Chanticleer's Cut-Flower Garden Before the First Frost

I was in Pennsylvania for the Perennial Plant Conference at Swarthmore College last week. I spent Saturday afternoon at Chanticleer, the 'Pleasure Garden' in Wayne, PA. One of the many highlights of the garden was the Cut-Flower Garden. It overflowing with flowers, foliage textures and teeming with pollinators and birds.

The Head Gardener at the Cut-Flower Garden is Emma Seniuk. Emma worked at Mt. Cuba Center and was a student at Longwood Gardens and Great Dixter before becoming a full-time gardener at Chanticleer. The Cut-Flower Garden is divided into four quadrants and is planted with perennials, annuals,  biennials and bulbs. The central spine of the garden is a series of rebar arches, covered with driftwood that is woven with vines from her father's garden.

Dahlia 'David Howard'

Arundo donax 'Peppermint Stick', the giant reed grass

Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’

 Dahlia ‘Purple Gem’ (I may be wrong about this dahlia)

Eupatorium capillifolium ‘Elegant Feather’

If you are interested in identifying plants at Chanticleer, there are plant lists available at each garden and on line: Cut-Flower Garden Plant List. The plant lists are expertly compiled by Chanticleer Information Coordinator, Eric Hsu. Eric also writes a blog with a gardener friend called Plinth et al. The plant list was a great resource for plant identification when I returned from my trip. I intend to use it again next spring when I am ordering and buying plants for my garden and the gardens in the Peterborough Parks.

Dixter Comes to Peterborough

Gardening buddy and author of Anemone Times, Heleln O'Donnell, called with a couple of hours notice to say she and two gardening friends from her days at Great Dixter would like to visit my garden. They were having coffee downtown and had admired the Pavilion Garden (my last post) at Depot Park and Helen thought they might like to see my private garden. Helen has done two stints as a garden student at Great Dixter. Her friend Yannick Boulet is currently a gardener at Great Dixter and Emma Seniuka is a recent Dixter alumni now working at Chanticleer as the Head Gardener in the Cut-flower and Vegetable Garden. I hadn't lifted a finger in the garden for weeks, so I warned them that the garden wasn't quite ready for prime time and invited them over.

Fellow blogger and Dixter Student, Helen O'Donnell, Section Gardener at Chanticleer, Emma Seniuk, and Dixter Gardener for 3 years running, Yannick Boulet in my Upper Garden.

Everyone wanted me to identify the grass in the upper garden: Calamagrostis brachytricha, seen here deep in the garden with Aster 'Little Carlow', Hibiscus acetosella 'Maple Sugar' and Ligustrum sinensis 'Variegata', Salvia 'Indigo Spires' and Mina lobata and Cuphea 'Bat Face'

Rubus thibetanus was another plant they all knew and liked. I am planning to save a division for Helen's VT garden.

Acer triflorum foliage burned bright orange and formed a backdrop to the Upper Garden and The Hall With Balls.

Cobaea scandens was still in bloom covering the arch dividing The Hall With Balls and the Lower Garden.

I got to show them my brand new planting on the slope in the Woodland Garden. It was quite sparse but the colors gave a suggestion of the show that hopefully be a pretty picture in a few years: Rhus coppalina, Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion', Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowqueen', Rhus aromatica 'Gro-Low', Vaccinium angustifolium, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi and Lindera glauca var. angustifolia

Disanthus cercidifolius and Helleborus foetidus was a combination I thought looked sensational in the Woodland Garden. Everyone seemed to agree. I had mentioned to Yannick that Christopher Lloyd's book Succession Planting for Year-round Pleasure had given me many ideas for the mixed border in the Upper and Lower Gardens but I forgot to tell Emma how the Asian Woods at Chanticleer have been an indispensable inspiration for the Woodland Garden. I have been very fortunate to have several gardening mentors over the years; some, sadly, are now no longer with us. It was a great pleasure for me to have members of the next generation of great gardeners come to for a visit.

Where the Boys Are (at Chanticleer)

The Men's Room at Chanticleer in June, 2012

Chanticleer in October

When we arrived at Chanticleer, the day after the Perennial Plant Conference, I suggested that Tovah and Maude use the facilities and asked them produce evidence (Tovah's photo above) that Chanticleer's  ladies lavatory was just as impressive (marble counter tops, lovely tile work and, of course, a vase of fresh flowers from the garden) as the men's room. I was happy to learn that Chanticleer did not discriminate on the basis of gender. 

We had a wonderful tour of the gardens on a perfect October morning led by Bill Thomas, Executive Director and Head Gardener of Chanticleer. Like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania had a hard frost about  a week earlier. The staff had a done miraculous job covering the tender plants and you would have never known that the thermometer dropped below freezing.

A stand of Musa ‘Thai Black’ at the Teacup Garden

Hand made iron stairway railing 

The stairway at the Chanticleer House

A planter  of Agave attenuata, Calathea roseopicta, Melanthus major and Pelargonium sidoides overflowing with Senecio radicans

Tovah is curious about this plant

Maude took this shot of Tovah conferring with Bill Thomas about the plant ID

The Rill Garden with pots of Aechmea ‘Dean’ and Dichondra argentea

 

Another beautiful shot by Maude through the limbed up branches of Lagerstroemia 'Tonto' in the Rill Garden

The bright orange flowers of Leonotis leonurus

Vitex trifolia 'Purpurea' in the West Bed at Chanticleer House

Soft clouds of pink Muhlenbergia capillaris at the Gravel Garden

A bench in the Minder Woods

The Ruin Garden

Quercus alba trained up a pillar at the Ruin Garden

 

Oak Leaf Water Fountain

Red Dwarf Grain Sorghum winds its way through the Serpentine Garden

Close up of Sorghum

The New Bell's Wood Bridge to the American Woodland looked like a giant submarine...

...was actually a fallen beech tree.

Gardeners come in all sizes.

Thanks to Maude Odgers and Tovah Martin for some of the photographs for this post.

Putting up a Parking Lot and Creating Paradise

Chanticleer takes full advantage of every inch of soil for gardening, including the parking lot. The plant list in the parking lot rivals any public garden in the world. Even as you get out of your car, the tone is set for a special experience. Why can't every parking lot follow suit?