Author Archives: Janet

Pooled Assets in Wiltshire

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While I was eating delicious, home-baked cake in Juliette Mead’s enchanting garden in the village of West Amesbury last June, I had no idea we were sitting just two miles from prehistoric Stonehenge.  It was only later, as we drove out on Stonehenge Avenue past this circular assemblage of 5,000-year-old stones arranged to mark the year’s winter and summer solstice, that I realized that the garden I’d just visited had once shared its chalky soil on the banks of the River Avon with people of the Stone Age. But I was not aware of that bit of geographic trivia when the family dog Ada led our Carex Tours group under a rose-wreathed timber arch into the garden behind the house.

Here, in a courtyard configured in the shelter of the U-shape of the house – originally a row of workers’ houses joined together which, from the road, still wear their original facades – were deep mixed borders and planting beds featuring multi-stemmed ‘Evereste’ crabapples forming the season’s fruit above early summer sages, alliums, irises and peonies.

Crimson roses clambered up the window frames and gold euphorbia gleamed in the afternoon sun.

I had spent the previous afternoon photographing gorgeous roses at Kew Gardens so I loved seeing Juliette’s collection.

In early June, the herbaceous colour palette in England seems to lean to lavenders, purples and blues, such as the Allium cristophii and Salvia nemorosa  paired below. 

But as an insect photographer, it was still tempting to want to photograph every bumble bee I saw, including this one on the starry allium flowers.

We were here on a Carex tour of “New Gardens of England”, including Dan Pearson & Huw Morgan’s Hillside and Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth nearby because, almost 20 years ago, shortly after buying the house, Juliette and her husband Guy Leech hired a friend, the Hertfordshire designer Tom Stuart-Smith, to re-imagine the landscape of their 3.5 acre property. In his career, he has become internationally renowned, working everywhere from India to Marrakech, won eight gold medals and three Best in Show awards at London’s annual Chelsea Flower Show, designed a garden for Queen Elizabeth’s 2002 Jubilee at Windsor Castle and been awarded the Order of the British Empire. But back then, Juliette and Guy had specific objectives: they wanted a lawn for their four children to play sports and host friends; Juliette wanted to cut flowers for bouquets; and Guy wanted a swimming pool, but not a small pool – he wanted to swim serious lengths, thus a minimum of 20 metres was his stipulation.  So, from the courtyard with its traditional deep borders and planting beds lush with grasses surrounding an alfresco dining area, we were led once again by Ada the Alsatian to the stunning walled garden surrounding the 21-metre (68.9 feet) swimming pool.  In the distance you can see the thatched, lime-washed cob wall that is a traditional feature in this part of England.

Though it’s difficult to discern without an overhead photo, the parterre arrangement of dozens of planting beds surrounding the pool has been described by Juliette as a Persian tapestry, and something she enjoys looking down on from the second floor, especially in winter. Phlomis russeliana is among the roster of hard-working plants that flower in June.  By stepping the garden down on this side of the pool and raising it on the far side, Tom Stuart-Smith enhanced the garden view from the house and underplayed the view of the swimming pool behind layers of plants. The new walls in the garden, including above the pool, are zinc-coated steel. At right are beech hedges with a large gap to display the view through meadows and trees to the River Avon.

As I walked around the pool, I was struck by the magical movement of the golden oats grass (Stipa gigantea – Celtica) used extensively in the garden, along with other grasses such as Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’and Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’.  Along with Molinia cultivars like ‘Transparent’ and ‘Skyracer’, Stipa gigantea is one of the best “scrim” or “screen” plants, adding a kinetic quality to a garden while offering a porous veil in front of the scene behind. Interestingly, Juliette was not keen on grasses and had to be talked into including them by Tom; they now make up 40% of the roster and their tawny forms provide much of the winter interest.

The timber decking around the pool has aged to a soft silvery-grey that enhances the turquoise Marbleite pool and looks lovely with the billowing ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta racemosa) that was in peak June bloom.  Looking out over the pool through the break in the beech hedge and a barely-visible iron fence, we see a meadow and trees that line the banks of the River Avon ninety metres away.

The windows at the back of the house look out onto the garden surrounding the sleek pool, which Juliette and Guy specified they did not want hidden behind a fence. Has an exercise setting ever looked so gorgeous? Behind the sun umbrella you can see the soft-grey, low zinc wall.

