The Wonders of Windcliff

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Janet

Two of the major reasons I wanted to participate in this year’s Garden Fling in Washington State’s Puget Sound region – to leave behind the July meadows at my cottage on Ontario’s Lake Muskoka when the wild beebalm is coming into bloom – were, quite simply, Heronswood and Windcliff. All of the gardens we visited held their share of magic and heaps of horticultural expertise, but the chance to visit these two related Kitsap Peninsula garden meccas made the decision for me.

In 2000, when Dan and Robert were still at Heronswood, they found this property on a small lane in the village of Indianola, as Dan said in a speech at the New York Botanical Garden some years ago. It was 6-1/2 acres on a 200-foot bluff above Puget Sound and “the complete opposite of what I was gardening with at Heronswood.” Windcliff had been given its name by its then-owners, Peg and Mary, who had been raising German shepherds here while regularly mowing acres of summer-browned lawn. As Dan says, this part of the Pacific Northwest averages just 28 inches of rain per year with little measurable rain between spring and fall. So for him, a lawn was out of the question. “I’m not a friend of this whole concept of throwing water and fertilizer on something to make it grow, so we can then cut it on a weekly basis. What an amazing waste of energy.”

I wrote about Heronswood in my last blog – now let’s head down the long driveway toward the house at Windcliff.

There are 4 acres of treasures on this side of the house under the big forest trees, including an arboretum of rare trees and shrubs with a rich ground layer of unusual plants, many also sold in the on-site nursery. Be sure to check out the colourful bamboos, including Fargesia robusta ‘Campbell’, an eye-catching clumping species with its white sheaths.

There are bamboo tunnels, too.

At Heronswood, I saw a single plant of Alstroemeria isabellana; here it grows in a generous drift.

Nearby is Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’, a hardy, clumping form of Peruvian lily with purplish foliage that tops out at 3-feet (1 m) in height.

Flame nasturtium (Tropaeolum speciosum) clambers through shrubs and trees, already forming its beautiful, dangling fruit.

I snap photos as I walk and recognize this small, elegant tree as a podocarp. But its identity is confirmed when I find John Grimshaw’s erudite page on Podocarpus salignus, including his photo of this very tree at Windcliff.

Japanese clethra (C. barbinervis) is showing off its scented, spiky, white flowers above a trunk with handsome, exfoliating bark.

At the bottom of the driveway we arrive at the house: a low-slung, Asian-inspired building in three connected pavilions designed and built by Robert and clad in aubergine-purple shakes. (Even the chimney stones are colour-coordinated!) Stretching across the front is an architectural assemblage of fibre-clay pots. Wreathed around the front door is a perfumed, narrow-leafed sausage vine (Holboellia angustifolia) grown from seed Dan collected on one of his twenty exploring trips to the north part of Vietnam. That particular collection took the form of Dan’s guide eating the sweet fruit, then spitting the dark seeds into a zip-lock bag. Like all seeds he collects, permits must be issued by the host country, then the seeds are sent for inspection directly to the USDA office in Seattle which is now very familiar with his work.

“We wanted to plant woodland treasures outside the front door at ground level,” said Dan, “but it was impossible with our dogs, all those things I wanted to baby along. So we decided to do a pot wall to lift all those treasures off the ground. Robert took this project on. We found some inexpensive fibre pots, knocked the bottoms out, stained them, then erected about a 25-foot-wide wall.” A cluster of brown toothed lancewood trees (Pseudopanax ferox) from New Zealand grow here in their Dr. Seuss juvenile form.

I love the way this cubist container garden fits together, unifying the habitat for the plant treasures.

Dan meets us in the front, giving us an overall description of Windcliff and relating how the January 2024 freeze devastated parts of the garden, causing the loss of countless plants and necessitating the current replanting of certain areas.

