Category Archives: Public Gardens

BOLDLY GO: June Glory at Great Dixter

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My early June visit to Great Dixter, the renowned English garden of the late Christopher “Christo” Lloyd (1921-2006), now artfully and creatively managed by his dear friend, fellow iconoclast and head gardener Fergus Garrett, wasn’t on my original itinerary when my London-based eldest son Doug and his partner Tommy treated me to a weekend in Kent. Months earlier, I had asked them if it would be possible to visit Sissinghurst prior to my joining Portland-based Carex Tours the following week to visit gardens such as Dan Pearson’s Hillside, Malverleys, Yews Farm (you can click on the links to see my blogs on those lovely places), Oudolf Field and others.  We stayed in a lovely Airbnb in the pastoral countryside near Biddenden, enjoyed a wine-tasting of Kent’s sparkling white wines at Balfour Winery and zipped around the narrow, hedge-lined byways in our rental car. But on our Sissinghurst morning, I realized how close we’d be to Dixter (just 11 miles into neighbouring East Sussex) and asked if there might be time to squeeze in a late afternoon visit between lunch and our dinner reservation.  I had last visited Great Dixter 31 years earlier when Doug was studying at Cambridge but much had changed in that time.

So that is how on June 4th – without benefit of the highly recommended garden map, below…..

….or prior research, or even physical orientation on a frightfully sunny afternoon (the photographer’s curse, apologies in advance) – I found myself walking into the colourful profusion of the Barn Garden (the red arrow on the map above shows my entrance), with the 500-year old Great Barn directly ahead.  Restored in 2012, it is now used for ‘green’ woodworking, rural crafts, and to house the boiler that heats the manor house.  What I didn’t realize upon entering was that my view across to the Great Barn was actually over a lower central pool terrace with its own planting, called the Sunk Garden.  But up here, the effect was of a classic English cottage garden, all tumble and charm, yet very carefully managed and edited throughout the season.

As I turned right, I walked towards the White Barn (you can see the juxtaposition of the two barns on the map above) with its espaliered fig tree on the wall. Flanking the path and cascading over it were white cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), mauve sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis), magenta Byzantine gladiolus (G. communis subsp. byzantinus), buttercups, daisies, lupines, foxgloves, alliums and poppies. 

In the garden alongside the barn, I was treated to an eye-popping display of spring-blooming yellow alexanders (Smyrnium perfoliatum) punctuated with Byzantine gladiolus.  Yellow alexanders has become popular in recent years as a brilliant foil to late tulips and early summer perennials and bulbs; a monocarpic plant, it takes two or three years to flower, then dies.  At Dixter, its black seeds are carefully harvested as the finished plants are removed to be grown on as seedlings for the garden or to the nursery shop.

Further on, the scarlet ladybird poppies (Papaver commutatum) held their own nicely against the acid-chartreuse of the yellow alexanders.

This lovely poppy with its prominent black blotches seems to have more presence than its cousin, the corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas).  I have photographed it paired beautifully with Orlaya grandiflora in the Gravel Garden at Chanticleer.

Giant fennel (Ferula communis) grows in the Barn Garden, its towering scapes a blast of Mediterranean sunshine.  Fergus Garrett gifted some of his plants to Dan Pearson, whose Somerset garden Hillside I blogged about recently.

Mixed in are late spring garden favourites like peony.

I circled the Barn Garden until I was looking across the Sunk Garden at the White Barn through Ladybird poppies and yellow Baptisia. Here you can clearly see the arrangement of the garden, as well as the espaliered ‘Brunswick’ fig (Ficus carica) on the White Barn wall.  Wrote Christopher Lloyd: “The fig trees against the far barn wall were a Lutyens touch which you meet on other properties where he worked. They are there for foliage effect and he used the many-fingered Brunswick fig as being one of the most decorative.” Sir Edwin Luytens, of course, was the renowned architect who renovated Great Dixter and designed some of the gardens for Christopher’s father and mother Nathaniel and Daisy Lloyd when they purchased the property in 1910.

The Sunk Garden was originally a lawn; during the First World War, it was turned into a vegetable garden. After the war, this octagonal pool was created…..

… in which grew a pretty combination of Siberian iris (Iris sibirica) and calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica).

The stone ledges in the Sunk Garden, featuring tiny Mexican daisy (Erigeron karvinskianus), were as artfully wild as the plantings above.

Leaving the Barn Garden I entered the Wall Garden.  Here, hot oranges, golds and reds played off the colour of the bricks in the wall.

One of the horticultural legacies of Christopher Lloyd’s career is the introduction of a popular spurge called Euphorbia griffithii ‘Dixter’.  I’m not sure if this is that cultivar, but it’s a good orange touch.

It’s not all blazing colour in the gardens; there are wonderful, small vignettes in shade that offer a little visual stillness, like this one featuring striped lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis ‘Albostriata’).

