Bestselling author and horticulturist, Brie Arthur was our speaker for our October Zoom meeting. What a delightful presentation full of great information. Her enthusiasm for new ideas and practices with out of the box gardening advice was contagious! We shared her expertise as an advocate for consumer horticulture and home gardening. Some members benefited from forager wheat seed gifts as well as her latest book which were well received.
September 2020 Meeting
September 22, 2020 by ·
Our Zoom monthly meeting showcased the gardens that our own Lynda Pollock visited with husband Bob when she attended the International Master Gardeners Conference in Philadelphia in 2019. Philadelphia is known as America’s Garden Capital and Lynda details each garden they visited and added the links.
Chanticlear: A Pleasure Garden.
The Chanticleer Foundation owns 47 acres, 35 of which are open to the public. The remaining acreage is in agriculture, woodland, service areas, and staff housing. The main path is just under a mile in length. The garden has evolved greatly since the death of the owner in 1990. As the home of the Rosengartens, Chanticleer was beautiful and green with impressive trees and lawns.
http://www.chanticleergarden.org/
Arboretum of the Barnes Foundation at St. Joseph’s University
Just eight miles from the Philadelphia campus of the Barnes Foundation, you’ll find the Barnes Arboretum at Saint Joseph’s University, home to a horticulture school. The 12-acre arboretum is astonishingly diverse for its size, with more than 2,500 varieties of woody and herbaceous plants, many rare. The peony and lilac collections, which date from the early 1900s, are important genetic resources for conservation and study.
https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/arboretum
Bartram’s Garden
Bartram’s Garden is a 45-acre National Historic Landmark, operated by the John Bartram Association in cooperation with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation.
Scott Arboretum at Swathmore College
The idyllic 425-acre arboretum that makes up the Swarthmore College campus is often named one of the most beautiful in the country. The Arboretum is a living memorial to Arthur Hoyt Scott (Swarthmore Class of 1895). Mr. Scott’s family made a generous donation to found the Arboretum in 1929.
Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania
Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania began in 1887 as Compton, the summer home of John and Lydia Morris, brother and sister. The I.P. Morris Company, an iron-manufacturing firm founded by their father and later run by John Morris, was a source of family wealth.
http://www.morrisarboretum.org/about_history.shtml
The Highlands Mansion & Gardens
The Highlands’ 2-acre formal garden was first created in the 1840’s by George Sheaff. Today, The Highlands is recreating the spirit of the Sinkler garden based on letters, photographs, and the survey that Caroline Sinkler commissioned in 1917. This restoration is a multi-phase, multi-year project. The grounds are open from dawn to dusk year around.
https://www.highlandshistorical.org/garden-history
Ambler Arboretum of Temple University
In 1911 Jane Bowne Haines first opened the doors to the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, the school has been a student-centered learning center that remains a core principal at Ambler to this day. One of the three key focus areas for the Ambler Arboretum is the history of women in horticulture and design. The site at Ambler was founded as the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women in 1910.
PHS Meadowbrook Farm
This is the home of the Philadelphia Horticulture Society. The farm is a 25-acre property bequeathed to The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in 2004. Today, visitors enjoy formal and informal gardens and a specialized Plant Shop.
https://phsonline.org/locations/phs-meadowbrook-farm/the-gardens
Stoneleigh: A Natural Garden
Stoneleigh is a young, public garden with a focus on native plants. The original home of 3 generations of the Haas family, they donated the property to Natural Lands to protects it for the future. Stoneleigh is also a showcase for blending the aesthetic beauty of designed gardens with the natural richness of native habitats that are essential to the health of our planet.
https://stoneleighgarden.org/garden/visit/
Natural Lands is a non-profit organization that saves open space, cares for nature, and connects people to the outdoors in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Beginning in the early 1950s up to the present nearly five million people live within five miles of lands under Natural Lands permanent protection.
Arboretum at Haverford College
Founded in 1833 by Welsh Quakers. The following year William Carvill, an English gardener, was hired to transform the tilled fields, woodlots, and pastures into a campus landscape. Trees were planted to frame and complement open spaces, border the lanes in alleés and form grouped circles on open lawns, a reflection of the English landscape tradition of Sir Humphrey Repton. Today the pastoral landscape includes several original oaks on Founders Green.
https://www.haverford.edu/arboretum/arboretum-highlights
Winterthur Museum Garden and Library
Winterthur’s 1,000 acres encompass rolling hills, streams, meadows, and forests. Founder Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) developed an appreciation of nature as a boy that served as the basis for his life’s work in the garden. He selected the choicest plants from around the world to enhance the natural setting, arranging them in lyrical color combinations and carefully orchestrating a succession of bloom from late January to November. Du Pont translated his love of the land into a unified work of art that embodies a romantic vision of nature’s beauty.
Next International Master Gardeners Conference is September 12-16, 2021 – we hope!
Registration will begin some time this fall.
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society – sponsor of the Philadelphia Flower Show. They have recently announced they are moving the show outside and at a new location. It will also be later in the year. Check their website for updates. It’s worth going.
https://phsonline.org/the-flower-show
Pandemic Gardening
August 26, 2020 by ·
We asked our members to tell us what they’re doing in their own yards during this pandemic. Scroll down to read their stories and see the pictures they sent.
We heard from Inday B that they created two flower gardens, one in the back of the sunroom and in the front porch walkway. We also finished the sidewalk leading to the arbor and back gate. These we accomplished with the help of our two wonderful high school grandsons during early spring and summer. We hope you enjoy.
Susan Varlamoff, co-author Laudato Si Action Plan, author, Sustainable Gardening for the Southeast
Marcia L told us …. We have a wooded wetland for our back yard. There was an old footbridge across the creek, which had gotten pretty rickety, so we decided to replace it ourselves this year. We are not terribly “handy” (taking the old one apart gave us guidance on how to build the new one), but it kept us busy and outdoors during the entire stay-at-home period!
Bridging the isolation gap with nature
Front yard pollinator meadow is coming into its own. Created a raised bed veg garden also in the front yard. We’ve cleared privet, honeysuckle, and English ivy out and can now get down to the creek and are planting a native woodland. We’re enjoying sitting by the creek and communing with Harold the great blue heron. All the clearing was done by hand including my sweet sons, who’ve been off work, and Bob the Master Gardener’s Assistant. You’re welcome to come visit. Cheers!
August 2020 Meeting
August 24, 2020 by ·
Our Zoom August meeting was about Building Healthy Soil presented by Cobb County MGEV, Crystal Force. Her very informative presentation delved into the discovery of how mycorrhizal fungi makes our soil healthy and how the destructive horticultural practices of the 20th century can be reversed. She explained that healthy soil is the place to begin if you want healthy plants. Recent discoveries reveal that far more than heathy plants are at stake when considering how we treat our soils. Among those things affected by the heath of our soil are the health of our children and ourselves and even climate change.
Cris was part of a group that conducted a two year experiment on No Till Gardening. They received First Place in Research in the ‘Search for Excellence Award’ by the International Master Gardener Conference in 2019. She quotes from the National Resource Conservation Service, The Hope in Healthy Soil: “We now realize, without healthy life below ground, there would be little above it.”
Information she wanted to share with our members: