Martha Stewart's Gardener Visits Logee's

We love showing our greenhouses to visitors and especially enjoyed the other day when Shaun Kass, Martha Stewart’s estate gardener and his wife, Jen, came for a tour. We started in the “Long House” where Shaun’s 6’1" stature barely fit into our antique Glasshouse. Byron is in the background smiling, pleased that at 5’ 10” he has no problem navigating the aisles. Notice the Petrea volubilous alba vine, also known as White Queen's Wreath, flowering on a trailing vine near Shaun's left arm.

Next, we showed them our famous Ponderosa Lemon

Tree that has been growing in the Lemon Tree house since the early 1900’s.

Byron’s Great Grandfather bought the lemon tree from a grower in Philadelphia and had the tree delivered by horse and buggy. The underside of the lemon tree and all its branches show the old gnarly structure. Thousands of cuttings have been taken from this tree and the fruit can weigh up to 5 pounds. Jen is holding only a one-pound ponderosa lemon that we just picked.

This is a photo of Shaun and Byron hunting for the red ripe coffee beans on our Coffea arabica plant that has rooted into the ground. The structure of the tree is upright and continues to grow tall. Every year, we have to cut the top off to contain the size. The plant still produces flowers and beans even when pruned hard. This variety is the coffee of commerce and it is one of the easiest plants to grow. Plus, the coffee plant produces flowers twice a year giving off a light, pleasing fragrance.

While we wandered through our propagation houses Jen couldn’t resist the “Sea of Streps” (Streptocarpus) or Cape

Primrose. We have 14 varieties and they all have the ability to bloom year-round with amazing color. This close-up bloom is called Streptocarpus 'Spiritual Corridor.' I find if you look close enough you can see the outline of an Angel.

Other plants that were in flower on this February visit were the bright yellow Thunbergia 'Sunlady' with its defining brown center and the "Blue Skyflower" of India also known as Thunbergia grandiflora. I was happy to see that some of our other reliable bloomers were performing for our special guests such as Plumbago indica in full bloom, gracefully cascading with vibrant pink color.

We love this shot of Shaun and Jen standing under our soon-to-be released flowering basket of Duranta erecta compacta 'Little Geisha Girl'. Unlike the regular 'Geisha Girl' variety, this form is more compact and blooms are held tighter on the weeping stems making it a wonderful hanging basket. John Lucas from Tradewinds Botanicals gets credit for this variety.

We made sure they had plenty of gifts to go home with. Here is Shaun with a popular Sansevieria, Lithops or Living Stones, and a rare plant from our collection called a Haemanthus albiflos, known as "Dappled Snowbrush." The leaves look like orchid foliage. Jen is holding another Living Stone and I have a citrus gift for them, our popular Meyer Lemon Plant with a ripe meyer lemon from our mother plant.