And some perennials stand aloof from the crowd, like Thalictrum aquilegolium.

As I left the Wall Garden, I got a little lost. The scene below with its pretty white partners – Allium stipitatum ‘Mount Everest’, Orlaya grandiflora and oxeye daisy – might have been in the Peacock Garden; then again, perhaps the Blue Garden.  With such a short time to visit, I just kept moving.

Here you see native cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) rising above all. It was in bloom wherever we drove throughout the Kent and Sussex countryside and Fergus Garrett uses it judiciously in the gardens for its airy effect, being careful to pull it before it goes to seed.

Biennial dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria) — a plant Fergus Garrett calls “much underestimated” — is also used for its great cloud of sulphur-yellow flowers in late spring. Here it partners with blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) and oxeye daisies.

Finally I arrived at Great Dixter’s crown jewel, the Long Border. One of the original gardens conceived by Christopher Lloyd’s mother Daisy and maintained by her staff of 9 gardeners …..

…. there is a photo of her standing beside it in 1917 with her dog, below, four years before Christo’s birth, the youngest of her six children.  

Photo courtesy of the Great Dixter Charitable Trust

Fergus Garrett has described gardening at Dixter as “high octane”, and nowhere is that term more apt than in this border, which stretches 330 feet long (100 metres) and 15 feet deep (4.5 metres).  Here are many of the plants seen elsewhere in the garden, but somehow exhibiting a more formal presence when arrayed in front of the clipped hedges. Like all the gardens here, the Long Border uses succession planting, taking advantage of the students and international ‘scholars’ who launch their careers here, to lift plants that are past their season and replace them with annuals and biennials.  Or, as Fergus has said of this process, “high input, high output”.  Self-seeding is encouraged, but monitored closely.  

“Boldly go”. I borrowed this blog’s title from Star Trek but it applies equally to the colours at Great Dixter. Christopher Lloyd loved the bold and brash and was dismissive of the “good taste club”; I like that unafraid, idiosyncratic approach to gardening.   

He wrote about the ladybird poppy, Papaver commutatum, in his book “Color for Adventurous Gardeners”, which is on my bookshelf, recommending it be planted under the white burnet Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘Alba’. I think he would be just as thrilled to see it consorting boldly with yellow alexanders, below.

The foxgloves, below, are Digitalis purpurea ‘Sutton’s Apricot’.  Seeds of this biennial are sold in glassine packages in Great Dixter’s shop.

I found a bit of shade in the Long Border and you can see how much better the plants look without the harsh contrast of full afternoon sun.

Yellow Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) is used extensively in the Long Border, and plants are sold in the shop.  The white allium is A. nigrum.

There were textural bits of shade in the Long Border that caught my eye, like the sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) and euphorbia, below.

I love these green vignettes, with little pinpricks of colour.

Then there are the meadows.  There is a striking contrast between the Arts and Crafts formality of the sculpted yews in the Topiary Lawn – once used as a practice golf-putting range by Nathaniel Lloyd – and the orchid-rich meadow in which they stand.   As noted in the book Meadows at Great Dixter and Beyond by Christopher Lloyd, re-issued in 2016 with an introduction by Fergus Garrett, the Topiary lawn is one of “a dozen different meadow habitats” at Dixter, providing a high degree of biodiversity.

It was Daisy Lloyd who introduced the first meadows to Great Dixter and to her youngest son Christopher, below, the only one of her six children who shared her passion for gardening.  He was a boy when the Lloyds took him to Munstead Wood to visit Gertrude Jekyll, who wrote later to say she hoped he’d grow up to be a great gardener. He was just 12 when his father died in 1933, at which time Daisy assumed management of the estate, in time helped by Christopher.  She died in 1972 at age 91.

Photo courtesy of the Great Dixter Charitable Trust

When I was in the Topiary Lawn in early June, there were oxeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare); buttercups (Ranunculus repens); clover; a yellow, dandelion-like composite (possibly Hypochaeris radicata); mauve-pink common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsia); and yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor).  Earlier in spring, the meadows feature various species narcissus, snakeshead fritillary and camassia.  Meadow-cutting is done in August and September, and the seed-rich hay is made available to locals to encourage them to reduce their lawns and embrace the great biodiversity of meadow gardening.  Fergus Garrett also gives lectures to help gardeners in the meadow-making process.and his good friend, designer and writer Dan Pearson has been gifted meadow sweepings in exchange for lecturing at Dixter in the hope of introducing orchids to the meadows at Hillside, his Somerset garden.

Common spotted orchid is one of four orchid species to thrive at Great Dixter.  The others are early purple (Orchis mascula), green-winged (Anacamptis morio) and twayblade (Neottia ovata).

Annual yellow rattle, aka hay rattle, is semi-parasitic to grasses, reducing their competition and enabling the orchids and other wildflowers to gain a stronger foothold.

