It's the kind of home many people dream of--a stately mansion surrounded by an amazing landscape.
Rebecca's Garden travels to Bloomfield Hills, Mich., to learn gardening secrets from Craig Masching, the caretaker of a mansion garden.
When Masching first started working on the garden, the front area was very formal. "I wanted to soften it, so we brought in weeping conifers and a lot of annuals to lessen the hard lines of the hedges," he says. The garden was also originally full of easy-care perennials, including daylilies. That's fine for most people, but he wanted to create something really special. "I rotate plants throughout the season so we have something flowering 10 to 11 months of the year."
According to the caretaker, one mistake many people make is going to the garden center in the spring and buying all of their plants at one time. "You should visit the nursery throughout the growing season. Buy plants that bloom at different times of the year."
One plant he includes in the garden is witch hazel (Hamamelis). "It's an all-season shrub. It has, in most cases, yellow flowers that start blooming at the end of January or the beginning of February. Then it's a trouble-free, beautiful green shrub through the summer, and it adds beautiful fall color." He also uses Lenten rose (Helleborus) for late-winter blooms and Trillium for early-spring interest.
To keep everything blooming longer, Masching stresses the use of fertilizer. "I start off in early spring with organic fertilizer and an acidic fertilizer for the annuals. After that, I apply it every week and vary the type of fertilizer, depending on what's on sale. As I get into the summer season, I use a bloom-booster fertilizer to encourage flowering." By early fall, most annuals start to look pretty shabby. To extend their life, he continues to fertilize through mid-September. This way the annuals last until the first frost.
Make a compost pile and recycle everything that you grow, Masching recommends. Turn any annuals and perennials that you cut down in the fall into compost. He adds ammonium nitrate, bloodmeal or other types of nitrogen to help heat up the compost and break down green plants. Then he puts the compost to good use, applying a two- to three-inch layer of compost to the flower beds. It's part of a yearlong process of supplementing the soil.
"I think the biggest mistake people make is not improving the soil. You can't just buy a wonderful plant, dig a hole and drop it in. As the old saying goes, 'Don't put a hundred-dollar plant in a fifty-cent hole.'" Prep the soil by building up planting beds with good topsoil, sand and compost.
It may take hours of work to create a masterpiece, but it's in the process that the artist finds joy. So dig in! Create a garden paradise at your home and experience the joy for yourself.
)
)
)