I seemed to be drawn to the golden oats (Stipa gigantea). What a fabulous grass – sadly not hardy for us in Toronto.

Purple catmint, turquoise pool, mauve sun lounger: this couldn’t be prettier or better coordinated.

 The planting beds around the pool, separated from each other by narrow grass paths, are at their best in mid-summer, but early June’s palette of meadow sage and catmint is dependable and romantic. Here you get a closer look at the thatched cob wall.

I had never come across horned spurge (Euphorbia cornigera) before, but it seems similar to moisture-loving E. palustris.

As I left the pool side of the house, I was struck by the beauty of the Chilean potato vine (Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’) climbing the house wall.

What a stunning vine.

Walking behind the house towards the river, I stood for a moment under the tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) in the lawn. It was the only tree that Tom Stuart-Smith kept from the previous landscape.

Then I walked around  small wetland niches with lush plantings at the bottom of the garden.

Tall stems of pink flowers would soon rise from masses of umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) flanking the water.

There were moisture-loving Siberian irises (Iris sibirica) down there….

…… and luscious Japanese irises (I. ensata) too.  

I walked to the edge of the River Avon, which reflected the idyllic green glades on its shores.  Later, I learned that there are actually nine Avon Rivers in Great Britain, including the one running through Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon. The root of the word Avon is “abona” in Celtic or in Welsh, “afon”, which means “river”. So, strictly speaking there are nine “River Rivers”.

Juliette graciously invited us into the house for tea and cakes – a lovely English garden-visit custom……

….. and I can say without exaggeration that she is a talented, inventive cook with a keen eye for presentation.

Then, with a last look at the garden, I turned the corner around the unique flint & limestone wall of the house towards the bus and the journey past Stonehenge towards Bath.

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Want to read more blogs about my English trip in June 2023?

Sissinghurst in Vita’s Sweet June

Boldly Go: June Glory at Great Dixter

Hillside: Dean Pearson and Huw Morgan in Somerset

Malverleys: A Garden of Rooms

Yews Farm – A Brilliant Marriage…. of Boxwood and Beans

Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth

The Newt

Autumn at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens – Part 2

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Finally, I’m getting to finish up my visit to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor, the continuation of Part 1 that I published in January. (Who knew winter would get so busy?) So let’s keep wandering and head for a little while down Haney Hill, below, which connects the formal parts of the garden above with the magnificent forests below.

There’s a small pond at the top with a Japanese feel……

…. enhanced by the ‘Ice Dance’ Japanese sedge (Carex morrowii). I left the sign in this photo to illustrate how careful CMBG is at providing descriptions almost everywhere, something many botanical gardens forget to do since it requires attention to detail and resources.

A lookout allows visitors to contemplate the rich, mixed forest below here.

And, unlike many public gardens, CBMG also pays attention to ecology and educating visitors.

The path is flanked with naturalistic plantings, mostly native, including many choice conifers.

Since it was October 14th the leaves of many native trees and shrubs had started to change colour, including the sourgum (Oxydendrum arboreum) below.

… and the hobblebush viburnum (V. lantanoides) was a pretty burgundy.

I am familiar with a lot of goldenrods, but hadn’t seen Short’s goldenrod before. This is Solidago shortii ‘Solar Cascade’.

I went as far down as the Henry Richard sculpture ‘Glass Orb’, but since we had a long drive ahead of us later, I retraced my steps back up.

I had left Doug in the Vayo Meditation Garden, a quietly beautiful space on the hillside.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I learned the name of the tall perennial with the yellow pom-pom flowers blooming so late in the season. It’s Boltonia asteroides ‘Nally’s Lime Dot”, which was named for the late John Nally, the man who designed the famous flower garden at Wave Hill in the Bronx. Here’s my 2016 blog on Wave Hill.

Then we headed back to the main garden campus above, stopping at the Rose Arbor which features a number of vines and elaborate plantings.

Though it was late in the season and the plants had declined a little, I could appreciate the various containers used liberally throughout CMBG.

I liked the way pink-flowered Asarina scandens had been used as a trailer in the pot below.

Walking through the garden, there were reminders of summer in the seedheads amidst flowering grasses.

‘Sedum ‘T-Rex’ was putting on a spectacular show!

And native little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) had taken on its reddish autumn cast.

Possumhaw (Viburnum nudum ‘Longwood’) had also turned a deep rose-red for fall.