Much has been written about the great biodiversity at Great Dixter.  As Fergus Garrett writes in this Gardens Illustrated article, “Archaeologists, naturalists, ecologists, botanists and entomologists were commissioned to carry out the survey dividing the Great Dixter Estate into different zones such as the woodlands, pasture and meadows, formal ornamental gardens, ponds, and the Plant Fair Field. Each zone was surveyed and the findings fed to one principal ecologist who analysed and pulled the information together in a report. The results were astonishing. As expected, the wider estate with its ancient woodlands, pastures and meadows, and ponds was extremely rich. But, surprisingly the richest part of all was the ornamental garden.”

In longer grass, meadow cranesbill (Geranium pretense) and Byzantine gladiolus (G. communis subsp. byzantinus) thrive.

Christopher Lloyd was very fond of this rich-magenta gladiolus (which is sadly often sold as the paler, shorter G. italicus) and wrote in his book Garden Flowers (2000): “The gladiolus which most endears itself to me is the prolific G. communis subsp. byzantinus, long known as G. byzantinus… It tucks into many border positions where it will not get in the way after flowering, for example up against a group of border phloxes . . . . Another use of it I fancy is in a meadow community, where it holds its own well.” 

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And that brings me to Christopher Lloyd. Gardens are about people, of course, and Great Dixter, like nearby Sissinghurst, is known for its larger-than-life founding personality. Though I was never introduced to Christo, I did sit beside him in October 1989 at the Third Great Gardening Conference at the Civic Garden Centre in Toronto (now the Toronto Botanical Garden). He was due to speak at the conference, along with his dear friend Beth Chatto, but jet lag being what it is he nodded off a few times and I gazed fondly at the top of his silvery head bent beside me.  Below is the advertisement for that event.  Three years later, I visited Great Dixter but he was away on that May 1992 day.

You get a good sense of his crusty personality in this lovely memorial video by Allan Titchmarsh, produced in 2006:

It was during a 2001 lecture tour to North America marking his 80th birthday that Christopher and Fergus were hosted in Toronto by my friends, Geoffrey and Susan Dyer, both passionate gardeners. At the time, Geoffrey was on the board of the Civic Garden Centre, soon to be the Toronto Botanical Garden, and it was in their home that the seed of a possible future for Great Dixter was sown. As Geoffrey recalls: “We were having a drink in the evening and I just asked them quite casually, what’s going to happen (to Dixter)? I didn’t know the particulars of the ownership arrangement… but I knew he didn’t have a spouse and he didn’t have heirs… and the consequence of inheritance tax in the UK and that kind of thing is something people have to plan for.” When Cristopher replied that his accountant had been pressing him about future plans, Geoffrey said: “I’m not qualified in the UK but I’ve worked around that area fairly extensively in my law practice, so if there’s anything I can try to help with, I’d be happy to do it.” In fact, Geoffrey’s Toronto-based law practice specializes in estate and taxation law so he was the perfect person to pose questions to his guests about succession. That summer, the Dyers were invited to stay at Great Dixter where the first meetings to establish the Great Dixter Charitable Trust (GDCT) took place.  Twenty-two years after that drink with Christopher Lloyd and Fergus Garrett, Geoffrey Dyer remains the Chairman of the GDCT, and writes the charity’s annual Review of the Year.

I last saw Fergus Garrett at an April 2018 lecture he gave to a packed house at the Toronto Botanical Garden, below.  Says Geoffrey Dyer: “The Christopher Lloyd legacy is alive and well, but Fergus is Dixter today. His energy, his charisma, his intelligence, his vision – it’s absolutely huge.” 

It was a pleasure to visit Great Dixter, to enjoy its bold plantings, and to reacquaint myself with the story of the people that have made it the great garden it remains today.

May at Chanticleer-Part 2

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When we paused our tour of Chanticleer Garden outside Philadelphia in my previous blog, we were just leaving the shade-dappled woods and the creek garden.  Let’s keep going now toward the ponds, where I stood behind one of the garden’s many cypress trees with a view all the way up the hill to the house, which you can just see at the top.

May 23rd is early for aquatic plants, so not much was in bloom yet….

… but the big koi swam toward me, perhaps hoping for a little fish food. I loved seeing the copper iris (I.  fulva) at the shore, a native of southern swamps and wetlands.

Nearby was the carnivorous yellow pitcherplant (Sarracenia flava).

Yellow Thermopsis villosa was in bloom behind the big, bobbing heads of Allium giganteum.  By mid-summer, the ponds are filled with water lilies and lotuses.

But I am a flower-lover at heart, and the gorgeous cottage garden display in front of the Arbor was calling my name.

The pink-flowered plant is showy evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa), a perennial wildflower native to the rocky prairies, meadows and open woodlands of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and neighbouring states.

One of the horticultural surprises at Chanticleer is the inclusion of tender plants, such as bromeliads and succulents, in the garden beds. This striking combination of tender Agave parryi (in a pot), Clematis Abilene and pink showy evening primrose caught my eye.

