The cutting garden, just north of the Garden Shed, is where the Blackberry Floral team gathers blooms to decorate the Farm. At first glance, it may not look like much is blooming. The Floral team cuts whatever has freshly come to bloom first thing in the morning while the temperature is cool, ensuring the cut flowers stay fresh as long as possible.
But there’s always something to experience, no matter the season. Early Spring’s daffodils give way to bright tulips, spiky irises and old-fashioned peonies. The delicate birdlike forms of columbine are always a delight as the Spring season progresses. Gladiolas shoot up their tall spikes of color for a brief but beautiful display in scarlet, magenta, yellow or white. Forsythia bushes, redbud trees and crabapple add their bright color on long branches.
Through the long Summer months, there are many traditional flower garden favorites and native wildflowers alike. The lupine-like Baptisia, native to the South, adds its tall candles of purple and yellow in early Summer and leaves its tall silvery green foliage in the Garden until Fall when the Floral team uses its large brown pea-shaped pods in both fresh and dried arrangements. Love-in-a-mist, though an annual, has often reseeded itself from the previous year and puts on an early show in a green feathered cloud of blue, white or purple, only to get cut again later to use the rounded texture of their purple-striped seed pods in Farm arrangements. Black and brown-eyed-susans grow side by side with the delicate pincushions of scabiosa in wine-red and palest pink. Native guara in dainty white and pink is a fine contrast to the strong form and brilliant colors of the zinnias. Intense magenta blooms on the stocky globe amaranth are balanced by spidery white cleome. Along the fence, the tall native cup plant, with its cheerful yellow blooms 12 feet tall, attracts birds to the small cup of water held after each rainfall where the leaves meet the stem. The delicate lozenge-shape burnet blooms prolifically in dark red.
Fall is heralded by the soft clouds of purple asters that contrast the bright yellows and oranges of the last sunflowers. The sunchokes with their eight-foot-tall yellow blooms nod in the wind. The old-fashioned chrysanthemums and the last of the marigolds hold out in company with the ruddy ilex. The out of control exuberance of the orange cosmos gives the garden a final dash of bright color before the Autumn frosts set in. If the Fall is mild, Mother Nature can sometimes throw a curve, and the Farm sees a second blooming of cherry blossoms on the trees.
Finally, the frosts arrive, ushering in the Winter months as the Garden falls asleep to dream of Spring.