Moving west around the house I pass a bamboo-fenced, shady alcove garden with windows into the dining room and beyond that, windows facing south to Puget Sound. As Dan has acknowledged, it was a rare opportunity to design both a garden and house at the same time. The light fixture visible through the window was inspired by the long tentacles of the giant Pacific octopus, the largest octopus species on the planet with a 20-foot arm-span, a creature that lives in the waters just off the bluff. To see a photo of the fixture from the inside, have a peek at Andrew Ritchie’s review of Dan’s book ‘Windcliff’.

This area features a stand of hardy shade ginger (Cautleya spicata), a Himalayan native. Several cultivars have been introduced, including a selection called ‘Arun Flame’, which Dan and Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones of Crug Farms in Wales discovered in eastern Nepal on a collecting trip with the American novelist Jamaica Kincaid. She wrote a 2005 memoir called “Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya” of that taxing expedition.

A small gravel garden partly enclosed by bedrock sits outside the passage to the master bedroom at right.

I turn the corner of the house and walk along flagstones towards the bluff gardens on the south side. It’s a challenge to identify plants at Windcliff but I might venture a guess that the variegated shrub above my head is Stachyurus praecox ‘Oriental Sun’.

I’m moving so quickly that I capture the delicate shadow play near my feet but neglect to look up to see what is making these patterns – likely Schefflera taiwaniana. Schefflera is one of Dan’s favourite genera – growing up in northern Michigan, he had a schefflera as a houseplant – and this species is one of the hardiest for a shady spot. (You can hear him talk about it in this Fine Gardening video.)

Coming into the sunshine, I glimpse the bluff and the water beyond through the upswept, coppery limbs of an iconic plant for gardeners in the west, a handsome manzanita (Arctostaphylos). That pretty table was created some 25 years ago for Dan by Bainbridge Island artists George Little and David Lewis.

Nearby is a bog garden with different pitcher plant species (Sarracenia spp.)

Note that lovely Yucca rostrata behind the kniphofia in the background.

A drift of Ammi visnaga near the house reminds me of the Conservatory Garden at New York’s Central Park, where I last photographed this species. It was originally designed by Lynden Miller, one of Dan’s horticultural heroes. (This is my 2016 blog on that amazing garden.)

Standing now on the ‘bluff side’, I look back at the house through a planting of red-flowered Mexican bush lobelia (Lobelia laxiflora). I think the big, lush leaves are from Eucomis pallidiflora subsp. pole-evansii, a very tall pineapple lily species which seeds around this garden.

Dan is nearby so I tell him the story of asking to photograph him at Heronswood back in September 2005, when all he really wanted to do was get to his waiting birthday cake. He graces me with a big smile, but I’m also distracted by….

…. the giant hog fennel (Peucedanum verticillare) behind him!

As a lover of colour in the garden, I’m drawn towards the lower bluff where brilliant red and scarlet crocosmias are partnered with agapanthus and rich blue Salvia patens. If you squint, you can see the skyscrapers of Seattle in the distance. And on a clear day, the view of Mount Rainier is spectacular.

The vignette is enhanced by the eucomis foliage, which will mature to yield a pineapple lily that reaches 5-6 feet in height. When the previous owners were here, they had an expansive view of Puget Sound over their summer-brown lawn. In planning his own garden, Dan wanted the view not to be an open book dominated by sky and water, but to be glimpsed through an interesting array of plants of various sizes, habits, colours and textures.

As I stand quietly in this area, a female rufous hummingbird becomes brave enough to forage in the crocosmia flowers.

See how her head feathers are brushed with the golden pollen on the anthers, which she’ll carry with her as she flits from plant to plant, ensuring that seed forms in the beautiful fruits of crocosmia?

I see splashes of orange behind the agapanthus in this section, the spikes of red-hot poker (Kniphofia) and drifts of California poppy (Eschscholzia californica).

The sweet perfume of Spanish broom (Spartium junceum) is in the air here. It’s a little dèja vu moment for me because when we were in Tuscany visiting our youngest son and daughter-in-law in late May, this Mediterranean shrub, which they call “ginestre”, was in bloom throughout the hills. In fact there was a festival of flowers in Lucignano, the village where we stayed, called “Maggiolata” which uses the yellow blossoms of the shrub as its floral motif. At the edge of the bluff on the right, you can see the native madrona tree (Arbutus menziesii) whose shimmering, copper-bronze trunk and branches inspired the colour scheme of the house and its furnishings.