And I had never seen hyacinth squill (Scilla hyacinthoides) used so effectively in a northeastern garden!

This sunny, textural area at Chanticleer adjacent to the ponds and arbor is called the Gravel Garden, and it is the domain of my friend, horticulturist Lisa Roper.  

One of the longest-serving employees, since 1990, she has been in charge of this particular garden and the neighbouring Ruin since 2013.  She also does much of the photography for Chanticleer.  We marked the occasion of my visit with a lovely photo, made by Chanticleer’s young Irish garden intern, Michael McGowan.    

I first met Lisa back in 2014, when I photographed her trying out a penstemon in the mix of plants in a bed in the Gravel Garden.  She works hard to get the mix of colours, textures and bloom times right.

And in 2018, she spoke at the Toronto Botanical Garden about this remarkable space at Chanticleer. 

Back to the Gravel Garden, by late May the tulips and daffodils had finished blooming but there were still interesting bulbs to carry the eye through the garden, like the fuchsia-pink Italian gladioli (Gladiolus italicus) to the left of the gently ascending stone steps….

…. with its beautiful markings,

….. as well as foxtail lilies (Eremurus robustus) just beginning to flower…..

….. and, of course, the hyacinth squill (Scilla hyacinthoides).

Although the site is gently sloped, there are flat places along the journey through the garden…..

… and even a comfy place to sit, if you fancy a rather firm (concrete) cushion! That’s false hydrangea-vine (Schizophragma hydrangeoides) passing itself off as a fluffy, green throw on the sofa.

The spicy scent of the Dianthus ‘Mountain Mist’ was divine on that warm May Day.  The orange flower is Papaver rupifragum with dark-purple columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) to the left.

There are numerous stone troughs set along the path. This one contained Aloe maculata with ‘Elijah Blue’ fescue (Festuca glauca).

Century plant (Agave americana) was a strong focal point in a sea of self-seeding Orlaya grandiflora.  This lacy, white-flowered annual is used extensively at Chanticleer.

Old-fashioned Italian bugloss (Anchusa azurea ‘Dropmore Blue’) was adding a vivid blue touch.

Even though the lighting is harsh, I loved this contrast:  orange Spanish poppy (Papaver rupifragum) with Veronica austriaca ssp. teucrium ‘Royal Blue’ with purple and mauve columbines.

At the top of the Gravel Garden, we looked towards the wall of the Ruin Garden, which is also Lisa Roper’s responsibility. The salmon pink flowers are red valerian (Centranthus ruber ‘Coccineus’.) The shrub with white flowers at right is Chinese fringetree (Chionanthus retusus).

The Ruin is on the footprint of Adolph Rosengarten Jr’s (1905-90) former home, Minder House.  (I wrote about “Dolph” in my first blog on Chanticleer in 2014.)  With his sister Emily’s house serving as Chanticleer’s administration building and the main house in which Adolph Rosengarten Sr. and his wife Christine lived still standing, his house was deemed a better site for an evocative garden, so it was razed in 1999.  Landscape architect Mara Baird created three stone-walled garden rooms. Here we see the library, with its fireplace.

Here’s the view from inside the Ruin Garden.

The succulents in the wall pockets are Agave attenuata ‘Ray of Light’.  Climbing hydrangea (H. anomala subsp. petiolaris) is on the wall at left.

Although it was getting warm for the spring violas, I loved the tousled look of the floral mantel.  The tree at left is the snakebark maple Acer davidii.

I really liked this bluestone trough with its exquisite plants:  Agave mitis, Alluaudia procera, Aloe maculata, Echeveria ‘Perle Von Nurnberg’, Euphorbia characias ssp. wulfenii, Euphorbia tirucallii, Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’ and Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi.   I learned that by looking up the Plant List for the Ruin Garden!

San Francisco sculptor Marcia Donahue created the floating faces in the “Pool Room”.

I would love to have had the time to explore the Minder Woods beyond these pond cypress trees (Taxodium distichum var. imbricatum) as well as the Asian Woods I’d explored years earlier, but time was fleeting and a long drive north to Corning NY lay ahead of us.

So we headed down the slope toward the Great Lawn past this ebullient display of Allium ‘Globemaster’, oxeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) and meadow sage (Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’). 

Further on, there was a chartreuse expanse of dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria)….

….. and the ice-blue amsonias that look so lovely in spring and again in autumn when the foliage turns golden-yellow.

In the wonderful  book “The Art of Gardening” (Timber Press 2015) written by director Bill Thomas and the gardeners of Chanticleer and photographed by my friend Rob Cardillo, it says: “Spouses dragged here by the family garden-lover find we aren’t stuffy, and it’s actually not a bad place for a walk.”  I would add that my husband Doug thought it was a great place to rest and enjoy the view after that walk!

Just beyond on the Great Lawn looking out over the Serpentine was another comfy chair in cool green.

