Terra cotta urns in Andrew Bunting’s vegetable garden.
Michael and I are longtime members of the Hardy Plant Society Mid-Atlantic Group, a wonderful organization, which you can join for only $25 per year. One tremendous benefit is the chance to go on the Fall Members’ Garden Tour, which took place this year on September 6 in Swarthmore and Media, Pennsylvania, US. We toured six lovely and interesting gardens and then enjoyed a sumptuous feast with excellent wine at the Swarthmore Fire Company. In this post, I will profile Belvidere, the home garden of Andrew Bunting, Curator of Plants at the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College.
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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The front of the Bunting house is lushly planted with grasses, unusual shrubs, and vines.
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The path from the front to the back features this lovely, healthy edgeworthia. It seems that most established edgeworthias were not fazed by the horrendous winter. For more on edgeworthias, read my post by clicking here.
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Behind the house is a large bluestone patio filled with tropical plants. It was very sunny the day of the tour, nice for viewing gardens but not so great for photographing them. There are many areas of this garden that I would like to show you but can’t because the photos didn’t turn out.
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One of the containers on the bluestone patio, great color combination.
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Andrew converted the detached stone garage into a summerhouse. This is a seating area out front.
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Inside the summerhouse—I want this room!
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Another room in the summerhouse where the outside comes indoors.
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Andrew is an expert on tropical plants, and they are all over his garden and also well represented at Scott Arboretum, which you should visit if you get a chance. The banana tree in the background started as a very small plant this spring. Andrew will cut it back and bring it in for the next two winters, but then it will get too big to store, and he will start over with a little one.
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Andrew’s garden has expanded onto his neighbor’s property where he maintains a miniature polyculture farm complete with vegetables, fruit, cut flowers, chickens, and an immaculate composting operation.
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Farm-to-table is easy when you have a beautiful handmade table set in the middle of your edible garden. Notice the tree trunk supporting the table top.
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A striking red door leads from the vegetable garden to the densely planted woodland garden. The door has peep holes to create a secret garden effect for visitors of all ages and sizes.
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A pond in the woodland garden. Although Belvidere is only 1/3 of an acre, the various garden rooms make it seem much larger. There is a surprise around every turn.
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A seating area in the woodland garden. Almost all the chairs in Andrew’s garden were created by Dan Benarcik, who when he isn’t making gorgeous gardens as a horticulturist at Chanticleer in Wayne, PA (have you seen the Teacup Garden this year?), designs garden furniture. To access his website, click here. The chairs are very elegant and surprisingly comfortable.
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This is an exceptionally beautiful and extraordinarily well maintained garden packed with plants, containers, furniture, hardscape, paths, and unusual garden features. This led Michael and I to question whether Andrew ever actually sits down in his chairs, we know we never do :-).
Carolyn
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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.
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