Close to the bluff edge is a circular stone fire pit called the council ring. Created by Portland mosaic artist Jeffrey Bale, it features an inset stone face by sculptor Marcia Donohue.

Walking back towards the house, I see purple Jerusalem sage (Phlomis purpurea), one of many Phlomis species here. (If I am wrong, I hope to be corrected in comments.)

Then a few plants I like to call “scrim plants”. Dan has said: “I was a dinosaur when it came to the use of grasses. I was the last person in North America to appreciate grasses, but Heronswood was not a grass sort of garden. That diaphanous quality and the movement they provide to the garden is so incredibly important.” Here he uses giant feather grass (Stipa gigantea/Celtica), one of the very best grasses to use as a screen through which to glimpse other plants, like the agapanthus.

Angel’s fishing rod (Dierama pulcherrimum) creates the same screen effect in front of white-flowered Olearia cheesmanii, a New Zealand bush daisy.

A lovely, single, orange dahlia pops up throughout the bluff garden.

There are a few gravel-mulched terraces leading up to the house level here. (And can I just say I LOVE airy bamboo fences…)

This one features Salvia ‘Amistad’ with a small kniphofia.

Steps up to the house are flanked by Yucca gloriosa with soft silver sage (Salvia argentea) and a white-flowered salvia (likely S. greggii) at the base.

The terraces include a large pond and waterfall. The pond once held a collection of koi, but the local river otter put an end to the fish.

Large stepping-stones cross the pond beside a waterlily.

On the other side of the steps, the pond continues below a deck with a little viewing overlook to gaze out on the garden.

One of the family dogs (Babu?) meets me near the deck but refuses to pose. He says he’s tired of paparazzi. Fine.

A line of clay-fibre planters sits facing south, all the better for the succulents, cacti and other sun-lovers planted in them.

When I reach the deck, Dan is there, gazing out at his garden. Beyond is a grove of Dustin Gimbel’s ‘Phlomis’ ceramic sculptures.

2024 started as a difficult year for gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, who lived through several consecutive January nights of deep-freeze temperatures – as low as 15F (-10C) on Jan. 12-13 in the Seattle area. That’s when many of those tender Mediterranean and South African plants curl up their toes and die. At Windcliff, much of the shrub framework was lost, including many plants that had never been affected by cold before. When he returned home from warmer climes in February, Dan called the garden a “mass murder crime scene investigation” and laid the blame on the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. (As a Canadian, I accept the blame on behalf of the Polar Vortex, even though I think Alaska might have had a hand in the dirty work too.) In late winter, he sowed a buckwheat cover crop to smother weeds and improve the soil’s tilth, then in late April he covered the entire space, 10,000 square feet, with a 10-mil sheet of white plastic to ‘solarize’ the seeds of weedy mulleins and exotic grasses. In late September when the autumn rains begin, he’ll plant bulbs along with native plants and grasses in a “low-mow meadow”. As he said on his Facebook page with an indefatigable air of optimism: “I could not bring myself to paint between the lines of those few things that survived, so nearly 25 years later, we begin again. What an adventure!!”

Parts of the bluff-side garden have been newly planted and mulched in gravel.

I love this Chilean annual, Nolana reichei, aka “flower of seven colors”. (I counted, it’s true.)

Our stay is coming to an end but I haven’t yet seen the vegetable garden or nursery, so I head off up the east side of the house towards the greenhouse. Fragrant lilies grow here, along with phlomis.

Robert Jones is manning the sales booth and my fellow travellers are in seventh heaven selecting rare plants….

…. of all kinds. Fortunately, our bus has capacious storage space below. (Windcliff does not do mail order, but plants are available for purchase on open days, and Monrovia has a Dan Hinkley Plant Collection too.)

