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Camden (Maine) Garden Tour 2014: Part 3

Posted in garden to visit, Garden Tour, landscape design, Maine with tags Camden, Camden Garden Club, Camden Garden tour, Camden House and Garden Tour, Camden Maine, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Maine, maine gardens, Mid coast Maine, rockland maine, Rockport Maine on August 6, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

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.

This post is the third in a series of posts on the Camden House and Garden Tour put on annually in mid-July by the Camden Garden Club. To read the first and second posts, click here and here. As mentioned previously, this year’s tour was the 67th annual event, quite an impressive history. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the garden club. To honor the occasion, the tour will feature “the most-loved homes and gardens from our annual tour dating all the way back to 1948….[including] grand summer ‘cottages’ and gardens, so iconic to the Maine coast.” It will take place on July 16, 2015, and I hope to be there!

Looking back across the meadow to the historic home.

The third garden that we visited on the tour was also in the countryside around Rockport. This was probably my favorite garden because of the setting and also the gorgeous English style garden. The home itself was not open for the tour, but it is an historic saltbox homestead, dating from the 1780s. Set on the top of a hill, the house has a sweeping view of the large pond and meadows below.

View from the house

As is typical in New England and especially the Camden-Rockport area, boulders, rock walls, and lichen covered slabs are everywhere on this property.

The owners had even used some of the local rock to create an outdoor dining area.

Entrance to the perennial garden in an old barn foundation.

My favorite part of the property was what the tour brochure described as an “English” garden nestled within the walls of an old barn foundation. In the rectangular footprint of the barn was a flowery oasis crammed with plants in a beautiful combination of habits, textures, and colors. I felt like I was entering a magical sunken paradise easily explored by following the sinuous, bark chipped paths. Though on a small scale compared to the great English borders, this is one of the prettiest perennial gardens I have ever visited.

My overview photo of the barn foundation garden doesn’t do it justice, but I wanted to give you some idea of scale.

The wall of the barn foundation runs along the back of these beds.

A better view of the foundation wall.

The bark chipped paths.

An arbor runs along one side

I have one final garden to show you on this tour, a garden that has everything that money can buy!

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is closed for the summer and will reopen in early September. You can sign up to receive notification emails by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.

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.

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

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Camden (Maine) Garden Tour 2014: Part 2

Posted in garden to visit, Garden Tour, landscape design, Maine, organic gardening, sustainable living with tags Avena Botanicals, Camden, Camden Garden Club, Camden Garden tour, Camden House and Garden Tour, Camden Maine, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Deb Soule, Maine, maine gardens, medicinal herbs, Mid coast Maine, rockland maine, Rockport Maine on July 30, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

The Avena Botanicals apothecary and shop

This post is the second in a series of posts on the Camden House and Garden Tour put on annually in July by the Camden Garden Club. To read the first post, click here. This year’s tour was the 67th annual event, quite an impressive history. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the garden club. To honor the occasion, the tour will feature “the most-loved homes and gardens from our annual tour dating all the way back to 1948….[including] grand summer ‘cottages’ and gardens, so iconic to the Maine coast.” It will take place on July 16, 2015, and I hope to be there!

The Avena apothecary and barn

The second garden that we visited on the tour was also in Rockport in an area of fields and farms. However, this property is a working farm used to produce the natural remedies and body-care products sold by Avena Botanicals Herbal Apothecary. Avena is a 32 acre certified biodynamic farm of which three acres are intensively planted with over 175 varieties of medicinal herbs. It was begun in 1985 by herbalist and author Deb Soule and moved to its current picturesque site in 1995. Over 100 hand-crafted products, sold there and by mail order, are produced on site almost exclusively from plants grown on the farm.

Although not a typical garden tour garden, Avena’s working farm is planted with design as well as practicality in mind. It was a wonderful change to wander through the peaceful and relaxing areas surrounding the farmhouse and see all the well-labeled medicinal plants covered with butterflies, honeybees, and native insects. The apothecary shop and gardens are open to the public weekdays from May through September, 12 to 5 pm. If you are traveling in the Camden area, Avena is well worth a stop.

Avena founder Deb Soule and her mother greet garden tour participants.

The flowers and seeds of Greek mullein are used medicinally, but it also makes quite a striking addition to the garden.

Mexican sunflower

This circular garden surrounded by a gravel path is filled with many kinds of thyme and lavender.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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Winter Interest Plants 2014

Posted in bulbs for shade, evergreen, garden to visit, Garden Tour, hellebores, snowdrops, winter, winter interest with tags 'Ballerina' snowdrop, 'Bill Bishop' snowdrop, 'Magnet' snowdrop, 'S. Arnott' snowdrops, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Charles Cresson, Christmas rose, common snowdrop, Crocus sieberi 'Tricolor', Crocus tommasinianus, Daphne odora, double Eranthis hyemalis, Edgeworthia chrysantha, Galanthus 'Bill Bishop', Galanthus 'Magnet', galanthus ballerina, Galanthus nivalis, Galanthus rizehensis, Galanthus S. Arnott, Helleborus niger, Iris reticulata 'T.S. Dijt', Leucojum vernum, Leucojum vernum 'Gertrude Wister', Leucojum vernum var. carpathicum, Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation', semi-double spring snowflake, Skimmia japonica, snow crocus, snowdrops, spring snowflake, Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn', winter interest plants on March 31, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

A beautiful winter combination: snow crocus, white hybrid hellebore, and snowdrops in the background. This was one of the few hellebores that were up and open.

What a winter! The snow is just melting and the ground is still frozen in places. Today it is 44 degrees and pouring rain. I don’t think the weather that we have had in March has reached the average highs for a normal February. All this has resulted in many problems for Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, and one of them was scheduling Charles Cresson’s 2014 Winter Interest Plant Seminars. Customers love these seminars during which Charles takes participants around his amazing Swarthmore garden and introduces them to the many plants that thrive in a winter garden.

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You can see from the preferred attire of seminar attendees that it was quite cold even on the rescheduled date of March 23.

It became clear that we couldn’t hold the seminars on the “normal” dates of the third week in February as Charles’s garden was under several feet of snow. The “rain” dates in the first week of March were equally frozen. We opted for three weeks later, March 23, and 20 of the original 40 participants could actually come that day. Thanks so much to those 20 people who stuck with us through all the rescheduling.

Charles gives the group background on his garden, Hedgleigh Spring. Plants for sale by Carolyn’s Shade Gardens are in the foreground.

Although we probably saw less plants than we have in the previous three years, I think the group appreciated them more than ever before. Just the thought that spring might actually be coming was refreshing, and Charles’s enthusiasm for his plants was inspiring. For background on Hedgleigh Spring and Charles Cresson, see Winter Interest Plants 2011. For scenes from previous years, see Winter Interest Plants 2012 and Winter Interest Plants 2013.

This technicolor crocus, C. sieberi ‘Tricolor’, caught everyone’s eye.

What follows are photos of some of the plants that we saw in the order we visited them. I hope that they will help everyone in the mid-Atlantic think spring.

‘Dawn’ viburnum, V. x bodnantense, is still tightly in bud though usually done blooming by now.

A close up of the rose-colored buds of ‘Dawn’ viburnum—-the flowers are a lighter pink.
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The old-fashioned snowdrop ‘S. Arnott’ with ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’, a February blooming daffodil.

The buds of edgeworthia were not damaged by the cold and are just starting to swell while the hardy palm to the left looks great.

The reticulate iris ‘J.S. Dijt’ was in full bloom while others were still to come.

Japanese skimmia was only slightly damaged by our subzero temperatures.

Winter daphne looked a lot worse than the skimmia but will loose the brown leaves and grow fresh green ones before spring is over. The buds are fine and still to open.

This tiny early daffodil with recurved petals, the species Narcissus cyclamineus, was much admired.

Winter-blooming hardy cyclamen, C. coum, was also beautiful.

‘Ballerina’, an elegant double snowdrop—it’s on my wish list.

A close up of ‘Ballerina’

Dutch crocus, C. vernus, pushes through old sterbergia leaves.

‘Bill Bishop’ snowdrop with its huge flowers and small stature.

Double winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, which Charles grew from seed.

A very healthy clump of ‘Magnet’ hybrid snowdrop drooping from the cold.

Christmas rose, Helleborus niger

The rare species snowdrop Galanthus rizehensis.

The variety of spring snowflake with yellow markings, Leucojum vernum var. carpathicum.

Another group of Leucojum vernum var. carpathicum.

Very rare semi-double spring snowflake ‘Gertrude Wister’, which originated in Swarthmore. Ten happy customers ordered one in my snowdrop catalogue.

Common snowdrops and snow crocus, the essence of late winter in Charles’s meadow.

The only sign of spring in the whole garden, longbract wakerobin, Trillium underwoodii, emerging.

The forecast going forward shows no nights below freezing and daytime temperatures in the 50s and even the 60s. Now I just have to get caught up somehow! It has been hard to find time to keep up with the blog and to read other blogs so I apologize to my readers and fellow bloggers.

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: Our second sale is scheduled for the weekend of April 12, but the details are tentative. Customers on our list should look for an email or you can sign up for emails by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Coming up after that is a shrub offer. If you have any shrubs you want, please email me at carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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Snowdrops at Winterthur and Here

Posted in bulbs for shade, garden to visit, snowdrops, winter, winter interest with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Galanthus 'Faringdon Double', Matt Bishop, snowdrops, Snowdrops Matt Bishop, winter interest plants, Winterthur, winterthur gardens on February 25, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

A beautiful sunset over a snowy landscape at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.

Before I get to current events at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, I want to encourage you to come to this year’s Bank to Bend lecture at Winterthur on Saturday, March 8. The featured speaker is Matt Bishop, one of the foremost snowdrop experts in the U.K. and the principal author of Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus, commonly referred to as the snowdrop bible. Carolyn’s Shade Gardens will be selling a nice selection of snowdrops, cyclamen, hellebores, and other spring flowers. The official details are below.

Celebrate the winter garden at Winterthur at our annual Bank to Bend event! This year’s featured speaker is Matt Bishop, famous snowdrop enthusiast and author of Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus. Snowdrops, winter interest plants, and plants propagated from the Winterthur Garden will be on sale. Lecture at 11:00 am; plant sale from 10:00 am-3:30 pm; garden open 10:00 am to dusk, with a special tour of the March Bank beginning at 1:00 pm. $10 per Member, $20 per nonmember. Free for WGLS and Garden Associate Members. Registration includes admission to the garden. To register, call 800.448.3883.

Not a Winterthur Member? Join now!

For more information, visit winterthur.org or call 800.448.3883.
WINTERTHUR MUSEUM, GARDEN & LIBRARY
WINTERTHUR, DE 19735
.For those of you who visit in the spring, this is the front walk right now.

You may be wondering what is going on at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens—-I know I am 🙂. Last year at this time (and every recent year that I remember), snowdrops, cyclamen, hellebores, and lots of other plants were up and blooming in my garden. I was almost done potting all the snowdrops for mail order and pick up and had started thinking about hellebores. This year most of my garden is still under at least a foot of snow. The snowdrops are frozen into the ground, which is as hard as a rock despite a few recent days in the mid-50s.

I excavated about three feet of snow off the top of pots of snowdrops. And here is what I found….

A lone giant snowdrop trying to break through to the surface.

Nevertheless, despite our frigid weather and constant deep snow cover, the minute a patch of snowdrops melts through it springs up and into bloom seemingly overnight. This never fails to lift my flagging spirits, and I thought you might like to see these brave little snowdrops in action.

This patch of snowdrops started blooming a few days before Christmas. Because it was so big and beautiful, I covered it with a plastic box before all the snow and ice started (you can see the outline in the photo), and this is what I found when I removed it.

The snowdrops under the box were in perfect shape despite repeated snow and ice and single digit temperatures.

Here is a close up of this beautiful snowdrop, which is a selection from a patch at the U.S. National Arboretum with a large flower and lovely green X mark.
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Another snowdrop that started blooming in December and didn’t seem fazed by the weather even without a cover, the early-flowering ‘Faringdon Double’.

The inside of ‘Faringdon Double’ showing its extra petals.

‘Kite’ usually starts blooming in mid-January, and when I moved the snow away today, there it was ready to open.

Some varieties don’t even need my help like the very robust giant snowdrop ‘Standing Tall’.

That is about all that is going on at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens right now. If you have ordered snowdrops, I am hoping to start shipping in about two weeks (it was February 25 last year). Eventually, the snow will melt, the ground will unfreeze, and the plants will “catch up”. Meanwhile the ten-day forecast predicts highs 15 to 20 degrees lower than our normal average and five nights with lows in the teens, brrrrr.

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: We will be selling snowdrops and hellebores at Winterthur on March 8, details here. To register for Charles Cresson’s Winter Interest Plants Seminar click here. We are now taking orders, for mail order or pick up in March, from the 2014 Snowdrop Catalogue, featuring snowdrops and other winter interest plants like cyclamen and hellebores. To access the catalogue, please click here. Please visit my Etsy Shop to purchase beautiful photo note cards suitable for all occasions, including a new set of snowdrop cards, by clicking here.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College

Posted in container gardening, evergreen, garden to visit, winter, winter interest with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Scott Arboretum, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore Pennsylvania, winter interest plants on February 15, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

A gorgeous specimen of the mahonia ‘Charity’ in full bloom in front of the Scott Arboretum offices.

Every year since I started this blog I have chosen a mid-Atlantic U.S. garden to profile through the seasons. In 2011 I covered Chanticleer, in 2012 Longwood Gardens, and in 2013 Winterthur. You can click on the name of the garden to access the last post in each series. This year I have selected the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Cunningham House, the Scott Arboretum offices and library, is the former college observatory and was named for Swarthmore’s first astronomer, Susan Cunningham.

I have been visiting the Scott Arboretum on a regular basis for over 20 years and have been very impressed with their use of plants through out the Swarthmore campus, which is beautiful in its own right. Cutting edge is an overused term, but I usually see newly introduced plants at Scott first and always displayed in unique and beautiful settings with excellent labels. In addition, admission to the arboretum is free, and parking is available next to Cunningham House.

The Cunningham House entrance is flanked by ‘Charity’ mahonia.

My first visit to Scott for this series took place at the beginning of December. The arboretum has always been very good at highlighting winter interest plants, and I wanted to see what would be peaking in the “off season”. The answer is plenty, and I had a hard time selecting photos to use here. I am glad that I visited then because ever since my visit we have had ice and snow and freezing temperatures.

The courtyard in front of Cunningham House is packed with containers planted for winter interest.

Attention to detail is shown with this creative use of pine cones as mulch in another winter container.

The back of Cunningham House is as interesting as the front, and the gardens there should not be missed.

A shady pergola behind Cunningham House, much appreciated in summer.

This close up of the pond shows that it was quite cold that day.

The evergreen leaves of Fatsia japonica ‘Spider’s Web’ and hybrid hellbores both look great in the winter.

Although the plantings around Cunningham House are lovely, the Scott Arboretum encompasses the whole 425 acre campus of Swarthmore College. The college was founded in 1864 by Quakers and is one of the oldest coeducational colleges in the U.S. It is a small and highly ranked liberal arts college with a current enrollment of around 1,500 students. On future visits, I hope to show the full diversity of the arboretum, but during this visit I stuck to the center of campus.

A beautiful allée of trees extends gracefully from the center of campus towards the village of Swarthmore below.

Parrish Hall, named after the first president of the college.

Another view of Parrish Hall. Every building on campus is surrounded by beautiful plantings.

A typical scene from the campus where dried hydrangeas, winterberry, and a variety of evergreens enhance the setting.