Each year, the Serpentine features a different agricultural crop; this year it was red spring wheat (Triticum aestivum ‘MN-Torgy’).

Climbing the slope towards the house was a much more gentle and beautiful process than my last visit in 2014, with the new elevated walkway built the following year.  I could have spent hours meandering up this curved steel walkway with its fabulous plantings.

Have you ever seen so many columbines (Aquilegia canadensis)?  Here they’re interplanted with ferns and many other perennials.

On the left is the honeysuckle Lonicera sempervirens ‘Major Wheeler’, on the right yellow Lonicera reticulata ‘Kintzley’s Ghost’.

Part-way up the elevated walkway was the Apple House, which had once been used by the Rosengartens to store fruit from their orchard.

I was surprised to see crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) growing on the walkway. It would certainly not be hardy in Toronto but perhaps it overwinters safely in Philadelphia.

Clematis montana var. grandiflora grew in a pretty tumble near the top.

Marcia Donahue’s cheeky rooster sculptures greeted me as I headed towards the house.

As always, the main house terrace was beautiful with its repeated chartreuse foliage and accents in teal-blue and lemon.  The chairs were designed and built by Douglas Randolph.

As with all things Chanticleer, a visiting plant-lover could spend hours in each garden, just exploring the inspired plant choices. This is Japanese roof iris (I. tectorum); at rear is a pollarded Salix sachalinensis ‘Golden Sunshine’ with alliums, likely ‘Gladiator’ and Delphinium grandiflorum ‘Diamonds Blue’ peeking out from behind.

Behind the house is the swimming pool and pool house with plantings chosen to play off the colours of the water and copper roof. (In full sun at midday, this garden was hard to capture, but you can see the agaves, roses, etc. in my 2014 blog.)

As a meadow gardener, the Flowery Lawn is one of my favourite places, with its enchanting, ever-changing cast of floral characters. You can see the bulb foliage now ripening in the midst of the purple ‘Gladiator’ alliums and biennial dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis).  Here and there are scarlet ‘Beauty of Livermere’ Oriental poppies (Papaver orientale) and ‘Apricot Beauty’ foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) with white orlaya and cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris). In summer, there’s anise hyssop and bachelor buttons here, part of a season-long parade of plants that enjoy this crowded scene.

Foxgloves and delphiniums (‘Magic Fountains Dark Blue Bee’) were at peak perfection in the east bed.  Note the fennel and yellow snapdragons planted for summer bloom.

As we walked toward the parking lot to resume our road trip, I spotted this arresting combination – one of thousands of brilliant, carefully-considered pairings at Chanticleer.  Look how the autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora) echoes the centre of the Itoh peony ‘Sequestered Sunshine’.  It was just the last of countless reminders of why Chanticleer remains my favourite garden in North America.

May at Chanticleer Garden-Part 1

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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.

Garden in the Woods – Part 2

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In my previous blog, ‘Garden in the Woods – Part 1’, I left you poised to walk around the lily pond of this fabulous native plant garden in Framingham, Massachusetts, outside Boston. I love a garden that features good interpretive signage, so here’s the sign for the pond. Because it’s just May 14th, these marginal plants and aquatics are not yet in flower, but there are still interesting plants to see.

A native plant that is in bloom is golden ragwort, Packera aurea. In my photo below, I show a close-up of the flowers and also a view from the far side of the lily pond of the colony at the base of the slope, illustrating the topography it prefers: moist – but not wet – acidic soil.

In the wet soil near the pond is marsh marigold (Caltha palustris).

I note the ‘Mount Airy’ witch alder (Fothergilla) near the pond and realize why my own fothergilla shrubs aren’t exactly thrilled to be in my unirrigated front garden in Toronto.

The pond edge is wild and natural-looking, with ferns, highbush blueberry and winterberry competing for space.

Royal fern (Osmunda regalis) on the left and cinnamon fern (Osmandastrum cinnamomeum) on the right also grow in the woods near our cottage north of Toronto.

Early-blooming eastern leatherwood (Dirca palustris) is already bearing fruit in the moist soil adjacent to the pond.

I’ve never seen drooping laurel, aka doghobble (Leucothea fontesiana) before, another denizen of damp soil – but normally native further southeast.

As I leave the pond area to continue along the main path, I admire a lovely rustic post and railing. Simple and beautiful.

On the predominately alkaline slope, yellow ladyslippers (Cypripedium parviflorum) are in flower.

There are loads of wild leeks or “ramps” in the valley (Allium tricoccum), a native edible onion that is common in Ontario as well.

Appalachian barren strawberry (Geum fragarioides) grows in the dappled shade down here, too.

Throughout the garden, flowering dogwood’s (Cornus florida) white flowers light up the shadows in May.

A violet I know well with a large native range, common blue violet (V. sororia).

In the Habitat Display area in the valley, there are a few bogs where eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is plentiful, but its wine-red flowers are long gone…..