I thought I had photographed most of the trees with prominent exfoliating bark in my career, but no! Here is Chinese hazelnut (Corylus fargesii).

I peeked quickly into the Burpee Vegetable Garden but I really wanted to visit…..

… the spectacular Bibby & Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. The entrance, below, featured fun boulders called “Spraying Whales” by sculptor Carole Hanson shooting surprise jets of water at visitors…..

….and I thought of how much fun this would be for little kids in summer.

Opened in July 2010, the garden was made possible by a gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation. Mr. Alfond made his fortune mainly in shoes, first the Dexter brand, then brand names for other firms. I liked this speech given at the opening by the foundation chairman:

“In the summer of 2007- the last summer of his remarkable life, Harold Alfond visited the original gardens at the suggestion of his good friend Larry Pugh. Harold was 93. Together with son Ted and his wife Barbara, Harold saw the beauty of this place then and imagined what more it could be for the state he loved and its children. Harold’s life passion was athletics and children. Bibby Alfond’s passion was children and gardens. And so at the age of 93, with Bibby no longer at his side, Harold was drawn to the vision of what we see here today as he reflected on how his life had been enriched by Bibby and her gardens – gardens which had graced their summer home for decades. Moved by the memory of Bibby and her passion, and with Harold’s sentiments in our hearts, we knew the Children’s Garden was deserving of foundation support. And we felt pride and perfect balance when it was agreed the garden would be named the Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. And not vice versa.”

The Chairman went on to quote from a famous children’s book by a Maine author illustrated on the sign: “As Miss Rumphius’ father admonished her to do, you have done ‘something to make the world more beautiful’.”

I especially loved seeing Miss Rumphius on the sign because it’s a favourite children’s book of mine, a 1982 award-winner by Maine author Barbara Cooney. Here I am reading it to my granddaughter Emma. As an aside, CMBG is careful to note that visitors should endeavor to grow Maine’s native sundial lupines (Lupinus perennis), rather than the non-native and invasive west coast lupines (L. polyphyllus) in the book.

Designed by landscape architect Herb Schaal of AECOM, Inc. who has designed over 20 unique children’s gardens in the U.S., the garden is full of surprises and abundant references to other Maine children’s books, including ‘Blueberries for Sal‘. My grandkids would adore the maze, below.

The Keeper’s Cottage features a green roof and a pretty windowbox. And it’s clearly on the radar of this little one.

I spotted the Liatris seedheads and thought how wonderful this garden would be in mid-summer, since it was still looking spectacular in October.

Who doesn’t know about Beatrix Potter’s “Mr. McGregor’s Garden” and that wascally wabbit? The greenhouse behind is actively used during the season.

Perhaps the beans and beets had already been harvested? In any case, this garden was full of colour.

Millstone seats with built-in planters! What a great idea for little kids.

There were attractive containers in the Children’s Garden too.

Colourful coleus was in flower beneath a rain-chain. The unusual silver trailing plant is Arctotis auriculata.

One container featured a dark-leaved mimosa, Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’.

A flower bed was full of colourful plants, including many choice succulents……

… such as Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’.

A chicken coop is part of the fun.

And the Story Barn is filled with enticing books for kids and sweet little stools for reading.

As I headed out towards the exit, a young visitor was engaged in a fun activity at the Boat Pond.

I’ve seen and photographed many children’s gardens, including New York Botanical Garden, the Huntington Garden in Pasadena and Denver Botanic Gardens (also a Herb Schaal design), among others, and this one was the best and most creative by far. It was a fitting way to end our visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

Autumn at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens – Part 1

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When my husband said his college golf mates had picked Maine for the annual get-together in 2023, I was pretty excited. I do enjoy seeing these seven couples each year and like them all, but there’s also always an opportunity to add on some garden visits. In Santa Barbara in 2014, it was Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria and Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, plus San Francisco Botanical Garden and UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. In 2016 when we met in Sun Valley, I visited both Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Ketchum and Idaho Botanical Garden in Boise. A 2017 visit to Sarasota, Florida meant I got to see wonderful Marie Selby Botanical Garden. In 2018 the site was Portland and Bend and we drove down from Vancouver, so I stopped at Seattle’s Bellevue Botanic Garden and the Soest Garden at the Urban Center for Horticulture at the University of Washington, as well as the Japanese Garden and the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland. This is us – the “golf widows” at the Japanese Garden.