Another allée, this time of dawn redwoods underplanted with Italian arum.

A close up of this beautiful combination.

‘Heritage’ river birch

A close up of the wonderful bark of another river birch called ‘Dura Heat’.

Containers planted for winter interest are found through out the campus.

All types of ornamental interest are represented from bark to evergreen leaves to berries, here winterberry holly.

‘Winter Gold’ winterberry holly

Chinese photinia, P. serrulata

Korean stewartia

The Scott Arboretum was one of the first public gardens to try the shrub edgeworthia, E. chrysantha, and there are several beautiful specimens on the campus.

Perennials are not neglected, here a gorgeous yucca.

A great combination of evergreen gold-leafed yucca and ornamental grasses.

A great way to use this aggressively spreading, evergreen bamboo.

This is just a small sampling of the winter delights that await you at the Scott Arboretum. If you are local, I highly encourage you to join the arboretum so you can attend all their horticultural events. These range from staff led tours of the arboretum during all seasons, an excellent biennial plant sale with very hard-to-find offerings, smaller talks featuring garden travels through out the U.S. and the world, lectures by well known national and international horticulturists, garden tours, classes, and much more.

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: To register for Charles Cresson’s Winter Interest Plants Seminar click here. We are now taking orders, for mail order or pick up in late February or March, from the 2014 Snowdrop Catalogue, featuring snowdrops and other winter interest plants like cyclamen and hellebores. To access the catalogue, please click here. Please visit my Etsy Shop to purchase beautiful photo note cards suitable for all occasions, including a new set of snowdrop cards, by clicking here.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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Longwood Christmas and a Surprise

Posted in garden to visit, winter, winter interest with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Longwood, Longwood Christmas, Longwood Gardens on December 29, 2013 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens in the snow

Starting in late November this year, we had five snow storms before Christmas. I like snow but was already feeling a little cabin crazy when an email arrived from Longwood Gardens offering a great deal on a renewal of my long-expired membership. We usually visit Longwood for a special event, but it struck me that the Longwood Gardens conservatories are a great place to go for a walk in the winter. Renewal was easy, and Michael and I headed to Longwood bright and early the next day to test out our new indoor walking venue.

Topiary Garden

Great use of dried hydrangea flowers along the front entrance gate. I almost got killed taking the photo so I wouldn’t recommend stopping there.

Creative containers outside the cafe where we ate lunch. The food is very good, especially the soups and chilis, and members get a discount.

There is plenty to see outside at Longwood even in the winter as you can tell from the above photos. However, it was quite cold that day so we headed for the four acres of indoor conservatories. We intend to go back in January in the late afternoon and evening to see the outdoor Christmas display. If you haven’t done that, you are in for a treat. For photos of the lights at night and tips for visiting, read my post A Longwood New Year’s Eve.

Mid-morning on a bright and sunny day turned out to be a bad time to photograph the conservatories so I don’t have as many photos to show you. You will have to go yourself to see all the sights:

The Exhibition Hall featured an elaborate and beautiful tapestry composed of 18,540 Granny Smith and Rome apples floating in 4″ of water and kept in place by a hidden structural form fabricated in house.

Christmas rose hellebores lined the edges of the floor.

A close up of the apples, which came from a local grower and will be donated to a local farm for cattle feed.

Our surprise occurred as we were admiring this wreath in the back corridor of the greenhouses. We ran into our friend Scottie Pennett who works at Longwood as a grower for the conservatories. She is in charge of several of the antique glass greenhouses actually used by the DuPont family and offered us an impromptu behind the scenes tour.

Scottie in one of her greenhouses. On the left you can see a standard she is growing for a future display. Weights have been tied to the branches to make them cascade down.

The attention to detail that is required for these plants is amazing. Each one is individually groomed and manipulated to achieve the desired effect. Plants are started as long as three to five years before the time that the actual display for which they are intended appears in the conservatory. Scottie also trials plants that she thinks will be effective additions to future displays and presents them to the designers for consideration. It is amazing to think that a plant that you breeze by in the conservatories might have begun from a cutting in Scottie’s greenhouse five years before.

