Spring in bloom at Dunham Massie Farm
A warm welcome and beautiful spring gardens greet visitors to Dean and Cam Williams’ Dunham Massie Farm in zone 7 Virginia. Summers are hot and extra humid in this area, so the garden’s focus is on spring, with all its fresh new growth bursting with life.
Nothing’s wasted here, and recycling is a high priority so you’ll see lots of fallen tree limbs, stumps and found items put to work. Excess organic matter is tossed on Cam’s “burn pile,” which she says hasn’t been burned in 30 years so is really just the compost pile.
Dean and Cam lived at the farm for a couple of years before tackling the yard, so Cam knew just where to site her vegetable and herb plots to make the most of those sunny spots. Though it’s hard to be patient when you’re new to a home, she says it's a good idea to wait before you plant. Watching the light levels for a season or two will give you a better idea of where your sun and shade plants will be happiest.
Add herbs to your front flower garden
The herb garden above is sprinkled with spring flowers and near the entry was the first garden to go in. The brick patio and geometric pattern of raised beds create a sense of tradition and age that fits right in with this historic home. Positioned by the kitchen door, it makes harvesting fresh herbs easy. The level surface of the patio and straight, wide paths mean Cam can make a bee-line for the ones she wants to cut and get right back to cooking. If you don’t have room for a dedicated garden like this, even a few containers near the door can easily do the job.
Grow a veggie garden with deer
The 25×33-foot vegetable garden above is a short walk from the house in another sunny location. It has an informal layout, instead of rows, because Cam just grows small amounts of this and that — favorites for the family with some left over to share with friends and neighbors. Crop choices follow the seasons, with cool-weather spinach and lettuce followed by warm-season peppers and tomatoes. The garden is surrounded by a rustic fence that’s more for looks than to keep wildlife out. Check out “Cam’s tips for living with deer” below to see what she does instead of fencing.
Tips for living with deer
Cam didn’t want a big fence around the yard to keep the deer out. She loves watching these graceful creatures but has developed some strategies to minimize the damage to her garden. Here’s what she does:
- Interplant clover (Trifolium repens) and turnips (Brassica rapa) — deer like to nibble the new green growth — in areas far from the house and gardens to entice them to eat their meals elsewhere.
- Use a variety of spray deterrents on a rotating schedule so they don’t get used to one particular formula. If she forgets to spray and loses a few flowers or some foliage, she doesn’t worry about it.
Grow deer-tolerant plants
- Daffodil (Narcissus spp.and hybrids)
- Hellebore (Helleborus spp.and hybrids)
- Japanese pieris (Pieris japonica)
- Persian lily (Fritillaria persica)
- Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica)
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Mix flowers into vegetable gardens
Working flowers into the patch of edibles not only looks pretty but attracts more pollinators, which ensures a big harvest. Besides that, there’s a steady supply of cut flowers to dress up the dinner table. Don’t forget spring-blooming plants, such as flowering quince (Chaenomeles hybrid) to add a pop of color, and provides a steady food supply for early-season native bees that are super pollinators—even better than honey bees. Later, salvia (Salvia greggii), giant coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima) and other summer flowers take over.
Give old things a new use
Whether it’s fallen branches or found objects from the river’s shoreline, Cam tries to make use of them. She comes up with ideas and farm manager Chris Brown uses his skills to build them. A lot of whimsical ornaments have come about from this creative collaborative team.
You can see several of their creations in the vegetable garden. The teepee trellis for the snap peas is made of 7-foot-tall bamboo posts leaning against each other. A wild grape vine twined around it provides something for the pea’s slender tendrils to grab on to. Cam and Chris take the trellis down in fall, store the bamboo and throw the grape vine on the compost pile. There's plenty to harvest again the following year. The garden’s rustic-looking fence was built almost 30 years ago and made to look old. Now it truly is deteriorating in places but siding saved from an old building works perfectly for repairs.
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Birdhouse whimsy
Birdhouses have a special place in Cam’s heart because they provide a place to live for the feathered friends that make Dunham Massie Farm their home. There are more than 100 charming birdhouses around the property. This enthusiasm started with the gift of a bluebird house from a neighbor. Now birds of all kinds make their home in these charming creations.
Neighborhood birds claim many houses during the nesting season. In late winter the houses are all cleaned by removing old nests to get ready for the next generation. It’s also a good idea to scrub out mud or other debris, spray with a 1 part bleach and 9 parts water solution, then rinse with water to avoid disease problems.
