Summer’s Bounty

SEASONAL

ALL-STARS

ROSE

POPPY

CLEMATIS

DELPHINIUM

HYDRANGEA

LILY

OTHER SEASONAL

HIGHLIGHTS

FOXGLOVE

SWEET WILLIAM

HOLLYHOCK

SWEET PEA

SNAPDRAGON

GLADIOLA

ZINNIA

AMARANTHUS

ASTER

In each of my gardens, lots of things happen in summertime. In Katonah, the farm heats up quickly and everything just dries up. It took only two years until I understood why so many of my neighbors left town and summered elsewhere. It can become very stifling in the area, as it is landlocked and the elevation is not very high. Watering the gardens is essential; constant deadheading is also very important. Vegetables grow extremely well, but flowers can become leggy and lank in these less-than-optimal conditions. Still, I can grow fine annuals, and the later-blooming perennials, such as lilies, can bloom profusely if watered at ground level.

Maine is another story altogether. Many people from the New York area, Boston, and Philadelphia go to Maine to find cool nights, warm days, ocean breezes, and other such comforts. My plants there perform extremely well all summer, but August is the month for gardens to show off. Everything in Maine, all flowers and vines, are for August show. My birthday is on August 3, and I can be sure that my terrace beds and cutting gardens are full of colorful and extraordinary flowers from the last week in July through the third week in August.

Warm dry days, cool short nights, and sufficient rainfall make gardening there a real joy. And almost everyone partakes in the homekeeping pleasure of gardening. Pots are filled with showy, tuberous begonias; cacti, aloes, agaves, and cycads, also in pots, thrive during the long, hot days; and lilies and delphiniums grow to amazing heights. One lily a few years ago grew to 8 feet tall and displayed no fewer than forty-five flowers on its stem. I cut it and gave it to my dear friend David Rockefeller, then ninety-nine years old, knowing that he would appreciate such a rare and beautiful specimen.

Another attractive feature of the summer gardens at Skylands in Maine is that they are celebrated with garden tours and lectures, which are all very well attended by garden enthusiasts.

In East Hampton, the summer gardens are also moderated well by the ocean’s proximity and the cooler coastal climate. There are great blooms in the flowerbeds but also in the borders, where the colorful hydrangeas start to bloom in August and continue well into fall. Lilies, clematis, zinnias, gladioli, asters, and sweet William abound. Farm stands are bright and colorful with hundreds of flower bouquets cut daily from the productive fields nearby. No one can resist buying flowers by the armload, as they are so plentiful and fine.

LEFT: Zinnias are such easy-care annuals that they’re great for beginning gardeners. Just give them plenty of sun and well-drained soil. Kevin made a chromatic all-zinnia arrangement in a huge bowl, grouping the various reds, such as ‘State Fair’, ‘Queen Red Lime’, and ‘Benary’s Giant Wine’, in a dome (see this page for more on domes).

RIGHT: A narrow vase of foxgloves (Digitalis) allows an appreciation of each individual flower, the speckled throats of their petals on full display. Dramatic and richly colored, foxgloves grow straight and tall in the garden, and will continue to stand at attention in a vibrant arrangement.

It’s simple to make easygoing zinnias look elegant: Use a sophisticated vase. Kevin assembled a large collection of flowers in many colors in this Chinese porcelain urn, holding them in place with a tape grid (see this page).

Lupine is another beautifully textured spiky flower that comes in saturated shades beyond the familiar purple. They can bloom from May through July; in mid-June, I love seeing vast fields of lupines in Maine. Here, their pea-shaped florets are mirrored in the hobnail glass pitcher, along with hellebores and variegated hosta leaves.

The wavy form of snapdragons is part of their allure. When they are immersed at an angle in water, an even greater curve develops in their stem, which can add interesting lines to an arrangement. To do this, Kevin positions the flowers diagonally (so they’re almost horizontal) in a wide bucket of water overnight. In this arrangement of pale flowers, he let some snapdragons drape over the edge and others stand upright, and punctuated the look with dark sunflowers to add the illusion of deep spaces within.

Gladioli in several shades have a sharper profile when some of the stems are in bloom and others still in bud. Their impressive size is played up in this large glazed ginger jar.

Delicate sweet peas grow in clusters, so they look best arranged in a natural fashion, here bunched together in a clear-glass footed compote.

Everyday flowers are elevated once placed in a silver vessel. Petite, bicolored sweet William and bright carnations form a base for (and peek through the layers of) soaring lupine and foxglove. Kevin used a cage frog in the vase, working his way from the smaller flowers to the largest blooms.