Cherries Jubilee

It's that special week at Chanticleer. This is the week that the flowering cherries are either at peak or just passing. Just passing you say, why is that special?
A ring of Prunus ‘Accolade’ defines the entrance courtyard to the main house, Chanticleer proper, an upright pink flowering cherry. Within the ring is the area that once served as the driveway and parking area for the house, it too is circular.



Several years ago, the asphalt was taken up, as this "driveway" is now part of the main strolling path at the garden. Replacing the asphalt was crushed red gravel defined by a cobble and bluestone surround. During the season, each morning before the garden open the garden gnome that tends to this area painstakingly rakes the gravel. Using a rake that not only smoothes but also strikes lines in the gravel. This detail meets the visitor at the entrance to the courtyard, and those that arrive early in the day are made to feel that the gravel was raked for them. Others are less appreciative and stroll or walk through the gravel and break the spell for those that follow. Just like in the real world. Every attempt is made to mend or heal the footsteps during the day, but spring is a busy time and it doesn't always happen as soon as it should. Even when it does though, it still a patch, a mend, a fix.



Why is this week special? The cherries are shedding their petals. Breezes caught in this circular courtyard swirl to escape, dislodging the petals and forming at times a pink whirlpool. Quite a special moment if you should happen through during the event. Working in this area for quite a few years you might expect I’m numb to this, but it still delights me.
But alas, when the petals settle, they lodge themselves into the many little valleys created in the raking process, defining both the efforts of the gnome as well as the footsteps of the unappreciative.

Spicebush Update 4/20/08

Looking back to a December 2007 post, "Spicing up your fall landscape", I extolled the virtues of the Linderas. Spicebushes as they are known collectively, both native and asian species grow in the US.The two Asian species that I discussed were the Lindera obtusiloba and the Lindera salicifolia.

This post is simply an update to show the two plants at this time of year, so that you may consider them for inclusion in your landscape.

Lindera obtusiloba has begun to leaf out after its coarse yellow flower has past, Its odd mitten shaped leaves, still in their infancy are a refreshing color in the landscape. Each with a slight webbing or hairiness to the newly emerging leaves.


The Willow-Leaved Spicebush, Lindera salicifolia is still clad in its foliage from last year. Still performing a screening task for me, double duty for this deciduous shrub. This is the week that the subtle flowers are blooming and the new leaf buds are swelling. Very soon now the old leaves will be disloged at their bases by the new foliage, a very quick leaf drop will follow and in the course of just a few days a new spring outfit will adorn this plant.

Marching into April

The March Bank, Winterthur

A cool almost cold morning in April, grey and sullen, damp.




The March Bank at Winterthur in northern Delaware, one of the 'Diamond States' little known jems. At its peak before most venture into gardens, when the Magnolias and Dogwoods say "It's OK to come out".



Its better this way, one usually has the garden to yourself. Tens of thousands of spring ephemeral bulbs, Chionadoxa, Scilla, Muscari along with a host of native and non-native perennials such as Mertensia and Erythronium, form a tapestry of color carpeting the forest floor.




The canopy comprised of mainly native Oaks, Tulip Poplar, Hickory and the tell tale late season foliage of the Beech.
Moments like this are for sharing. Enjoy the images, plan the visit.

A marshmallow world in Cleveland

The Cleveland Botanic Garden

After the symposium in Pittsburgh was finished, very successfully by the sounds of it, we the speakers were free to go our own way.
Despite a fairly serious late season snowstorm that hit the region Saturday afternoon and into the evening, I traveled north the next day to call on the Cleveland Botanic Garden. This conservatory and garden, which is situated just south of the Lake Erie shoreline in Cleveland at the edge of Case Western Reserve and the Museum of Art.
Unfortunately due to the snow, almost 18” of it, the grounds were not open and only a small portion of the entrance garden was accessible. Nonetheless, was in town and was here to see what I could.







Arriving at nearly 3:30 on Sunday afternoon I was surprised to pull into to underground parking lot and see it nearly full.
I understand the Cabin Fever phenomena, however this seemed a bit extreme. Upon entering the lobby and purchasing my ticket, I was asked if I was here for the Orchid sale,” no”, I replied to a quizzical looking face, “OK then, enjoy”.
Obviously the orchid sale is an event. This sell off represents the end of a month long orchid extravaganza; I believe that is the technical term. I was told this by Cynthia Druckenbroad, Head of Horticulture at the garden, a familiar face from a previous experience at CBG. She said it’s the best way to avoid having to take care of them after the show and just before the hectic spring season. Staged in the lobby and Library areas for preview, hopeful buyers were posturing so that they could pounce when the time was right. I had no need for orchids today. I felt confident that US Airways could loose my luggage even without something precious and perishable in it.



I moved on to the glass houses. Several years before the Phipps expansion, Cleveland Botanic underwent an n aggressive capital campaign to build a state of the art glasshouse space to house two major collections of theirs. The bold glass structure is split roughly in half, one side housing the Costa Rican forest collection. Warm and moist, noisy and alive. The latter provided by waterfalls and butterflies as well as tropical birds in the glasshouse.
The second house is devoted to the Madagascar collection, or the spiny forest as it is called in Cleveland. Unfortunately the Madagascar climate is cooler and dry in the winter and as such the plants and therefore the display looks austere and foreboding by comparison. Yet in its own right a wonderful exhibit, complete with Madagascar hissing cockroaches…Yeah.
It was nice to see people in this facility, maybe they were there for the orchids but they were there. Noticing the colors on the banana quits as the fed on the feeders, and the aggressive behavior displayed by the large butterfly against the small birds, again at the feeding station. Perhaps they would be back.


