockefeller Garden. "Skylands", a stately Arts & Crafts mansion built for the automotive Ford family shortly after the turn of the 20th Century and adorned with gardens by the noted early 20th Century garden designer Jens Jensen, was a rare treat. However, it is Mrs. Farrand's spectacular Rockefeller Garden that I will share with you now.



Constructed between 1926 and 1930 for Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the garden is actually two splendid gardens, a meditative Chinese Garden know as "The Spirit Walk" existing side by side with a spectacular sunken and terraced mixed border garden of astounding exuberance. The "Spirit Walk" is all moss and ferns and carefully laid stepping stones, redolent with the heavenly scent of pine needles and flanked by massive, mainly 14th and 15th Century Japanese, Korean, and Chinese statuary.



The conjoined great "Lawn" and "Oval" gardens, appearing like a stoutly walled apparition in the midst of the Maine woods, are classic Beatrix Farrand, with a strong nod to historic English borders, one side cool colors, the other "hot", in two tiers of extravagant blossom. Delphiniums dance with dahlias, lilies with larkspur, and phlox and stock, zinnias and artemesias, euphorbias and foxgloves all vie winningly for one's attention.



Patrick oversaw the revived planting of the gardens for David and Peggy Rockefeller, son and daughter-in-law of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. He explained that the gardens were designed to be in full, glorious bloom for a scant two weeks a year at the beginning of August, which used to constitute "the season" in Maine, and I was fortunate to be front and center for the show. I don't think I have ever witnessed a border so jam-packed with interesting combinations of color and blossom, both annual and perennial, and sensory revelations abounded.



As every avid gardener knows, garden touring is the most blissful form of self-education: pad and camera in hand, the sun on your back, and a garden at your feet. There are lessons to be learned and noted around every corner: this charming plant juxtaposition, that fencing or gate detail, that imaginative way of staking. What makes a garden designer like Beatrix Farrand great may be, at the most basic level, a technical feat, but what really tells you that you are in the presence of something extraordinary is a visceral experience entirely.

July begins the months of true plenty here on the farm, when the vegetable gardens start to shower us with bounty and the cutting gardens offer up armloads of fetching blossom to bedeck our rooms. This blissful fecundity also describes our animal population right now, most notably in regard to our population of birds, "populate" being the operative word.



We have had a number of females of various descriptions "sitting" for the past month or so and, as in every year, there is some anxiety as to whether all that effort will actually result in offspring. Often, when a female starts to sit, she simply disappears from view, finding some deeply hidden little nook of safety unknown to or unreachable by foxes and racoons. And, often, we have prematuraly mourned the loss of some well loved goose or duck, only to discover her leading a little parade of ducklings or goslings around the pond after a month's absence.



In recent years, however, the geese, especially, have taken to nesting right up against the house so as to thwart the attentions of foxes and racoons, who are leary of coming so close to human habitation. This last month, we have had a White Embden female nesting in our basement windowbox, a gray Toulouse sitting in the crook of our air conditioning unit, another White Embden below the kitchen porch, and our Whooping Swans taking up residence just across the driveway in front of the milk barn.



"Sitting" is far from a solitary occupation. First of all, most waterfowl mate for life and are intensely devoted, so the anxious father is never far away. As well, all the related aunties and uncles stand religious and insanely noisy guard around the expectant mother, warding off anything, including us, that violates their precincts with a great honking and hissing and flapping of wings.



This year our female Whooper sat for at least two months with her devoted husband in attendance, with, sadly, no results from her cache of three eggs. The White Embden beneath the kitchen porch is still sitting, but her nest of eggs has diminshed from a total of six a few weeks ago to just two now as something is eating them (racoon?) when she takes her occasional bath break.



However, the White Embden in the window box, two weeks ago, gave birth to two fine goslings, and, at about the same time, a pair of our mallards materialized from some cloistered spot in the woods with five handsome ducklings. But surely the most amazing birth on the farm must belong to our female Muscovy Duck, who, several years ago, nested eight feet up in the knothole of a tree near the pond. How she got herself and, eventually, her brood, in and out of that tiny space is still a mystery to me, but one morning we awoke to find her proudly leading a family of six tiny yellow offspring around the pond.



The gift of new life is one of the profound joys of the summer season, always balanced, of course, by the losses of winter, and year round fatalities pinned to snapping turtles, hawks, foxes, racoons, and the like. But that's the rhythm of the farm and, in fact, of all of nature: birth, loss, rebirth. To join in it is to reap both peace and understanding, which, as Martha would say, is definitely a good thing.