….. though the lovely pink flowers of pink-shell azalea are making up for it.

Thanks to the excellent habitat tour on the Native Plant Trust’s website, I’m able to understand a little more about the ecology of some of the areas.  Signage is educational, too. This one explains how regional pH determines which ferns require which kind of soil.

This custom limestone habitat was lovely with tall, white-flowered two-leaf miterwort or bishop’s cap (Mitella diphylla) combined with northern maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum).

Eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) is familiar to me, since it grows on our cottage property on the Canadian Shield.

I love these vignettes – here is maidenhair fern with rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides), a plant that does like acidic soil.

A closeup of rue anemone. Isn’t it lovely?

Nearby is starflower.  It also grows in acidic soil in the forest near us though it has a new name, not Trientalis any more but Lysimachia borealis.

Walking on, I come upon box huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera). Native to the Atlantic coastal plain and points south, it is a self-sterile shrub that spreads clonally. According to Wikipedia, it is “a relict species nearly exterminated by the last ice age”.

Here and there I spot little pools of pale blue, lovely Quaker ladies or bluets (Houstonia caerulea), another denizen of moist, acidic soil.

The path leads on through rhododendrons not yet in flower.

The Calla Pool has a colony of native wild calla or water arums (Calla palustris) thriving in the muck and sharing the same rhizome, but not in flower quite yet. I am very familiar with this one from our acidic woods on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto.

As the forest clears we come to sunnier areas and a sign describing a meadow ecosystem, which is not much in evidence in mid-May.  As the Native Plant Trust says in its video tour: “This meadow provides an example of succession, the gradual change from one ecological community to another. In the colorful foreground you may notice favorite native plants such as partridge sensitive-pea, little bluestem, gray goldenrod, and northern blazing star.  Behind the flowers are woody pioneer species such as gray birch, eastern red cedar, and sassafras. Landscapes are constantly changing due to ecological succession, climate change, and disturbances such as natural disasters. These changes allow invasive plants to move in and crowd out native species. Our conservation work includes controlling invasive species, banking native seeds, and augmenting populations of rare plants to ensure their survival.”

For me, the most interesting low-lying habitat in this valley bottom is the ‘Coastal Sand Plain’, which mimics the lean soil of the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens ecoregions of Cape Cod and the coastal islands off New England.  Two plants of the sand plain grasslands threatened by development are the sundial or perennial lupine (Lupine perennis), below….

…. and prairie dropseed grass (Sporobolus heterolepis).

Another plant of the coastal pine barrens is American holly (Ilex opaca).  It prefers moist, acidic soil and, like all hollies, it is dioecious, having male and female flowers on different trees. Thus, if you want those lovely red fruits, you need a male holly to pollinate the female flowers.

Canada rosebay or rhodora (Rhododendron canadense) is showing off its pretty flowers in this habitat, too. Though somewhat scrawny, it is an iconic shrub and lends its name and image to the 120-year-old journal of the New England Botanical Club, fittingly titled Rhodora.

It was so interesting to see this xeric community of the Coastal Sand Plain with prairie dropseed, shooting stars and prairie thistle growing near New England’s (and Ontario’s) only native cactus, eastern prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa.

I’m not sure why I thought of shooting stars (Primula meadia, formerly Dodecatheon) as woodlanders, but these were clearly happy in the sand plain habitat….

…. and included a stunning, dark-pink form.

I’m sure most gardeners would be itching to weed out this thistle, but it is the native pasture thistle (Cirsium pumilum) which is found from Maine to South Carolina.  A biennial or monocarpic perennial, it bears scented flowers (its other common name is fragrant thistle) that attract pollinators and its seed provides food for many birds. (But it might not be appropriate for a small garden of natives.)

I am happy to see wavy hair grass (Deschampsia flexuosa) here, a familiar grass in my own rocky, red oak-white pine woodland edge ecosystem at our Lake Muskoka cottage north of Toronto.

 And I make the acquaintance of two sand plain violets, coast violet (Viola brittoniana)…..

…… and bird-foot violet (Viola pedata) with its distinctive leaves, whose seed is spread by ants.

There is a different wetland habitat as part of this sandplain and it features Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecypaaris thyoides).

I have never seen swamp pink (Helonias bullata) before, an endangered coastal plain species whose habitat is freshwater swamps and seepage areas. A rhizomatous perennial, its pink flowers with blue stamens are very showy!

Golden club (Orontium aquaticum) is the only extant species in its genus, but there are several identified fossil species from the west coast.  It grows in streams, ponds and shallow lakes with acidic soil.   

Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) grows in the moist soil edging the pond here.

Heading onto drier ground, I find familiar little Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)…

…. and wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) hiding under a skunk cabbage leaf.

Pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) has found boggy soil and is patiently awaiting an unsuspecting fly.

Evergreen Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) is an old favourite of mine, perhaps because it stays in one place, unlike ostrich fern.