In 2019, the golfers gathered in Marin County CA, so I got to Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek and Filoli in Woodside. Following the Covid years, May 2022 saw us visiting Stone Harbor, NJ – and I managed stops at Garden in the Woods in Framingham MA and New England Botanical Garden in Boylston MA on the way there, and my favourite Chanticleer Garden in Wayne PA on the way home. Our wonderful October 2023 hosts live in Kennebunk, Maine, so I planned our driving trip from Toronto via Quebec so I could visit the Montreal Botanical Garden enroute. Then we drove south to Boston so I could finally realize a dream to spend lots of time at the Arnold Arboretum. After our golf visit wound up in Kennebunkport, we bade farewell to the group and drove up the coast for an overnight stay in Boothbay Harbor so I could finally see the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Here’s the map showing the center of the garden; at 295 acres it stretches well out beyond the main features, below.

Even before we paid to enter, I was in love with the ethos of the garden as shown below in the long parking lot border featuring native roses in fruit, asters, mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) and little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)!

Islands featuring more formal designs with winter interest plants greet visitors in front of The Lyn And Daniel Lerner Visitor Center.

Look at this! Can you say “chartreuse love”? I see Salvia mexicana, a chartreuse taro, purple angelonia, lime-green nicotiana and dwarf papyrus.

The Heafitz Wetland Bridge near the entrance takes visitors over a piece of natural Maine forest with vernal pools and marshy ground.

Interpretive signage teaches visitors that the habitat below supports native species like the spotted salamander.

Earlier in the week, I had seen a yellow bird in the marshy growth at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Kennebunk, so I was delighted to learn its name – common yellowthroat – here.

Though the Butterfly Garden greenhouse was closed for the year, the flowerbeds outside still had lots of bloom.

With no early frost, the Dahlia Garden was still looking fabulous.

This is Dahlia ‘Hollyhill Black Beauty’.

Children were running through the Willow Tunnel, the first of many features that illustrate the attention CMBG designers paid to creating family-friendly gardens and niches, a strategy that attracts younger demographics and family memberships.

Ecological education is a primary objective here as well.

Water features like this beautiful pond with its mirrored edge play a big role in the garden, including….

….educating visitors about native aquatic species like the Eastern pondhawk dragonfly.

Panicle hydrangeas (H. paniculata) have a long season of interest, including turning colour in autumn, as these shrubs are doing in the pond border

I was impressed with the diversity of plants in mid-October, like Vernonia lettermannii ‘Iron Lady’. Like all ironweeds, it’s very attractive to butterflies such as the painted lady, below.

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is showy in autumn, with fruit that persists into winter until it finally becomes a meal for birds.

Across the large pond stood one of the garden’s five popular trolls or “Guardians of the Seeds”, created by Danish scultor/recycler Thomas Dambo. This one is named RØSKVA, which means “trunks”. As the garden notes: “she is the heaviest, hardest, and strongest of the trolls. Every day, Røskva climbs towards the sky, and every year she grows taller and wider. If a troll forgets something, they can always ask Røskva—she counts the seasons and remembers everything that happens around her.” The other trolls Lilja, Berk, Søren and Gro are in the forest surrounding the main gardens, and each has a role to play.

I loved this little girl engaging with Røskva (and giving an idea of scale).

Little touches, like these bumble bee topiaries incorporating diverse sedum species, add interest to a visitor’s journey through the garden.

Since we had driven up from Kennebunkport that morning, we were more than ready for lunch and found a table on the Great Lawn.

Then it was off to the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses.

Tasting, touching, smelling, looking and listening… everything a good garden needs to engage the senses.

I was enchanted by these vertical planters showing the possibilities for sun and shade in a restricted space! The silvery, sunny side, below, features Dichrondra ‘Silver Falls’, Helichrysum ‘Icicles’, Artemisia ‘Sea Salt’ and Lavandula ‘Elegance Purple’ (the lavender out of bloom in October.).

The shady side is no less beautiful. It features Australian sword fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) and its cultivar ‘Cotton Candy’, the Rex begonias ‘Escargot’, ‘Iron Cross’ and ‘Fireworks’, the Bolivian begonias ‘Angel Falls Soft Pink’ and the trailing begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’.

There were other possibilities for raised gardening, including these cool, galvanized planters with windowbox-style inserts.

Of course, with good planning and construction there’s no need to bend over to grow vegetables, and the Lerner Garden shows the productive possibilities of raised beds.