As a Canadian, I’m not permitted to bring plants across the border without a phytosanitary certificate, so I content myself with window shopping.

Then I head to the agapanthus beds where I see some familiar names on the plant labels, like Portland gardener Nancy Goldman….

…. and my dear Seattle friend, Sue Nevler. Said Dan of a happy day now a decade ago: “Robert and I had at last the opportunity to become married and we had a lovely party of friends coming in from all parts of the country and Europe, and we gave all the women a label and they got to go out and celebrate their favourite agapanthus seedling, and then we’ve named it for them. So there will be a lot of feminine-sounding agapanthus being introduced into cultivation in the near future.”

The perfume of sweet peas is in the air here, and I’m charmed that this sophisticated garden has devoted so much space to growing this old-fashioned annual.

Who can resist burying their nose in fragrant sweet peas?

Nearby is the vegetable garden. Said Dan in his talk at New York Botanical Garden: “It was vegetable gardening that brought me into this whole world I feel so privileged to be a part of. As a young kid, I had the family vegetable garden responsibilities and it is still now the place you’re going to find me most often, in the potager that we put in at Windcliff….something we eat from every single day of the year. That is our reason for the garden, when it comes right down to it – this opportunity to have fresh vegetables that we know precisely where they came from, how they were treated, how they were loved.”

A clay pot is overflowing with spinach.

The greenhouse offers extra heat for tomatoes, which grow side-by-side with sarracenias.

While apples ripen on a tree nearby.

It’s time for us to head to Dan & Robert’s next-door neighbours, the Brindleys, for a group portrait, an annual event at the Fling. I have just enough time as I bid farewell to snap a photo of a Mark Bulwinkle rusty iron screen.

I thought it was appropriate to include this photo in the lovely Brindley garden overlooking Puget Sound, courtesy of Becca Mathias. I am slouched in the front row, second from left. If I look happy as a clam, it’s because I’ve just spent a few hours in what passes in gardening for heaven. Thanks, Dan and Robert!

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Are you tired of looking at garden photos yet? No? Well, I have been fortunate to visit and blog about a few other personal gardens designed by eminent plantsmen, including:

May at Chanticleer Garden-Part 1

Posted on July 22, 2022 by Janet

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 23^rd, 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.

A Denver Floral Extravaganza – The Garden of Rob Proctor and David Macke

Posted on August 19, 2019 by Janet

What a treat I had back in June, along with more than 70 other garden bloggers during our annual “Garden Bloggers’ Fling”, to visit the beautiful garden of Rob Proctor and David Macke in the Highlands district of northwest Denver – and then to visit it again in softer light, the following morning! So in the midst of a very busy summer up here on Lake Muskoka (during which I’ve scarcely had a moment to revisit my photos) I nevertheless wanted to share images from my visit. If you arrive in June, this is what greets you even before you open the charming front gate.

In front of the house is a “hellstrip” from heaven, below, filled with a drought-tolerant symphony of plants in purples and soft yellows. It’s your first clue that the plantings here have been designed by a master colourist who is also a painter and botanical illustrator. Rob now appears on Denver’s 9NEWS twice weekly as a garden expert, but at one time he was co-director with Angela Overy of the Denver Botanic Gardens School of Botanical Illustration. He also served as the DBG’s Director of Horticulture from 1998 to 2003. As his friend and former colleague, DBG Senior Curator and Director of Outreach Panayoti Kelaidis said in an interview once: “He transformed a sleepy, provincial research garden facility and made us one of the great display gardens in America.”

Bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum) creates soft cushions of magenta blossoms in front of lavender-blue meadow sage (Salvia pratensis), middle left. At middle right is purple woodland sage (Salvia nemorosa).

Bees were everywhere, including this honey bee nectaring on the woodland sage.

Two unusual xeric plants are lilac-purple Kashmir sage (Phlomis cashmeriana) and golden drop (Onosma taurica), below.

At the eastern end of the hellstrip, a brighter colour scheme featured….