Circling around to head back to the entrance, we walk through the Beech Forest. As the Native Plant Trust’s virtual tour says:  “Maple-beech-birch forests are a classic northern hardwood forest type, representing about one-fifth of forested land in southern New England. Nearly half of beech trees in southern New England have been affected by beech bark disease since the mid-20th century. Despite this insect-fungus complex, the resilient northern hardwood forest thrives in a spectrum of soil and moisture conditions and is home for a diversity of plant and animal species”. 

I love this rustic arch leading into the Family Activity Area.

There are no red and yellow plastic slides and swings here – it’s all au naturel and wrought from the forest.

No matter where you travel in North America, if you tour public gardens you’re likely to come upon one of my friend Gary Smith’s magical environmental art creations. This one, part of “Art Goes Wild” completed in 2007 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Garden in the Woods, is called “Hidden Valley” and it was crafted from fallen logs and branches arranged in a serpentine line.

As we climb out of the beech woods and circle up the hill towards the Visitor Center, I spot sweet white violet (Viola blanda)….

…. and the curved inflorescence of red baneberry (Actaea rubra)….

…. and the white form of crested iris (I. cristata)….

…. and finally, a drift of Allegheny spurge (Pachysandra procumbens), which surely should be a widely-marketed alternative to invasive Japanese spurge (P. terminalis).

We arrive back at the gift shop and I take a quick look at the plants for sale. This one is intriguing taxonomically, because for a long time purple chokeberry was considered a hybrid of red and black chokeberry (A. arbutifolia x A. melanocarpa). But its range outside those species, its viable fruit and unique morphology have resulted in it being given its very own species name, Aronia floribunda.

And with that bit of botanical trivia, we depart Framingham’s beautiful Garden in the Woods, filled with respect for Will Curtis’s fulfilled dream and for the breadth of New England’s spring flora. If you want to learn more about what natives can be grown in New England and further afield in the northeast, consider the new book by Native Plant Trust director Uli Lorimer, “The Northeast Native Plant Primer – 235 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden”.  

Garden in the Woods – Part 1

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On May 14th, I was able to cross off an entry on my “Gardens To See Before I Die” list. It was a supreme pleasure on our spring road trip from Toronto to New Jersey for my husband’s college reunion to detour eastward in order to visit Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts 20 miles outside Boston. I had heard so much over the decades about this garden featuring native New England plants that I couldn’t imagine being so close in spring and missing it. So we expanded our trip to spend two nights in Framingham in order to meet old Wooster, MA friends for dinner and visit the New England Botanic Garden (formerly Tower Hill Botanic Garden) in Boylston, but more on that later. Right now, let’s head into the parking lot on 180 Hemenway Road in the leafy suburbs of the town of Framingham. Walking towards the visitor entrance, we pass a spectacular carpet of mayapple (Podophullum peltatum) under airy pink-shell azalea (Rhododendron vaseyi) and flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) and I’m delighted to discover……

…… that I can photograph a shy mayapple flower without getting down on my hands and knees!

The flowers of pink-shell azalea, endemic to the Appalachian highlands. are simply exquisite. 

I spot a little crested iris (I. cristata) in the entrance gardens and I am excited about what is to come!

We pay our admission and I take a fast glance around the beautiful little gift shop and the plants for sale, below, before heading out. (I’ll talk about the history of the garden and Native Plant Trust later, but the plants are grown at the Trust’s native plant nursery Nasami Farm 93 miles west in Whately MA.) 

It is 1:15 pm when we start our visit and we will spend 2.5 hours here on the main loop, which is probably an hour less than the time I would like to have had to explore the various satellite trails. I’ve shown our route with red arrows on the map below. (Note that the garden recommends an hour to do the mile-long main loop, but that might be for visitors without cameras!)

I photograph the What’s in Bloom display for the various garden areas so I can refer to it as we make our way around.  We are at peak bloom for the spring ephemerals, including trilliums; in fact the garden boasts a collection of 21 species of trillium!

The path is wide and flat here and bisects sun-dappled woodland with lots of signage to identify the native plants, like the spotted cranesbill (G. maculatum), below.

You can see brown autumn leaves between the plants – they are left on the garden to act as nature’s mulch. Now…. imagine this as your wild back yard, for that’s what it was to Cornell-educated landscape designer Will C. Curtis (1883-1969). One of his foundational roles was with Warren Manning, sometimes called the “Dean of Landscape Architecture”, renowned for his informal, naturalistic ethos in design. Later, he worked as the general manager of a tree farm in Framingham, and in 1931, while out hiking, he came upon this 30-acre piece of land in the rural north part of the city. Owned by the Old Colony Railroad and used as a gravel mine, it featured “undulating eskers, tumbling brooks and varied woodland with two bogs and one pond, plus an ever-flowing spring” (Dick Stiles). 

