May at Chanticleer Garden-Part 1

One of my great pleasures when travelling is to photograph gardens along the way, and no garden is more deserving of a stop than my favourite small garden in North America,  Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, PA. So when we were returning from New Jersey on May 23rd, I spent 3 hours touring and photographing, beginning in the fabulous Teacup Garden near the entrance.  Back in June 2014 when I wrote my 2-part blog on Chanticleer (see Part 1 and Part 2), this garden was completely different. Designed anew each year by horticulturist Dan Benarcik, on this May day it was a tropical extravaganza with the teacup fountain at its centre and four sturdy pillars creating a sense of enclosure.

It was lush and lovely with ‘Black Thai’ banana (Musa balbisiana), left; red-leaved Imperial bromeliad, (Alcantarea imperialis), centre; and broad-leaved lady palm (Rhapis excels), right.

I climbed the staircase with the dogwood-motif railing, fabricated by horticulturist Joe Henderson. Beside it grew tree philodendron (Thaumatophyllum bipinnatifidum).

It was a good vantage point to look back on the Teacup Garden from the start of the Upper Border….

….. with its long, flanked, mostly white flower beds.  Shade-dappled in the morning light and bisected by a simple mown path, it was illuminated with the fabulous annual Orlaya grandiflora.

Here and there, the orlaya was paired with bearded irises, including lovely ‘Aunt Mary’, below.

Through the border you can glimpse the pretty building that now contains Chanticleer’s administration offices and classrooms.  The estate itself dates from 1913, when it became the summer home of Adolph Rosengarten Sr., his wife Christine and their children Adolph Jr. and Emily. Like many wealthy Philadelphians, the area along the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad became a sylvan retreat from the heat of the city.  The building below was erected in 1935 as a wedding gift for Emily.

Rosengarten & Sons was one of the oldest chemical manufacturers in the U.S. Established in 1822, it took over the plant and assets of a similar firm in 1904 to form Powers, Weightman, Rosengarten Co. In 1927 the company merged with financially-troubled Merck & Co. of Rahway, NJ, with George Merck as president and Frederic Rosengarten, Adolph’s brother, as chairman of the board. By then, Adolph Rosengarten Sr. – who became the largest Merck shareholder—and his family had converted Chanticleer to their principal home. In 1942, the fortunes of Merck & Co. – already a chemical powerhouse – would increase substantially with the first successful treatment of an American patient suffering from septicemia with the new drug penicillin. Discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928, it was “the marvellous mold that saves lives”, but it would take a huge effort by the major pharmaceuticals, including Merck, to develop it commercially.   

Back to the Upper Border, I also enjoyed seeing the spectacular Allium schubertii, here with Salvia ‘Summer Jewel White’.

In every garden throughout the 50-acre estate (of which 35 acres are open to the public), plant combinations are inspired, such as the white Allium stipitatum ‘Mount Everest’ with eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), below.

Leaving the Upper Border and circling the corner of the administration building, I came upon a lush, textural shade garden composed of hostas and plants with exceptional foliage, like Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) and solomon’s seals (Polygonatum spp.)

Heading towards the lower level, I passed through plantings with sumptuous May peonies, amsonia and old-fashioned weigela.

And I passed a gazebo topped with a weathervane featuring one of the estate’s many “chanticleers”, i.e. rooster in French.  It was Adolph Rosengarten Sr. who named his home after Chanticlere, the estate in William Thackeray’s 1855 novel “The Newcomes”, a place that was “mortgaged up to the very castle windows” but “still the show of the county.”   Today, the 9-member board of Chanticleer Garden includes six Rosengarten relatives.

The stone “railings” of the staircase to the Tennis Garden feature drought-tolerant plantings of lantana and Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’.  In the background is Calycanthus x raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’.

The Tennis Garden has had a revamp since I saw it in 2014. Now the beds are designed to look like the sweeps of a tennis racket, recalling the days when the Rosengartens played here.   

Heuchera ‘Caramel’ is used as edging along the path to draw the eye through this garden.

It was peony time on May 23rd so the Itoh Interspecific hybrid ‘Bartzella’ was looking luscious.

To one side of the Tennis Garden was the Long Border, which was using the cerise-pink perennial plume thistle (Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’). Beside it was the catmint Nepeta ‘Hill Grounds’, with dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis) in the background.

What a great combination, the plume thistle with bachelor’s buttons (Centaurea cyanus).

Moving beyond, the Cutting Garden was filled with Allium ‘Purple Rain‘, just fading, and little clouds of dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis)…..

…. which looked lovely with peonies, like ‘Prairie Moon’, below.

There is an abundance of striking furniture at Chanticleer, including this bench under a giant katsura tree near the Cutting Garden. Note that the bench has a vegetable motif, with its beet and pumpkin back and carrot legs!

