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 within the US. For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, mailing address, and cell number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com and indicate whether you are interested in snowdrops, hellebores, and/or hostas. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
Chanticleer’s Teacup Garden in May
Chanticleer is a unique public garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania, U.S., which I have profiled in three previous articles. The first, Chanticleer Part 1: A Pleasure Garden, gave an overview of this one-of-a-kind horticultural destination. The second, Chanticleer Part 2: Garden Seating, focused on the huge variety of thoughtful seating areas in the Chanticleer gardens. The third, Chanticleer Part 3: Through the Seasons, showed the gardens as they evolve through spring, summer, and fall.
The Teacup Garden in January
To complete my series on Chanticleer through the year, I received special permission to visit the garden during the winter months when it is closed to the public. As you can see from the photo above, all the “toys” are put away and most of the flowers and foliage are gone. But the minute I stepped into the garden, the word TEXTURE appeared before me as if it was outlined in neon lights. I have never had such an exciting visit to this garden because I saw it in a whole new way, and I hope I can communicate that to you.
I always admire the elegant mature trees when I visit, but without their leaves or any flower gardens to distract me, they really stood out.
Texture was also provided by smaller plants, but not the way I expected:
Hardscape, always a huge part of Chanticleer’s elegance and beauty, really dominated my visit:
The attention to detail in the paths, always a hightlight for me, was easier to see and appreciate:
I decided not to add captions to the photos in this post, but if you want more information just run your cursor over the photo. The location of the Lady in the Lake is secret so you will have to find her for yourself.
I want to thank Bill Thomas, Chanticleer’s Director, for making this visit possible, Fran DiMarco, Administrative Assistant, for arranging it, and Joseph Henderson, Horticulturalist, for providing some needed conversation in the sun so I didn’t freeze to death. I have been promised a visit in the snow, and I might take them up on it if we ever get any of the white stuff.
Carolyn
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