Will Curtis was able to purchase the land for $1,000.  At 48 years of age, he set about building a rustic cottage, felling trees, clearing garden areas, laying out trails, expanding the lily pond and making a rock garden. Soon, with the help of volunteers, the Garden in the Woods was opened to the public. In 1933, Curtis was joined by Howard O. (Dick) Stiles and in 1936 they began a full partnership, giving tours, selling plants and raising exotic, award-winning plants under glass. Over the next 30 years, Will Curtis (right, below) and Dick Stiles (left) became experts in native American plants while maintaining seed and information exchanges with international botanical gardens.

Photo – Native Plant Trust

As Framingham grew and houses sprang up nearby, they turned down offers to sell to developers. In May 1965, the decision was made to transfer the Garden in the Woods to the New England Wildflower Preservation Society, with Will and Dick staying on as director and curator respectively. But after a period of ill health, Will Curtis died in 1969 at his home in the garden. As Dick would write later, “This man was a most unusual character; rugged, determined, resourceful, undeviatingly honest with no use whatever for so-called ‘diplomacy’. He was a man with vision, a true artist who knew exactly what he wanted and went to any amount of time and labor to achieve it, whether doing landscaping for a client, or working at the Garden. He never used a plan—not once—for it was all in that brain that could envision and feel and know just how it should be.”

Today, the expanded 45-acre garden is owned by the Native Plant Trust, the new name as of January 2019. According to director Uli Lorimer in an interview with Margaret Roach, the name was changed from the New England Wild Flower Society “to better align with the conservation, horticulture and education work we have been doing for years, and will continue to do in the future”.  But for the average visitor, it’s simply a place to be inspired with the native plants of New England and how to use them in design, like the yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) with Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium reptans) below.  On that note, just days before our visit, Uli Lorimer’s book ‘The Northeast Native Plant Primer – 235 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden’ was published

I’m excited as I spot my first trillium, large toadshade (Trillium cuneatum)!

Some plants are familiar, like the white foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), below with Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), while others….

…. like the goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)….

…. and the green-and-gold (Chrysogonum virginianum var. brevistolon) are not.

Not far along the trail, we check out the Idea Garden, with its residential scale.

I love the shed’s green roof of native plants, with chokeberry and redbud tree in flower at right.

Although the garden is virtually 100% native, I note a little drift of Anemone nemorosa ‘Vestal’ alongside the ferns, Solomon’s seals and wood poppies (one of the ‘well-behaved’ non natives that made its way in).

Pink flowering dogwood (Cornus florida ‘Rubra’) lights up the woodland.

For visitors looking for a native lawn substitute, swards of Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica) are there to inspire!

Native plant cultivars are used here and there. This lovely combination is mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) in a carpet of bright-pink creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera ‘Home Fires’).

I see my second trillium, yellow wakerobin (T. luteum)….

…. and note how lovely it looks with the pink creeping phlox.

We pass by Carolina rhododendron (R. carolinianum)….  

…. and Piedmont rhododendron (R. minus)…..

…. under towering yellow birch trees (Betula allegheniensis).  The birdsong here is amazing.

We descend to a valley (though this entire part of New England is referred to as the Connecticut River Valley) and the topography hints clearly at the property’s use as a gravel quarry a century ago. There’s a little enclave with a stone wall that acts to retain the hillside above….

…. and a stone bench where visitors can sit and contemplate the native flora.

And here I find a treasure trove of trilliums, including bent trillium (T. flexipes) and…

….the pink form of showy trillium or wakerobin (T. grandiflorum var. roseum) and….

….. sweet white trillium (T. simile) and…..

….. toadshade (T. sessile) and…..

…… showy trillium (T. grandiflorum), here with long beech fern (Phegopteris connectilis)…

….. and finally nodding toadshade (T. cernuum).

How tranquil it is here, without the hordes of visitors I expected, given the peak bloom.

The most brilliant show at the moment is decidedly creeping phlox (P. stolonifera). I believe this is ‘Sherwood Purple’…..

….. pairing beautifully with yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) in one area….

….. and foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) in another.

I see one of my own garden’s… um… more aggressive plants, ostrich fern (Matteucia struthiopteris) looking quite well-behaved in the midst of creeping phlox. Perhaps all I need are a few dozen gardeners to help me control it?

A little andrena bee is foraging on star chickweed (Stellaria pubara).

I find fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia) down here, both the light-pink form…

…. and a raspberry-pink form, here with wild leeks (Allium tricoccum).

Look at this valley. Isn’t it stunning?

We’re now at the Rock Garden and I find Phlox subulata ‘Emerald Cushion Blue’ making good use of the outcrops.

Nearby is a little colony of plaintain-leaf pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia). Like all members of the genus, its leaves are a larval food for the American painted lady butterfly (Vanessa virginiensis).

And a new-for-me plant, stiff amsonia (A. rigida).

Next up is the pond… so stay tuned for Garden in the Woods – Part 2!