The sound of splashing water permeates the Lerner Garden, courtesy of the fountain in its handsome upper pond, whose water flows over the edge and recirculates to a lower pond.

Here, there’s a fascinating sculpture reflected perfectly in the water. It also vibrates in a breeze, creating its own unique music.

George Sherwood’s kinetic ‘Flock of Birds’ sculpture was gleaming in the October sunshine.

Rocks — smooth river rock, cobbles and cut boulders — are used extensively in the gardens. These ones offer a variety of sensory textures.

We left the Lerner Garden via a cool, shady planting under trees.

But there was still much to see at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Stay tuned for Part Two including the Arbor Garden, the Haney Hillside Garden, the Vayo Meditation Garden and the amazing Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden!

The Newt

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Before I get to Somerset, a memory. On a trip to South Africa almost a decade ago, I enjoyed all the gardens our tour guide Donna Dawson had organized, but my very favourite was Babylonstoren in the Franschhoek wine district outside Cape Town. “Bedazzled by Babylonstoren” is the blog I wrote on my autumn 2014 visit. It combined all the best features of a truly great garden: a stunning design by Italian-French architect Patrice Taravella; diverse and beautiful ornamental and edible plantings, all organic; a vineyard that stretched for miles; a gift shop and charming farm-to-table restaurant; and an elegant spa hotel whose cottages nestled along the edge of the gardens. All that in a picturesque setting overlooked by the craggy peaks of Simonsberg.

So when Babylonstoren’s owners, telecom billionaire Koos Bekker and his wife Karen Roos, the former editor of Elle Decoration South Africa, came to England looking for a farm in the country, it made perfect sense that they would choose an historic 17th century estate in leafy Somerset. That rumor has it they had to outbid actor Johnny Depp to make their successful £12 million purchase only added to the cachet.  Then they spent 6 years developing the property, working again with Patrice Taravella to create a second unique, complex organic garden and farm while transforming the house into an exclusve hotel & spa. The map below is available as a detailed pdf online.

Somehow, as we drew into The Newt’s parking lot on my June 2023 visit with Carex Tours, I knew most of the details about our upcoming visit and fondly remembered visiting Babylonstoren, but I hadn’t yet learned the actual name of the historic house that became the hotel. When our guide said “Hadspen” my heart leapt, for this had been the home of the renowned garden writer, designer and colourist, Penelope Hobhouse, who later leased it to the Canadian gardeners Nori and Sandra Pope, who went on to create what became an iconic walled garden focused on colour. Noel Kingsbury wrote an affectionate essay on the Popes, the Hobhouse estate and the drama associated with its direction.  As many of my readers likely know, I’ve long had an interest in colour in the garden, focusing on it in my blog and in my photography.  But 25 years ago, I also wrote a book review, below, for my column in Toronto Life Gardens on Nori and Sandra Pope’s book ‘Color by Design, so I was very familiar with the colour ethos of Hadspen House.  Would I find it today? Stay tuned.

We entered The Newt via a gatehouse and a long, sinuous boardwalk through rich woodland.

Stacks of cut wood were placed along the pathway like mossy, natural works of art that double as habitat.

I walked through the entrance courtyard past the threshing barn, cyder bar and gift shop and made my way quickly to the Cottage Garden below. Beyond that was the Fragrance Garden  and Cascades. (Though hotel guests have access to the gardens, Hadspen House itself is off-limits to garden visitors – I tried.)

There were familiar pairings of lavender and lambs’ ears…

…. and Jerusalem sage (Phlomis russelliana) with pale yellow-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium striatum)…

… and in the Cascades, moisture-loving Rodgersia pinnata ‘Superba’ with primulas and royal ferns.

The Cascades features a waterfall emptying into a rectilinear pool planted with waterlilies.

Next, I came to my favourite part of The Newt, the Colour Garden.  It is actually a series of wattle-walled, colour-themed gardens bisected by a stone path, and you can view what’s ahead through oval windows in the wall of each garden. 

Alongside, there was a touching dedication to Sandra and the late Nori Pope.

It pleased me that the new owners understood how well-loved the Popes had been, and how many people missed their creativity, including Vancouver landscape architect Ron Rule, who captured Sandra in the garden long ago.

Photo courtesy of Ron Rule Consultants Ltd., West Vancouver, B.C.