Speaking of edibles, the Vegetable Garden was at its sumptuous peak….

…. including oakleaf lettuce and lots of brassicas.

And though most of the strawberries were still green, I managed to spy a few that were almost ready for eating!

My favourite transition at Chanticleer is the Fallen Tree Bridge, fabricated by Przemek Walczak, who is also the horticulturist for Bell’s Woodland and the upper Creek Garden beyond. The bridge has been enveloped in greenery since the last time I saw it in 2014.

Isn’t this the coolest interior? It leads from the sunny, tended garden areas near the Cutting Garden into the cool, shady woodland where’s Bell’s Run Creek flows.  

A planter is inset into the strut at the shady end of the bridge, complete with a lots of ferns and sedges and a nesting house for leafcutter bees. These are the thoughtful details that make Chanticleer so special.

I knew which trees were overhead because of the beautiful blossoms of tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) scattered on the ground.

I wish I’d had several more hours at Chanticleer to explore the plants of Bell’s Woodland carefully – what a treasure of natives, including….

….. large-flowered valerian (Valeriana pauciflora), below, with northern maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum).

Bell’s Woodland has a large collection of clematis vines, all arranged on rustic supports.

Bell’s Run Creek runs through the woods and features myriad marginal aquatic plants, including yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) with native yellow pimpernel (Taenidia integerrima).

Just when I thought it might be nice to sit and rest my feet, a bench appeared beside a sparkling fountain. Surrounding me were ferns and carpets of candelabra primroses (Primula japonica).

A handsome bridge crossed Bell’s Creek.

Scattered amongst the primroses were moisture-loving perennials, including Siberian iris (I. sibirica ‘Here be Dragons’), below.

Chanticleer uses the fertile fronds of ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris) to mark the perimeters of certain plantings so gardeners mowing the turf paths don’t damage emerging plants like primroses (or, earlier in spring, camassias).

I don’t know of any other garden that pays so much attention to subtle ways to educate the public, like the plant lists that are available to peruse in each garden area. They can be purchased as paper copies, but are also published online each year.  The detailed plant lists obviate the need for plant labels.

The waterwheel is a relic from the Rosengartens’ time at Chanticleer. It was installed in the 1940s to lift water from the creek to the ornamental fountains on the house terraces.  Today, it merely pumps water to the little fountain in my photo above. Note the delightful iron fence with the ‘fern frond’ motif that echoes the waterwheel’s shape. This is the work of horticulturists Przemck Walczak and Joe Henderson, who crafted it in the garden’s metal shop.

Chanticleer is a master class in paving styles, including this path through the primroses. And I loved the split bamboo hoops inserted as edging.

What a tranquil feeling I had, walking through the Creek Garden woodland……

…. right to the little waterfall, below, leading into the Pond Garden. 

I’ll finish this first part of my blog with a small musical video I made of some of the water features I encountered on this lovely spring stroll through my favourite garden.

Touring Chanticleer – Part 1

Of all the public gardens I’ve visited around the world (and that list is very long), there is one that rises gracefully above all the rest. Not for the property, though this Pennsylvania estate is second to none. Not for the labels and signage, because there aren’t any (more on that later). And not for the gift shop, because this garden doesn’t need one; it is a gift in itself. There is no Victorian carpet bedding, no rows of annuals being trialled, no visitor’s tram, no snack bar.  There are simply extraordinarily creative plantings, superbly rendered designs, intellectual interpretations of the landscape’s unique sense of place, and excellence all round.  This is Chanticleer Garden, located in the hamlet of Wayne in Radnor Township, a half-hour drive from Philadelphia.

Earlier this June, I spent a charmed day wandering the hills and rills and valleys of Chanticleer.  I brought a lunch from my hotel, but hours later had to remind myself to sit down in one of the many colourful chairs to eat it, so worried was I that I might miss a garden or two before I had to leave.

Chanticleer-The Rock Ledge

Chanticleer was originally the 1913 country home of Adolph G. Rosengarten Sr. (b.1870), whose grandfather George, the 21-year old scion of a German banking family, had founded a successful chemical business in Philadelphia in 1823 that produced, among other products, the anti-malarial drug quinine. Though not on the vast scale of Longwood, the home and garden another wealthy chemical magnate, Pierre Du Pont, had built 6 years earlier in nearby Wilmington, Delaware, Chanticleer took its place as one of the fabled mansions along the Main Line rail route, where Philadelphia society went to escape the summer heat.  Perhaps reflecting his sizable investment, Adolph Sr. named his new home after the fictional Chanteclere from the William Makepeace Thackeray novel The Newcomes, a grand house that was “mortgaged up to the very castle windows”. In French, Chanticleer means rooster, and that literary allusion is seen in the many original rooster statues and motifs around the estate, left, and also in the rooster combs in California sculptor Marcia Donahue’s playfully suggestive ceramic bamboo culms.