As I left the building, leaving the chaos of the now underway sale, I strolled what I could of the entrance garden, situated atop of the underground parking facility, clever. It was a marshmallow world out in the garden, bright late afternoon sun reflected sharply. In the distance one of Frank Gerhy’s buildings on the campus of Case Western Reserve, added a surreal background to the architecture of the snow laden plants in this green place that is Cleveland’s’ Botanic Garden.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Last Friday evening after work hours something a little out of the ordinary happened at Chanticleer. The Ruin Garden “lawn” of Sporobolis heterolepis, commonly referred to as Prairie Dropseed was burned. This was not by accident, but as part of a management practice that hopefully will be employed again in the future.




Until now, Laurel Voran, the horticulturist charged with the horticultural aspect of the ruin and it surrounds, had mowed the grass with one of the commercial lawn mowers. The Sporobolis is a clump forming grass, which makes for an even more difficult mowing job. This year, before the grass began active growth the Radnor Fire Company was contacted and the idea of the burn was presented. The fire chief saw this as an ideal training exercise for some of the newer firefighters, whom usually participate in fireless training sessions. So this live fire exercise was a mutually beneficial experience.




Laurel and Terry Struve, and assistant horticulturist, had spent time the days preceding the burn to carefully mow down the grass immediately surround important landscape plants so that the fire wouldn’t approach these valuable plants. Working with Laurel and a few staff members, the fire fighters lit controlled flame fronts with flares, and wetted down desirable landscape elements such as evergreens and masonry structures.



The plan is that this can happen each season to reduce the amount of duff or thatch that accumulates and can offer protection and shelter for rodents and other pests.

Phipps Conservatory

The Phipps Conservatory
The primary winter destination for the residents of the Pittsburgh metro area that feels the need for green, is without a doubt the Phipps Conservatory.
Located on the edge of Schenley Park, one of the cities major outdoor green spaces. The conservatory has been through some major expansion in the last few years; provide new conservatory areas as well as production and a very nice café adjacent to the entrance.




The main entrance to the conservatory is now below grade; Ticketing, lockers and the café are on this level as well as the gift shop. As you climb the stair in the circular entrance foyer you ascend around a giant glass installation, obtained from the Chihuly exhibit that let there just recently.



The glass dome, which covers the foyer, allows light to pour through the piece even on the grayest of days, and is internally lit at night.




As we traveled through the display houses, smaller pieces of Chihuly’s work were incorporated into the installations.

As a result of the new expansion of conservatory space, this is a nice mix of old style greenhouse and conservatory feel. Worn brick, ferns nestled in crevices, wet paths caused by leaky pains of glass, all in the most romantic of old greenhouse ways.



As you proceed through the older original portion you are introduced into the new high tech glasshouse. Thailand is the current exhibit installed here. Educational and interactive exhibits are stationed on the path to engage the young, to provide a bit of understanding regarding this foreign land.
The vaulting ceiling, allowed by modern construction techniques allows for the use of plants with dramatic height. Flowing water seems to be every where, with a wonderful thick lexan curved wall, a clear dam to about waist high that provides not a glimpse but an excellent view into the pool below a canopy walk and overlook.




I had the opportunity to visit the Conservatory as one of the speakers at the Western Pennsylvania Landscaping and garden Symposium, co sponsored by Phipps Conservatory, Chatham University and Penn State Cooperative Extension.
Other speakers at the event were Dan Heims of Terranova Nursery,
Peter Del Tredici of the Arnold Arboretum, Dr. Richard Bitner of conifer fame and Bruce Fraedrich of the Bartlett Tree Company.



Dan had arrived at nearly the same time as I did into the Pittsburgh airport, so we had the opportunity to the Phipps facility together with our hosts, Nancy Knauss and Mike Masiuk, I offer this as partial explanation of why only Dan was pictured in this post, not playing favorites!




The conservatory was in a buzz of work. The quarterly display or flower show was being changed out and the new beds were being worked and installed. Not just one glasshouse but I saw at least five full display houses being dismantled, and re-mantled with wonderful plants and enthusiasm. Well done!

The Philadelphia Flower Show

One thing that always brings me out of any winter doldrums, thaws the cold of late winter restores the color to my spirit, The Flower Show.

We in the Delaware Valley don’t need to ask which flower show, for us there is only one, the grand dame of them all, The Philadelphia Flower Show. The oldest and largest show of it’s kind in the nation.

The very first show was held in 1829, in the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia, just two years after the formation of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Occupying two rooms in the temple it’s first year, it has grown to cover over ten acres of enclosed horticultural display, within the Philadelphia Convention Center.




This year’s theme is “Jazz It Up”. The music and spirit of New Orleans is played out in the central feature, repleat with a glass piano created by Dale Chihuly himself. A structure to invoke the feel of the French Quarter serves as a background to this amazing entrance. Plants cascade down second story balconies to the crowds below, the colors and the sounds of Jazz flood the show floor.




Live lectures given in the Gardeners Studio, on the show floor entertains topics such as Container gardening, Herbs and pruning techniques. A new talk starts every hour that the show is open, and the show run for nine days. That’s a lot of free information!



Large-scale exhibits, many by regional landscape companies comprise much of the display area, although many smaller and non-profit organizations have displays as well.




The Horticourt is where the action is before the show. Individuals entering, primping, and fussing and finally relinquishing control of there prized plants to those overly objective judges. And for what? Ribbons, blue ribbons, and bragging rights for the season.