The Newt’s version of the Colour Garden begins with a Green Garden with lots of ornamental grasses and green-flowered plants like tall Angelica archangelica…

….. and euphorbias, too.

Then comes the spectacular little Red Garden….

…. with dancing corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) and swishing Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima).  I noticed angelica in that garden as well – such a great plant for pollinators.

In early June, the Red Garden stretched the colour palette into hot pinks and magenta with Carthusian pink (Dianthus carthusianorum) and masterwort (Astrantia major). 

A bumble bee was foraging on the geum.

It was a terribly sunny day (how could that happen for so many days in a row in England?) so my photos of The Blue Garden in particular were difficult.

Amsonia and cornflowers took centre stage. but there were campanulas and delphiniums sprinkled in as well.

Navy-blue honeywort (Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’) was a feature in many of the gardens I visited in England.

The White Garden is the final colour garden….

…. and the predominant plants in bloom in early June were the Hybrid Musk rose ‘Kew Gardens’ (which I had photographed earlier that week at RBG Kew in London) and the white form of red valerian or Jupiter’s beard, Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’.  

On leaving the Colour Garden, I took a stroll down the Long Walk which moves down a gentle slope flanked by a stone wall overhung with white Jupiter’s beard (Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’). In the background is the hotel.

The Long Walk has its own water features like this pool at the top….

…. and a square waterlily pool fed by a rill, beyond which is another pool. In the distance are two screened houses in the produce garden.

Then it was into the Parabola Garden. In the language of mathematics, a parabola is a U- or D-shaped curve that features a vertex and symmetrical axis – like a rainbow, for instance. The Newt’s version occupies a walled garden that was originally designed as a kitchen garden by Henry Hobhouse II. Two centuries later, it was framed by Sandra and Nori Pope’s iconic colour border, below.

Photo courtesy of Ron Rule Consultants Ltd., West Vancouver, B.C.

Today, the Parabola Garden is designed as a maze and home to a collection of 267 cultivars of apple trees representing each apple-growing county of England. They grow in cordons, fan-espaliers and various other space-conserving methods. (The Cyder Bar near the garden’s entrance also pays homage to apples and features tastings.)   That stone wall at the top of the photo below surrounds the garden and….

…. features the names of the apple-growing counties. Each year in the 3rd week of October, the Newt hosts a celebration called Apple Day featuring juice pressing, apple games and recipes.  

Although England is famous for its hen parties, the Parabola Garden features the real thing. This pair obviously wandered up from the henhouse below.

Yet another water feature forms a central focal point in The Parabola.

Then it was under the Caterpillar Tunnel weaving through meadows towards the Produce Garden.

The base of the tunnel is planted with tromboncino, bottleneck and other varieties of squash which create a leafy canopy by late summer.   

I loved the shadow play along the path.

Chives, herbs and vegetable seedlings were newly planted in mulched beds separated by pretty wattle screens.  More than 350 varieties of edibles are planted here.

 Coldframes held plants too tender to be planted out just yet.

And an oak-timbered fruit cage, one of a pair, protected berry bushes from hungry birds and critters.

 I heard there were living newts in the produce garden’s raised, naturalistic pond, but I looked in vain. However, I did spy a handsome, green-eyed emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator).

Sadly, it was time to make my way back to the bus via a quick stop for a delicious al fresco lunch.  Afterwards, I had just a few minutes to take a walk through the Winter Garden, kept at 20-25C all year long and filled with ferns, orchids, succulents, tropical fruits and tender beauties from far away…..

….. like the South American firecracker plant (Dicliptera suberecta).

And how did The Newt compare to Babylonstoren?  I think they were as different from each other as Somerset apples are to Franschhoek wine grapes, yet they share the same elegant rusticity and exquisite attention to detail.  And though The Newt pays homage to its English garden roots, to the Hobhouse and Pope eras, it is very much its own lovely creature, still young and growing, but looking to the future, not the past.

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The Newt is open to visitors by annual membership only and includes many benefits, including free garden tours, special events and an impressive list of seasonal workshops. It also includes entrance to partner gardens including Kew, Wakehurst, Blenheim, Great Dixter, Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tresco, Chatworth and others. Clearly, amidst all the comings-and-goings of a working farm and an award-winning boutique hotel, it is aiming for a level of exclusivity and community.