A fuchsia basket where each branch needs to be tied down with string to give it the proper shape.

Another plant being tied to a frame to give it the proper look.

Thanks, Scottie, after our tour we had a much deeper appreciation for your work and that of all the other Longwood employees who produce such a gorgeous show in the conservatories year after year. The Longwood Christmas display will continue through January 12.

Happy New Year,

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

Nursery Happenings: The 2014 Snowdrop Catalogue, featuring snowdrops and other winter interest plants like cyclamen and hellebores, is on the sidebar, and we are taking orders. To access the catalogue, please click here. Please visit my Etsy Shop to purchase photo note cards suitable for all occasions by clicking here.

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Winterthur Part 3: A Walk in the Woods

Posted in Fall, garden to visit with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, dawn redwood, Lirodendron tulipifera, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, tulip poplar, Winterthur, winterthur gardens on November 6, 2013 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

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.

Paved paths meander through Winterthur’s majestic woods.

Winterthur in Delaware is the outstanding Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, US) area garden that I am profiling this year. For links to gardens profiled in previous years and background on Winterthur itself, read my first post on Winterthur in late winter by clicking here. Posts about my visit in late May profiled the Peony Garden, click here, and the Quarry Garden, click here.

The Winterthur house, which is now a museum of American decorative art, is framed on all sides by huge trees.

The gardens at Winterthur are bursting with flowers starting with snowdrops and other early bloomers in February and continuing through spring and summer. By the time Michael and I visited at the very end of October, the focus had shifted to the magnificent woods. We thoroughly enjoyed our peaceful walk during which we had the garden pretty much to ourselves. My only regret is that we were about a week too early for fall color. The trees turned so late this year that I was convinced that fall color was never coming. Despite my pessimism it did arrive as you will see in an upcoming post.

Enjoy your virtual stroll through the Winterthur gardens, but don’t skip the end where I highlight two unusual sights.

Whenever you head out of the woods, you find gorgeous views of the surrounding countryside, much of it part of the Winterthur property.

The Quarry Garden in fall.

Approaching the house from the other side.

Michael standing next to a very large dawn redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides.

As we walked through the gardens, we happened upon the dawn redwood pictured above. It is a very large specimen planted in 1951, but dawn redwoods are quite common in public gardens in our area—there is even one at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens. What drew me to it was the sprays of male cones, which covered the whole tree and were quite beautiful. I have never seen a dawn redwood “in bloom”. Dawn redwoods are deciduous conifers with male and female cones on the same plant (monoecious). Technically they don’t have flowers although many sources mistakenly refer to the cones as flowers.

Michael standing next to one of the many very large tulip poplars, Lirodendron tulipifera, at Winterthur.

Tulip poplars are one of the most common native trees in our area and like all the trees around here they grow to be quite large in our fertile, deep soil. Winterthur has dozens if not hundreds of large tulip trees. However, when we visit we always make an effort to hike out to the “William Penn Poplar”, which is not in the official garden but instead on a trail that leads off the parking lot into Chandler Woods. According to the Winterthur arborist, it is likely that this tree was in existence when William Penn first visited his lands here in 1682. No matter how large I remember this tree being, it always amazes me how big it actually is. Just compare the final photo with the picture above. The actual measurements are 152′ tall and 209″ in circumference.

If Chanticleer is the most creative garden in our area, and Longwood is the most diverse and entertaining, in my opinion, Winterthur is the most purely beautiful garden and well worth a visit any time of year.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

Nursery Happenings: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is closed for the winter. Look for the 2014 Snowdrop Catalogue in early January.

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Fall at Brandywine Cottage

Posted in books, Fall, Fall Color, garden to visit, landscape design, Shade Gardening, Uncategorized with tags Brandywine Cottage, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, David Culp, The Layered Garden on October 14, 2013 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

I recently had the privilege of visiting Brandywine Cottage, the house and gardens of horticulturalist and author David Culp. I have toured these extraordinary gardens many times over the last 20 years, but always in the winter and spring as David and I share a passion for (or should I say obsession with) snowdrops and hellebores. The arrival of a special shipment of snowdrops from England gave me an excuse to make the trip and experience Brandywine Cottage in October.