….. apricot desert mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) with basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis).

A metallic green sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens) was nectaring on the desert mallow, while….

….. nearby, showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) was awaiting monarch butterflies.

The word “hellstrip” is usually attributed to Colorado garden designer Lauren Springer Ogden, author of the acclaimed book The Undaunted Garden, among others. She and Rob also co-authored Passionate Gardening: Good Advice for Challenging Climates. In an article she wrote for Horticulture magazine back in 2007, Ogden wrote of the Water Smart Garden she designed for Denver Botanic Gardens, shown in my photo below: “The Denver Botanic Gardens’ former director of horticulture, Rob Proctor, played a crucial role in developing the full potential of the garden. The first couple of years it floundered—a good number of the called-for plants were not actually put in, and it fell under poorly trained and often careless maintenance. When Rob took over, he made it his priority to support the richness of the planting and the high level of care the garden deserved. He let me shop personally for many of the missing plants and add the beginnings of a collection of fiber plants that now brings so much to the dynamic year-round textures of the garden: nolinas, yuccas, agaves, and dasylirions—plants that just a few years ago were rarely used in Colorado gardens and often thought not to be hardy.”

Though I could have spent an hour exploring the luscious hellstrip, I was ready to find what waited on the other side of the gate in the ebullient gardens that surround the 1905 “Denver square” brick house that Rob and David moved into in May 1993.

I was invited in to look at some of Rob’s art. I loved this botanical rendering of a passionflower, one of many of his works hanging in the house.

But I was anxious to see what was out back, so I made my way past Stranger, the stray cat that hung around Rob and David’s garden for such a long time that he first got the nickname, then his new home.

Though Stranger elected to stay behind on the sunroom table, Mouse accompanied me out onto the brick-paved patio.

And what a patio it is, nestled into its own little garden spangled with lilac-purple Allium cristophii. Here we see the first wave of hundreds of containers that Rob and David fill with annuals each season, adding to pots containing tropicals, bulbs, succulents or perennials. Pots with tender plants are lifted outdoors each spring, nurtured and watered all summer, then transported back to the basement in autumn before Denver’s Zone 5 winter winds blow. Cobalt blue – a favourite colour – is the unifying hue here.

Teak benches and comfy cushions abound here and throughout the garden.

Tropical foliage plants mix with colourful annuals and succulents like Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ pair with potted lilies. Incidentally, Rob is an expert in bulbs in pots, having written The Oudoor Potted Bulb: New Approaches to Container Gardening with Flowering Bulbs way back in 1993, the year they moved here. It’s one of sixteen books he has authored or co-authored.

Though their property is more than a half-acre with several discrete garden areas, the patio is a lovely intimate extension of the house.

When I visited the first time, Rob, left, in his trademark vest and David, a retired geologist, right, held court out here.

I was impressed that David was able to reach out and pick a succulent pea….

….. from a pot of dwarf ‘Tom Thumb’ peas on the coffee table.

However on my second visit, it was just Mouse and me.

I enjoyed the sound of water from the raised goldfish pond….

….. and the splash of water from a unique watering can fountain set among pots on the stairs to the house.

But I was anxious to head out to explore the garden. When Rob and David moved in 26 years ago, the first thing they did was cut down eight “half-dead Siberian elms”. Said Rob in a 1995 article for American Horticulturist, he wanted to build perennial borders. “Because of the relatively formal look of the late Victorian Italianate house, I chose a strong, geometric layout of long borders. Occasional half circles soften the straight lines. Within this framework, I indulge in the controlled chaos that we associate with traditional herbaceous borders.” He carved out two rectangular beds each measuring 16 x 60 feet (4.9 x 18 metres) with an 8-foot wide strip of lawn in between. He then designed a backdrop of 12 brick columns – six per bed – connected by lattice screening and had a mason erect them on deep concrete footings. That resulted in four 8 x 60 foot perennial beds, two of which are visible below. At the far end on the property’s south boundary line is the gazebo, built atop an old carriage house and featuring a winding staircase to the flat roof and a shady dining area within. “Climbing the staircase,” wrote Rob, “it’s possible to view much of the garden from above.”

