BARTRAM'S RENOVATION

I guess after 260+ years your house and garden might need some renovation,too. Here at Bartram’s Garden plenty of renovation was going on.
John Bartram was an avid naturalist, and in particular a botanist. Actually he was the botanist to George III of England. Later his son William eclipsed his father with his lively travel writing that involved contact with the Native Americans of the South East, alligators and of course plants. there home on the banks of the Schuykill River in Philadelphia, remains a monument not only to the early days of botany in the new world, but a testament also to the Bartrams’ Quaker faith their pacifist ways and belief in the interconnectedness of all living things. Over the years the garden has remained humbly near it roots. It is considered the first and longest existing botanical garden in the U.S. Bartram entertain many famous fore-fathers like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin in his garden. Washington, it is said, found Bartram’s garden “messy”. Bartram was truly more interested in plants and their natural habitats than in any sort of contrived formalities borrowed form the old world. This is still evident .
I learned about Bartram during my botany studies. So in his garden nearly 300 years later I find I am dazzled more by his mythic presence than by colorful exotics, and my love of the simplest native flowers wakes. This drawing down and in makes Bartram’s garden a place of serenity and contemplation. Here I sit in the stench of modernity, there are refineries across the river, and listen to a cicada’s rattled whirr. The broken moist winds, remnants of hurricane Fay dissipate over the garden. Here nature is the garden and it is endless.
Bartram’s masterpiece was not in layout or design but in erudition and love. A love for the natural world around him from which he fashioned his furnishing , house and garden. Could he have also been the father of the green movement, long before it was necessary?



The house Bartram built; he actually carved the stone himself from the local Wissahikon Schist.





The cider press on the river has the feel of a mystical relic.






Commellina erecta, the dayflower, is a blue like none other.






This is not the mess Washington was speaking of. It's a shame that the modern world has washed up on the banks of this garden.

TRAVELING GARDENER

As a typical tourist short on time and long on desire I tried to cover a lot of ground today. In particular the grounds of Mt. Cuba Center and Longwood Gardens in the beautifully undulating landscape west of Philadelphia. Both were marvels in their own right.
Mt. Cuba Center, was once the home of the Copelands, has become a charitable foundation and a center for the growing and studying of plants native to the Piedmont Region, which runs from the Hudson river South to Alabama, and from the Atlantic coastal plain to the Appalachian Mountains. The natural setting is ideal for growing woodland, meadow, dry land and wetland plants of the region. Cultivars of natives are tested for garden worthiness. 2 of the introductions I grow in my own garden, Cornus sericea ‘Silver and Gold’ and Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’.What a treat to get a private tour by Vic Piatt and to get to have lunch with the crew that creates and maintains this beautiful place.



Native prickly pear hugs a rock in front of the house.




The tall tulip poplars ( Liriodendron tulipifera) create a colonade in the forest.




My new favorite plant Indian pink ( Spigelia marilandica).




Pitcher plants in the bog




My guide Vic, and fellow gardener, working at Mt Cuba Center over 17 years.

MORE LONGWOOD PHOTOS

An italianate fountain designed by P.S. Du Pont. The lartgest plume shoots 30+ feet into the air.




Carefully trimmed ivy. I wouldn't want the job.




A scary fountain in the new children's garden.




A silly fountain in the new children's garden.




My guide and fellow gardener Yoko.

TRAVELING GARDENER PART II

Longwood Gardens was not far from Mt. Cuba geographically, but worlds apart ideologically. Longwood was once the estate of Pierre Du Pont, he had bought the property from a Quaker family who had created a private arboretum there in the early 1800’s. Pierre began his garden there with simple flower walks back in 1907. Now the gardens are anything but simple, extravagant would be an understatement. I can truly say I’ve never seen anything like it. I was fortunate once again to get a private tour of the gardens and the operational facilities from a long time horticulturalist there, Yoko Arakawa.



A stunning study in red and yellow.




A board walk up in the trees leads to a tree house.




Topiary ad infinitum. Amusing.




I wish we had the heat to grow these giant amazonian water lilies in Seattle.




Bamboo waiting to be displayed in the conservatory.

BYE BYE

Bye-bye Fall, Bye-bye Seattle. I'm off to the east coast where it's still summer.
Here's one last picture for a few weeks.



Okay one more.

GLADNESS

I've always loved glads. Well, that's not exactly true. When I was in my wild garden phase glads were definitely "out". But then I realized that every time I went to the farmers market I would stop and linger at the vendors selling flowers. Their big buckets of gladiola spears were so beautiful, took me back to the my Grandmas' flower gardens and the Wisconsin State Fair, where gladiolas stood solitary in coke bottles waiting judgement. Well I passed judgement on glads, too gaudy, too funerial , for the modernn naturalist gardening style I was developing. But then I got a client who wanted a garden full of nostalgia and color. So I planted great clumps of glads. Showy and floppy they took center stage and disappointed. The colors are dynamic but staking is necessary. So I stopped planting glads.
At least for a while. Then I started trying shorter ones like this one which is a part of the Glamini series . This one was labeled 'Christopoher' , but looks more like 'Tom' to me. They do flop a bit but that color is priceless.






The glads I really am loving are the species glads. This one Gladiolus x gandavensis 'Boone' I bought at the old Heronswood a few years back. I leave it in the ground here and it multiplies , never flops and always gets visitors' attention. I couldn't be gladder.




Except when I'm sad.
Like now. Our 30 foot long row of glads for cutting at the farm have all succumbed to thrips and fungal problems, that's the kind of summer we're having.
A cabbage summer.

BELLEVUE BORDERS

Talking about Fall and changes. The Bellevue Botanical Garden perennial and shrub borders supported by the Northwest Perennial Alliance will be going through some much needed changes soon. These borders have been an inspiration to me even before I moved to Seattle. Volunteer powered and the brain ( and back) child of Whithey and Price it has been the showpiece of BBG. Managing a border to keep it fresh beyond the first 5 years is a challenge and when the borders are over 15 years sometimes bulldozers are in order. I’m looking forward to the new developments, because when I toured the border today I realized it was already being ripped a part




Then...





and now.