Chanticleer Rooster & Marcia Donohue Sculpture

In 1927, the year that the Rosengartens merged their company with Merck & Co., Adolph Sr., with his wife Christine, son Adolph Jr. (b.1906) and daughter Emily (b.1910), made Chanticleer their full-time residence.  In time he built houses for both children as wedding gifts and it is at Emily’s house near the gate (now the garden’s administrative building) where my tour begins.

In the kitchen courtyard that acts as an entrance to the garden is a collection of beautifully planted containers

01-Teacup Garden Entrance Pots

Pass through the gate from the kitchen courtyard and you reach the charming Teacup Garden, a courtyard centred by a formal parterre set around the cup-shaped, Italianate fountain that gives the space its name.  Gardener Dan Benarcik, who oversees the Teacup and the Tennis Garden below the house, has described the feeling he wants to convey here as “lush formal”, maintaining the geometry of formal design but using lush tropical plants in the beds and containers.  Though it’s early in the season for these summer heat-lovers, you can appreciate the brilliant foliage choices, including the gold-toned bromeliad Aechmea blanchetiana and the ‘Black Coral’ taros (Alocasia).  Formality is emphasized with the four standard silver willows (Salix alba ‘Sericea’) in the corners.

02-Teacup Fountain Garden

At the other end of the house, windmill palms (Trachycarpus fortunei) in gorgeous glazed pots stand sentinel in front of French doors.  The smaller pots contain golden scheffleras (S. actinophylla ‘Amate Soleil’).  At right is a split-leaf philodendron (P. selloum ‘Hope’).

03-Visitor Center Palms

Now let’s head around Emily’s house to the front so we can make our way down to the gardens below. Gaze up as you head for the stairs: those brilliant chartreuse boughs of the ‘Frisia’ black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) will give you a little clue as to the delicious colour sensibilities ahead.

04-Upper Terrace & Robinia pseudoacacia 'Frisia'

On the sweep of lawn flanking the long borders sit a pair of purple chairs under a huge jack oak tree (Quercus alba x Q. montana). Colourful chairs are a staple at Chanticleer; set in the most picturesque places, they provide a little rest while offering a good photo opportunity.

05-Chairs near long borders

The long borders feature a purple-blue-yellow-gold colour theme, seen below in combinations using variegated ‘Axminster Gold’ comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) with yellow phlomis (P. russeliana) on the left; at right is Allium cristophii with ‘Gigantea’ rusty foxglove (Digitalis ferruginea), blue Italian alkanet (Anchusa azurea) and phlomis in the background. The long borders and parking lot gardens are overseen by gardener Doug Croft, who greets me later and helps with a few plant id’s.

06-Yellow-blue Themed long borders

What was once the staircase leading to the tennis court in the Rosengartens’ time is now a dramatic, sedum-topped entrance to the Tennis Court Garden.  Perhaps the best description of what lies ahead is “formal but informal”, with five flower beds planted in a profuse mix of perennials, bulbs and shrubs.

08-Stairs to Tennis Garden

The colours in the Tennis Court Garden in June are predominantly pink, purple, yellow and chartreuse, the latter seen in the ‘Ogon’ spirea (Spiraea thunbergii) in the middle and the ‘Hearts of Gold‘ redbud (Cercis canadensis) at left. You also see the luscious Itoh hybrid peony ‘Bartzella’ and a few spikes of the popular salmon-orange ‘Illumination Flame’ foxglove (Digiplexis). In the background, ‘New Dawn’ and ‘Dr. Van Fleet’ climbing roses wreath the attractive pergola.

09-View to Tennis Garden

Pollarding is used at Chanticleer in order to harness certain trees for their attractive foliage while maintaining them at a shrubby border size.  Two examples are the Cercis canadensis ‘Hearts of Gold’ redbud and the large-leafed princess tree (Paulonia tomentosa) seen here.  Also shown are ‘Caradonna’ meadow sage (Salvia nemorosa) and an allium (likely ‘Ambassador’).

10-Tennis Garden plants

Simple combinations can be very striking, especially using bulbs like the summer alliums, which offer a big hit of spherical purple, against a shrub like the Magic Carpet spirea (Spiraea x bumbalda ‘Walbuma’).

11-Allium in spirea

Comfy, foldable chairs sit in front of the rock wall behind the Tennis Court Garden.  Here, the yellow-blue scheme continues the colour theme of the long borders nearby.  Yellow fumitory (Corydalis lutea) and goldenmoss stonecrop (Sedum acre) predominate here, along with various blue or purple campanulas, centaureas and perennial geraniums.