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Here are my blogs on a few of the other English gardens I visited in 2023:

Sissinghurst in Vita’s Sweet June

Boldly Go: June Glory at Great Dixter

Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth

Hillside: Dan Pearson & Huw Morgan in Somerset

Charles Cresson’s Hedgleigh Spring

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The beautiful thing about plant-rich garden tours is that you get to see inspiring gardens filled with botanical treasures nurtured by acclaimed gardeners. The sad thing about plant-rich garden tours is that there’s never enough time to spend inspecting all the rare plants and clever combinations and talking to those renowned gardeners. That’s how I felt in September as I rushed around Charles Cresson’s garden Hedgleigh Spring in Swarthmore, PA.  Much has been written about the garden, including that Charles is the 4th generation of the family to live and garden here, and that his grandfather built the house.  

When my Pennsylvania garden friend Harriet Cramer discovered I was doing a tour of the Philadelphia area, she wrote: “As an accomplished plantswoman, one garden you should not miss is that of Charles Cresson in Swarthmore. I don’t know if you know Charles, but he has an extraordinary property, it’s been in his family for several generations, and Charles has literally been working on this garden his entire life. He is very gracious about showing people around. You do need to leave quite a bit of time because it is huge and full of extraordinary and unusual plants. Visiting is a humbling experience, it always makes me realize how little I actually know about plants.”  Indeed, all I managed with Charles, a frequent teacher, author, founder of the Swarthmore Horticultural Society (SWS) and even a subject of the UK’s Monty Don television series, was a quick hello before going back to soak in as much as I could of his special 2-acre garden.

Hedgleigh’s name originated in 1883 with the purchase of a 20-acre farm by Charles’s great-grandfather, Ezra Townsend Cresson. Ezra had been one of the three founders of the Entomological Society of Pennsylvania in 1859, becoming curator of the society in 1866 and involved in collections, publications (including his most famous “Synopsis of the Families and Genera of the Hymenoptera of America north of Mexico” in 1887) and administration until 1924, just two years before his death.  The house was built in 1921 by Ezra’s son William and the “hedg” in the garden’s name originated with a border of Osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera) – whose fruits are called “hedge apples” – that originally surrounded the property.  Today, Charles makes his garden available regularly for tours and hosts events for the SWS.

The densely-planted house border glowed with late-season perennials mixed with cannas and other tropicals. Charles grows more than 2,000 plants, including 40 types of camellia.

Blue anise-scented sage (Salvia guaranitica) and orange cuphea made a pretty combination. Hummingbirds would adore this border. And speaking of anise-scented sage, I learned while researching this blog that Charles Cresson introduced S. guaranitica ‘Argentina Skies’, a beautiful sky-blue cultivar of my favourite sage.

Bright-yellow sternbergias (S. lutea) were lighting up a shady area….

…. as were white cyclamen.

Elsewhere, the mauve flowers of Colchicum ‘Beaconsfield’ added late-season color. It’s no surprise that Charles has given workshops at Longwood Gardens on summer bulbs.

A teak bench on a red-brick patio was surrounded by pots of tropical and tender plants, including lantana, heliconia, phormium, agave, cordyline and many more. As at Andrew Bunting’s garden in my last blog, the pots spend winter indoors.

A curved white picket fence, built by Charles’s grandfather in 1954, backs a long flower border that moves from cool color schemes to hot. This is the hot-colored end with orange heleniums, red salvias and lantana, yellow dahlias and dark heuchera.  I think the tall yellow-flowered plant is Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’.

Bumble bees were enjoying nectaring on the late-season helianthus flowers.

A flagstone-paved section in front of the fence displays a collection of tender plants in pots.

On the cooler end of the border, a peach sage (Salvia splendens) paired nicely with a lavender aster.

Wandering in a different part of the garden, I found the beautiful flowers and green fruit of native maypop vine (Passiflora incarnata), reportedly similar in taste to guava.

Trees in the garden were reflected in a pond…

…. and in the damp soil at its edge was a carnivrous pitcher plant (Sarracenia leucophylla).

Pots surrounded a bench in a shady niche where rhododendrons and other spring beauties thrive.

We were being called to the bus when I saw the vegetable garden, so I only had time to snap a quick shot, but tomatoes were still ripening, the biggest protected from hungry critters.

I was impressed with the moss on this structure – which I think might be the original 19th century pump house.

And what garden blogger doesn’t enjoy a brief opportunity to find their inner child?   

Thank you Charles, for opening your beautiful garden – even if it was much too short a visit.