Looking down on the gardens from the driveway.

Among his other accomplishments, David Culp is the author of The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage (Timber Press 2012). The Layered Garden recently received the 2013 Gold Award from the Garden Writers Association for Best Overall Book. For more information on this wonderful book detailing David’s approach to garden design, his passion for plants, and the development of Brandywine Cottage over the last 20 years, click here.

the front entrance

Fall is a difficult time to view a garden in southeastern Pennsylvania. The leaves are falling off all the huge trees, obscuring the beds and detracting from the perfection we can achieve in spring. The wonderful plants that might provide some lovely close up shots are eaten by insects, browned by drought, and beaten down by torrential rain. However, a well-designed garden like Brandywine Cottage highlights the subtle beauty of fall. It was still a pleasure to visit even on an overcast and dreary day with more heavy rains threatening. I hope you enjoy your virtual trip through this special place.

A courtyard by the front entrance is shaded by a giant Norway spruce whose roots make an interesting pattern in the gravel.

David has several edgeworthias thriving in full shade.

The vegetable garden with its white picket fence is on the left and the largest perennial border is on the right.

large perennial border

vegetable garden

Narrow paths crisscross the hillside above the house which is filled with shade plants, including hundreds of hellebores.

An opening through the trees allows a view from the hillside towards the gardens below.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

Nursery Happenings: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is closed for the winter. Look for the 2014 Snowdrop Catalogue in early January.

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Winterthur Part 2B: Late Spring 2013, The Quarry Garden

Posted in garden to visit with tags candelabra primrose, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Henry Francis du Pont, Japanese primrose, peony, Primula japonica, quarry garden Winterthur, The Wild Garden, William Robinson, Winterthur, winterthur gardens on August 16, 2013 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

A close up of the inside of the Quarry Garden with the signature candelabra style Japanese primroses meandering along the stream.

Winterthur in Delaware is the outstanding Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, US) area garden that I am profiling this year. For links to gardens profiled in previous years and background on Winterthur itself, read my first post on Winterthur in late winter by clicking here. My visit in late May yielded so much material that I have broken the posts into three parts. To read the first, which profiles the Peony Garden, click here. This post focuses on the Quarry Garden, which I think was the highlight of the tour for me.

Looking down on the Quarry Garden from the hill behind it, the fence is along the edge of the quarry.

In 1956, after gardening at Winterthur for 70 years, Henry Francis du Pont (1880 to 1969) received the Garden Club of America’s Medal of Honor. The award stated that du Pont was “one of the best, even the best, gardener this country has ever produced.” Almost 60 years later, Winterthur remains one of the premier gardens in the U.S. and has been lovingly maintained to showcase du Pont’s amazing achievement.

The view of the Quarry Garden from the walkway that surrounds three sides.

In 1962, at the age of 82, Henry Francis du Pont decided to apply his considerable gardening talents to transform an old stone quarry on the Winterthur property. Du Pont was a master of the natural garden design popular at the beginning of the 20th century and most notably advocated by the famous British horticulturalist William Robinson in his book The Wild Garden. [If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. You will discover that many ‘”new and sustainable” garden ideas were well established in 1870 and have simply been forgotten.] A guiding principle of du Pont’s designs was that the plants “should fit in so well with the natural landscape that one should hardly be conscious that it has been accomplished.” He also believed that color is one of the most important elements of a garden design.

A view from above of the naturalized primroses backed by a wall of shade plants.

To incorporate these principles, du Pont planted shade-loving ferns, perennials, and striking shrubs among the huge stone outcroppings lining the quarry walls. He also incorporated showy bog-loving plants along the stream on the quarry floor formed by the seepage of natural springs. The signature plant in late May is the colorful candelabra primroses naturalized in the wet area. I remember seeing this planting years ago and rushing home to plant Primula japonica in the only moist area on my property. Here are more views of this gorgeous and creative garden:

Japanese primroses in full bloom. Be aware that this primrose can spread aggressively in wet areas and is sometimes talked about as being invasive.