07-Chairs & yellow-blue plantings

At the bottom of the hill just before the woods is the enchanting Cut Flower Garden with its rebar-grapevine arches festooned with clematis (red ‘Niobe’ is shown).  The arches provide structure throughout the year and draw the eye through the four quadrants overflowing with a riotous mix of annuals, bulbs and perennials meant to evoke an old-fashioned cottage garden.  Though the annuals will hit their stride with summer’s heat, here we see some of the June cast of characters:  biennial purple sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis), ‘Filigran’ oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and peach ‘Spring Valley Hybrids’ foxtail lilies (Eremurus).

12-Cut-Flower Garden

Rich-purple ‘Sarastro’ bellflower (Campanula) is joined by the zingy pink orbs of ‘Fireworks’ gomphrena and orange calendula.

13-Campanula 'Sarastro' & Gomphrena 'Fireworks'

Below, Emma Seniuk, the gardener for the cut flower and vegetable gardens, works with David Mattern to build a sturdy structure she calls the “cantaloupe tree”.  All the gardeners at Chanticleer are encouraged to create the furnishings, accessories and even bridges for the gardens in their charge.  Emma also spent 18 months in a student placement at England’s Great Dixter Garden, benefiting from a special scholarship in the name of Great Dixter’s renowned founder (and superlative flower gardener), the late Christopher Lloyd.

14-Emma & David building a Canteloupe Tree

Here is the charming vegetable garden, surrounded by its rustic paling fence.

15-The Vegetable Garden

With its quadrants separated by paths, the garden suggests a French potager but the vegetables are planted within them in very American-style rows.  Some of the harvest is used by the garden, but much is donated to those in need.

16-Vegetables

Now we are heading into Chanticleer’s newest “garden”, Bell’s Woodland.  Opened in spring 2012 and planted with wildflowers, rhododendrons, redbuds and other shade-lovers under the mature native forest canopy, it is still being developed but offers a shady, naturalistic contrast to many of the Chanticleer’s other gardens.  Don’t you love this fabulous “fallen tree” entrance fabricated by the Bell’s Woodland gardener Przemyslaw Walczak!  17-Entrance to Bells Run Woods

Bell’s Woodland celebrates plants of the Eastern North American forest and features mature natives like this American beech (Fagus grandifolia) with its boughs overhanging the path. The path, incidentally, is comprised partly of recycled shredded tires.

18-Beech in Bells Run Woods

Towering tulip poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera) are a feature of the woods.

19-Tulip poplar-Liriodendron tulipifera

And, of course, chairs are set around so visitors can enjoy the peaceful surroundings….

20-Trunk & chairs - Bells Run Woods

….interrupted only by the song of birds.

21-Bird in Bell's Run Woods

Though the vast majority of plants here are native, a lovely collection of clematis has been established to add a little color to the pathways.  The pink-flowered plants adjacent to the path are Phlox ovata.

22-Bells Run Woods path with clematis

The woods are cut through by a creek called Bell’s Run.  At one time, this old water wheel pumped water from the creek to the Rosengartens’ swimming pool up the hill.  The white-flowered tree is Chinese dogwood (Cornus kousa).

23-Waterwheel-Bell's Run

A chair under a black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) overlooks Bell’s Run creek.

24-Black walnut-Bells Run

Orange globe flower (Trollius spp.) pairs with a pink meadow phlox along the path.

25-Trollius & phlox - Bells Woods

Do you know what this is in the clovers and grasses?  I was puzzled by a fern that didn’t seem to be growing yet.  That’s because it wasn’t growing.  Instead……

26-Ostrich fern marker

….it was an ingenious (and very naturalistic) way to mark the edges of the camassia meadows using the old fertile fronds of ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris), so the gardeners would know where to mow without cutting down the ripening leaves of the camassia that were in bloom a few weeks earlier.

27-Camas meadows - Bells Woods

This massed planting of white astilbe does something quite wonderful when viewed from the other side.

28-Astilbe in Bells Woods

It forms a fluffy white horizontal to catch the eye and backlight the silhouette of the tree.

29-Astilbe effect - Bells Woods

Here is a small array of ferns from Bell’s Woodland: lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina) with kousa dogwood, left; royal fern (Osmunda regalis) with a trillium leaf, top right; and a rain-splashed maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) at lower right.

30-Dogwood & Ferns-Bells Woods

We come out of the woods near the old orchard where the daffodil leaves are ripening in the long grasses, and we’ve finished the first half of our tour.  If your legs are still working, why not join me for the second half?

31-Orchard path