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Discover woodland surprises
With an abundance of mature trees in the yard it seemed only natural to develop a woodland garden, with winding paths for exploring and plenty of seating.
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Years ago Cam thought the two trees would be the perfect entrance for her winding path. Adding the arch attracts attention from a distance and provides emphasis to this subtle opening in the trees. It’s made of old tree roots and branches that give the arch a rustic look in keeping with the woodland theme.
Each year this path gets a new layer of pine needles to freshen it up and keep the walkway soft and comfortable underfoot. To create a connection between the garden beds and the surrounding landscape, Cam makes sure to use mulch that suits nearby trees. So garden beds or the seating area that have an evergreen nearby get pine needles while those with deciduous trees close at hand have leaf litter. Most of the mulch comes from the on-site compost pile, but there’s a lot to cover here. Cam splits the cost of an additional truckload of mulch with a neighbor each year. She counts on help doing this job and many others around the farm from longtime gardeners Cindy Gephard and Rosalie Brown. Their help is a big reason the gardens looks so great.
Spring woodland garden discoveries
Stroll through the woods at Dunham Massie Farm and you’ll discover lots of treasures along the way — beautiful flowers, upcycled ornaments and birdhouses like the ones you saw previously. Or how about a rotting tree trunk used as a planter for some pretty Florentine tulips (Tulipa sylvestris)? This small species type tolerates the shady conditions here and returns year after year.
Wander further and you’ll come across the dramatic-looking Japanese cobra lily (Arisaema sikokianum), a cousin to our native Jack-in-the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). Cam blew her plant budget to buy three of these beauties years ago and it turned out to be a great investment. Those three plants reseeded enthusiastically, forming a small colony just waiting to be discovered each spring. Take a seat on the rustic bench — it’s made from an old fallen tree — to get a good look at this exotic beauty up close.
Hospitality comes second nature to Cam, and she often shares Dunham Massie with the public through local garden tours. Her hope is that visitors will leave their cares behind and enjoy the beautiful views she’s created from one of the many seating areas. Continue reading to see where family and friends gather to relax on a patio surrounded by a gorgeous spring border.
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Entertain friends and family outdoors
Situated along a river, the house at Dunham Massie Farm has a great view that family and friends often enjoy after a good meal. To make taking in those beautiful views more comfortable, Dean and Cam added two circular patios—one 23 and the other 33 feet in diameter—at the back of the house. The patios’ shape was inspired by a couple of antique millstones, and Cam chose to make one the centerpiece of each patio. Circles and curved lines are her favorite design element. Whether it’s the flowing line at the edge of a border or something more definitive, such as the line made by the brick patio against the lawn, curved lines have a laid-back feel that fits right in with the warm and welcoming atmosphere here.
Easy to access patios
The patio above is smaller and right off the kitchen and family room. It provides quick access outdoors to enjoy some passing wildlife on the river or to let the dogs out to play. The millstone is between the two benches and flush with the brick and has a hole in the middle that provides just enough space for a lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) plant to grow. It’s easy to lean over, run your hands through the foliage and take in the relaxing fragrance.
A patio perfect for entertaining
Just outside the dining room and family room area is another patio. It’s bigger and perfect for entertaining larger groups. The centerpiece is another millstone that sits aboveground and provides additional seating or a handy place to set your drink.
Both patios are joined by a 4-foot-wide brick path, which is flanked by a pond on one side and a garden bed with a large tree on the other. Connecting the two spaces improved the traffic flow from one area to the next, especially for larger events. Moss and lichen on the bricks and furniture add to the casual atmosphere and provide a sense of age to these modern additions.
Site plants in the best spot in the garden
The plantings are loosely organized in beds with organic shapes — no rows or lines of hedges here! If there’s one thing Cam says she’s learned over the years, it’s to size beds or borders generously to begin with. Initially she just made room for what was going in the ground. But as plants matured or reseeded, they left little space for other plants so she’d have to add on.
Choosing the right plant for the right spot ensures that Cam has great results from spring to frost. She’ll try a plant four times in different locations before giving up on it. Fortunately, hellebores (Helleborus spp. and hybrids), daffodils (Narcissus hybrid) and tulips (Tulipa hybrids) are perfectly happy in this full sun to part shade area. Later, bearded iris (Iris hybrids), daylilies (Hemerocallis spp. and hybrids) and other summer-flowering plants will dress up this patio, hide the fading bulb foliage and add to the beautiful view.
Whether you’re walking in the woods, gathering some herbs and vegetables or just sitting on the patio watching the river roll by, there’s always something to enjoy at Dunham Massie Farm.
