Bucks County PA Tour
The bluebell meadow at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve in New Hope, Pennsylvania (PA) USA, is at its peak right now.
My brother, Nick Walker, and his company, Cottage Industries in Wayne, Pennsylvania, did such a wonderful job on our recent home remodeling that Michael and I thought it would be fun to take him and his wife to dinner. He lives in Stockton, New Jersey, near New Hope, Pennsylvania, giving us a great excuse to spend the night in the beautiful Bucks County area and visit local restaurants and garden related venues. I know readers often follow in our footsteps so if you have any questions please email.
Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
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Our first stop was the Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, a 134 acre sanctuary for native plants with 3.5 miles of trails through various habitats. This is another view of the breath-taking bluebell meadow, featuring Virginia bluebells, mayapples, twinleaf, and Celandine poppy.
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Squirrel-corn and Celandine poppy at Bowman’s Hill.
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yellow trillium
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Quaker-ladies
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red trillium and squirrel-corn
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The real marsh-marigold, Caltha palustris, a PA native plant. Please do not confuse this with lesser celandine, Ranuculus ficaria, which is an extremely destructive, non-native, invasive plant on the PA banned plant list, click here.
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Canada mayapple
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toadshade
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yellow or eastern trout-lily, Erythronium americanum
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After a few hours at Bowman’s Hill, including some shopping in their extensive native plant nursery, we walked around the scenic town of New Hope, PA, which is right on the banks of the Delaware River. Many of the buildings date from the 18th century.
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We ate lunch in New Hope at Nektar, a small plates restaurant with amazing views of the river and town. We liked it so much we went back for dinner.
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The next morning we walked from the inn to Bowman’s Hill Tower, built in 1930 to honor General George Washington and the troops stationed near there during the American Revolution.
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The tower has spectacular views of New Hope and the Delaware River. Unfortunately it was not open so we had to look through the woods to the river.
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Next we were off to Paxson Hill Farm in New Hope, a 32 acre property with a nursery and very unique and extensive gardens.
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Sweeps of ‘Sagae’ hosta, variegated Solomon’s seal, ‘Lilafee’ epimedium, and cimicifuga near the Japanese garden.
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The Paxson Hill display gardens include this full scale, underground hobbit house.
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After a delicious lunch at the Stockton New Jersey Farmer’s Market, it was back to work at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.
Carolyn
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Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive catalogues and emails about nursery events by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information. Please indicate if you will be shopping at the nursery or are mail order only.
Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.
Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.
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CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 
April 25, 2017 at 3:09 am
Wonderful woodland pictures! I expected (stupidly) English bluebells and was delighted to see these woods and the mertensia (?) instead.
April 25, 2017 at 7:54 am
Cathy, Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, our native bluebells. I have never been able to get English bluebells to grow. Carolyn
April 26, 2017 at 2:35 am
Lovely to see them, I do love your American woodland natives so much. Used to grow them in Britain, but they won’t be happy where I am now.