Mouse followed me dutifully out into the garden.

The colours here in June were exquisite, with purple and blue catmints, campanulas, cranesbills, meadowrues, salvias and veronicas enlivened by brilliant chartreuse. “Borders are like paintings,” said Rob. “Each one starts as a blank canvas. Working with a palette of plants, rather than paints, the possible combinations are limitless. The twin borders that cut through the middle of the garden contain the colors that I naturally gravitate towards – the blues, purples, and pinks.”

Each border held dozens of ideas for combinations. When I visited on June 17^th, star-of-Persia onion (Allium cristophii) looked perfect with Kashmir sage (Phlomis cashmeriana)…..

….. and softened the flowers of broad-petaled cranesbill (Geranium platypetalum).

By the way, if you ever want to go down into a taxonomic rabbit hole, take a look at my blog on Allium cristophii.

The bold foliage of American cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum), below, offers a strong contrast to the soft colours and shapes of the central border. Later in summer, the white flower umbels reach up to 8 feet (2.5 metres). In one of the 2018 video clips from 9NEWS, Rob gives some pithy advice on how to handle this phototoxic native – just don’t! Clambering over the lattice in the back of this photo is golden hops (Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’), one of a number of vines that Rob encourages for its lovely effect. As he wrote: “The golden hops vine needs little encouragement to thread through five or six feet of pink and blue flowers in this border, providing fresh, almost springlike foliage even in midsummer.”

Rob has used the red-leaved rose Rosa glauca as a background feature in one border, less for its single June flowers than for its strong foliage accent in order to enhance the massive beauty bush flowering in the background.

This was the view north along the twin central borders back to the house.

The third long border to the east featured white roses and the tall spires of Verbascum bombyciferum ‘Arctic Summer’….

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…… nestled in a snowy cloud of sea kale (Crambe cordifolia).

The fourth long border on the west side is a confection of pinks and burgundies – peonies, roses and cranesbills in June. As it turns west near the immense beauty bush (Kolkwitzia amabilis), Rob gave special consideration to the unique colouration. “The beauty bush, its pale pink blossoms tinged with coral, inspired the color scheme of the surrounding plantings as the border turns to the west”. For the garden nearby, he chose sunset colours in lilies, red valerian, red sunroses, salmon pink nicotine and coral bells mixed with chartreuse and bronze foliage, to name a few.

In fact, he captured all three tints of beauty bush flowers in the cushions on the chairs placed strategically under its flowery boughs. This is colour perfectionism! Because of its size, Rob estimates the shrub was planted fairly soon after it was introduced to the west via Ernest “China” Wilson, who sent seed to Veitch’s Nursery in England in 1901. Flowers did not appear on the first seedlings for nine more years. It became very popular in gardens in the mid-20^th century but deserves to be planted in gardens where its size can be contained.

This view melted my heart. And there were bees in that pink rose… scroll down to the video at the end of my blog and you’ll see them.

Clematis recta is a superb June-blooming herbaceous clematis. I’m not sure how Rob manages to keep his upright, but it does benefit from some kind of support, like a peony ring.

Further along, near the nuts-and-bolts of the garden (compost bins, potting shed, etc.) I noted one of Rob’s favourite strategies to introduce a splash of colour into the borders: a well-positioned pot with a bright red annual coleus. He does the same thing with red orach (Atriplex hotensis ‘Rubra’). Later there will be larkspur here.

We’ve arrived at the back where the gazebo is sited on the foundation of an old carriage house. A spiral staircase climbs to the top; it must be a lovely spot to sip a glass of wine and look back on the borders.

Down below, there was a table and chairs under the roof, providing a nice view and much needed shade in Denver’s notoriously hot summers.

Luscious tuberous begonias thrive here.

What a great spot for al fresco dinners – surrounded by tropicals and foliage plants. I loved the louvered panels at the back. And what do you suppose lies behind that dark picket fence?