The quarry wall is intensively planted.

A view of the stream and the rock path from above.

The previous photos were all taken from above, but you can walk down into the quarry on the path at the start of the bridge.

I hope you enjoyed Part 2B of my year of Winterthur posts even though it is slightly out-of-season. The final installment will be on the Azalea Woods filled with rhododendrons, azaleas, and beautiful spring wildflowers.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed and will reopen in the fall around September 15. Have a great summer.

21 Comments »

Winterthur Part 2A: Late Spring 2013, Peonies

Posted in garden to visit with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Henry Francis du Pont, herbaceous peonies, paeonia, peonies, peony, peony gardens, tree peonies, Winterthur, winterthur gardens on August 9, 2013 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Winterthur in Delaware is the outstanding Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, US) area garden that I am profiling this year. For links to previous gardens profiled and background on Winterthur itself, read my previous Winterthur post by clicking here. In preparing for my second Winterthur post, I visited the garden at the end of May with fellow blogger Donna from the blog Garden Walk Garden Talk. I took hundreds of photos during the visit and that was my downfall. I find that the more photos I have of a potential blog subject, the less likely I am to do the post because the prospect of sorting them seems overwhelming. For example, I never did a post on the gardens I saw during the 2012 Garden Bloggers Fling in Asheville, NC, although I haven’t given up hope.

I decided that there would be no hope of actually getting the next Winterthur post up on the blog unless I broke the photos into some smaller categories. So today I am showing the images of the peony gardens, which were absolutely spectacular at the end of May. Henry Francis du Pont (1880 to 1969), the man behind the Winterthur gardens, was a voracious collector of plants from all over the world. His peony gardens are magnificent and justify a visit to Winterthur just to see them. However, Winterthur is so wonderful and varied that a visit at any time of year is a pleasure. In fact, for sheer garden beauty, I think Winterthur is my favorite Delaware Valley garden.

tree peony garden

The Winterthur peony gardens contain both tree peonies and herbaceous peonies. As I walked through them, I said to Donna I want that one, I want that one. However, I was to be disappointed because most of the peonies in the collection were acquired as unnamed plants by Henry Francis du Pont. There are accession numbers and source information but no names, and the plants aren’t available for sale today according to a Winterthur staff member who was also taking photos. So you can enjoy these photos as images of gorgeous flowers but they won’t lead you to any specific plant purchases. I hope that they will also inspire you to visit Winterthur in person.

The lilacs behind the peonies were gorgeous.

This is the same peony as the one pictured at the very beginning of the post. I think it was my favorite although it would be hard to pick one.

I hope you enjoyed Part 2A of my year of Winterthur posts even though it is slightly out-of-season. The next installment will be on the Quarry Garden filled with candelabra primroses among other treasures.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed and will reopen in the fall around September 15. Have a great summer.

27 Comments »

CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS

Archive for the garden to visit Category

Camden (Maine) Garden Tour 2014: Part 3

Camden (Maine) Garden Tour 2014: Part 2

Winter Interest Plants 2014

Snowdrops at Winterthur and Here

The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College

Longwood Christmas and a Surprise

Winterthur Part 3: A Walk in the Woods

Fall at Brandywine Cottage

Winterthur Part 2B: Late Spring 2013, The Quarry Garden

Winterthur Part 2A: Late Spring 2013, Peonies

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Welcome

Site Stats Since 11/3/10

Email Subscription to Blog Posts

Pages

Click image for links to all articles on snowdrops

Search My Website

All photos and text on this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without my express permission

Top Posts & Pages

Recent Posts

Click image to see Carolyn’s photos in The New York Times

Reader Locations (click to enlarge)

Plant Information (click for website)

Reference Books (click for website)

Places to Visit (click for website)