Well, it’s an alley. A place where most gardeners would be content to create a couple of parking spots and leave it at that. But not David and Rob…. all that sunshine! So they not only reserved places to park their cars, but….

… also designed a potager divided into eight Native-American-inspired “waffle” beds, which are dug down below grade to capture precious rainwater, just as waffles collect syrup.

Bordered in thyme, the beds contain different types of seed-grown vegetables. At the centre of the potager is an artful cluster of pots.

As with every part of Rob and David’s garden, there is a comfy, colour-coordinated place to sit and relax – even in the alley!

Biennial clary sage (Salvia sclarea) is one of many plants allowed to self-seed here.

I loved this succulent-filled strawberry jar in the midst of the vegetables.

I headed back into the garden and made my way down the east side, where an old driveway has been re-imagined as the “gravel allée”. It’s a series of tableaux: sitting areas with colour-matched accessories and plants. Periwinkle blue and rusty-orange… sigh. You can imagine how enchanting this is for someone who called her blog “thepaintboxgarden”!

Such an inviting scene……

Double clematis are often less hardy than small-flowered species and varieties, so Rob pots them up and takes them to a less exposed area for winter.

Speaking of CLEM-a-tis, I liked hearing Rob educate his news colleagues on proper pronunciation of the vine.

Mouse was getting a little impatient for me to leave, so led me down the gravel path….

…. to containers nestled around a birdbath. Have you been counting the pots? I understand there are more than 600!

I’m a big fan of red-with-green in planting design and this section of the path tickled my fancy.

Under the mature trees here was another semi-shaded sitting area set in amongst shrub roses with yet another bench. I loved the row of potted aloes!

Now I was gazing at the house through a delightful thyme parterre herb garden.

I walked around to the south to see the view….

…. and then from the corner nearest the house. This is such a classic design – also created in the lowered waffle bed manner – and so lovely when the thyme…..

…. and the rose are in flower together.

I had a plane to catch later that afternoon, so gathered up my things and headed around the house to the front. There on the west side under the shade of the trees was one final treasure in Rob and David’s garden. It was a patio filled with shade-loving plants adjoining their sunken garden (down the stairs and just out of the photo below). As Rob wrote in 1995: “One weekend, while digging up self-sown tree-of-heaven saplings, we kept hitting brick. We determined that it was the foundation to a building, about 15 by 10 feet. Friends joined us for some urban archeology as we excavated it, finding hundreds of patent medicine bottles, broken china, and a waffle iron designed for the top of a wood stove. The foundation may have supported a summer kitchen or an earlier house, perhaps a farmer’s. We stopped digging at about four feet and, exhausted, decided our sunken garden was deep enough. We mixed in extra-rich compost to nurture the shade-lovers we intended to plant there.”

It was so hot that day in June, I would have loved to settle in the shade on those blue and red cushions and contemplate the lovely caladium. But it was time to go.

So, reluctantly, out I went through the gate entwined with Virginia creeper, to meet my ride.

As a bonus, I created a little musical tour through David and Rob’s enchanting garden, co-starring a selection of the bees that find nectar there:

Rob and David have shared their garden annually for many years now. It’s for a cause near and dear to them – and to Stranger and Mouse, too. And I’m so glad I was able to share their garden with you, too.

Touring Chanticleer – Part 1

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Janet

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 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.

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

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.

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’).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Coppicing (cutting back each spring) is used at Chanticleer in order to harness certain trees for their attractive foliage while maintaining them at a shrubby border size, such as the large-leafed princess tree (Paulonia tomentosa) seen here. Beyond is the brilliant foliage of Cercis canadensis ‘Hearts of Gold’. Also shown are ‘Caradonna’ meadow sage (Salvia nemorosa) and an allium (likely ‘Ambassador’).

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’).

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.

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

….interrupted only by the song of birds.

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.

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).

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

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

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……

….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.

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

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

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.

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?

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Tag Archives: vegetable garden

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Touring Chanticleer – Part 1

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