2022 Members' Garden Tour - Chestnut Hill, Fort Washington, Wyndmoor

ANTICIPATION! – Member Garden Tour Will Be Here Before We Know It! - June 25^th 2022

Garden Tours noon to 4 p.m. followed by a reception at 4:30 p.m. Again this year, all member families at the reception will also be able to choose a plant (or more!) from the interesting plants donated from the gardens of board members. This is a rain or shine event for members only. 

Volunteers are needed, please click this link to sign up:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/8050f4fafa92da2fa7-hardy

The tour is free for members only; guests are welcome, but are required to join HPS/MAG at the first house that they visit. We will be prepared at each house to sign up your guests. Dues are $35.00 for one year and $60.00 for two years. Important: Exact cash payment or payment by check is required the day of the tour. 

They can also join online at: Join or Renew Membership . After becoming a member they can register for the tour online.

Click here to register. Registration closes at midnight on June 17th. All registrants will receive an e-mail confirmation with the addresses of the gardens, reception site, etc. 

The Gardens of the 2022 Members' Garden Tour

Gardens of Paul Meyer and Debbie Rodgers

Harmonizing elements - historic and new…

Meyer and Rodgers have gardened here since 2019, building on the gardens previously developed by noted gardener Ellie Lloyd.  The property was subdivided from a larger estate on Seminole Street in the early 1980’s and some old estate elements remain, including the carriage house, pool and a mature allee of Cornus kousa (kousa dogwood).  New features include vegetable gardens with fruit espalier and a small rock wall garden.

The plantings are eclectic and designed to provide year-round interest.  Highlights include hollies, dogwoods, camellias and rhododendron as well as a diverse herbaceous layer.   A notably large specimen of Oxydendrum arboretum (sourwood) shades a portion of the back garden.

Gardens of Maxine Field

A garden in four parts…

Maxine’s large lot necessitates sections that take care of themselves: groundcovers, volunteers, self-sowers and trees pop-up in new places.  I love flowers and the insects they attract and have, over the years, eliminated much grass to enlarge beds. There is almost always something in bloom.

In the front yard, small trees include crape myrtles with interesting bark, kousa dogwood. stewartia, oxydendrum and Dr. Merrill magnolia.  The patio area was designed by Fred Peck when the house was built in the 1960s.  Mature evergreen shrubs, pieris japonica, azaleas and hollies provide nice winter views.  Skimmia and acuba have replaced boxwood.  A franklinia is doing well, a yellowwood, not.

The backyard, once a mostly grass extra lot, now has both shady and sunny sides.  The woodland garden is at its best in early spring with trillium, mertensia, trout lily, other ephemerals, gingers, columbine, then ferns, astilbe, hosta and azalea. The sunny portions have peonies, lilies, iris, echinacea, rudbeckia, baptisa, lobelia and self-sown annuals and biennials, digitalis, cleome, nicotiana.  Flowering shrubs include viburnum, hydrangea, deciduous azalea, callicanthus and rhododendron.   There is a dramatic show of bulbs in the spring, snowdrops with winter aconites and then daffodils and tulips. The “way backyard”, once dominated by five giant hemlocks, is still under reclamation.  Holly, oak, cherry and dogwood have taken off with the good soil and increased light. When my wonderful new neighbors, Debbie Rodgers and Paul Meyer, arrived in 2019, we replaced the fence to allow easier visiting.  After using cardboard (and some Roundup) to smother the weeds, I have been putting in bulbs and plants, but as I do this irregularly and don’t label, I await the surprises that spring will bring.

Gardens of Jay and Nanie Flaherty

Our greatest joy in our gardens is sharing what we have created…

Our one-acre garden in Chestnut Hill sits on the corner of a busy street intersection filled with cars, bicyclists, pedestrians, dogs, and children walking to the adjacent school. Rather than retreat from all this activity to a private sanctuary screened by hedges, we have opened vistas into our garden so that passersby may pause to enjoy what we have planted and to share their ideas with us.  The original owners of our property planted over seventy hollies shortly after the house was completed in 1961. These hollies, in 2 gallon pots set on 10-15 foot centers, have matured to provide the bones for our design of a four-season garden. While focusing on plants native to the Wissahickon Valley, we have carefully planted numerous other plants that thrive in the Mid-Atlantic states, including many Japanese maples.

We also tend an adjoining one-acre plot, partially owned by us, the adjacent school, and St. Martin-in-the Fields Church. Here we have built two separate vegetable gardens: one receives full sun to grow tomatoes, beans and squash, another now in the part-shade of a pin oak contains lettuce, kale, and peas. This less formal acre attracts an array of small wildlife, which find food and shelter in debris piles and dense foliage.

Water features, winding bluestone paths bordered by Wissahickon schist, and accents of found objects complement our plantings in more than a dozen garden rooms.  Each spring we set out many containers of annuals to provide the ephemeral joy of cannas, coleus, and salvias.  Throughout the two acres in our care, color combinations, foliage contrasts, scents, hardscapes, and vertical accents create seasonal variety and capture the play of light and shade.

Gardens of Lucretia Robbins and Bill Siemering

A small garden filled with color and texture…

After 20 years, we wanted to gift our home for sheltering us. With the help of Tom Borkowski and Adam Levine, we recreated the garden by initially removing the lengthy driveway and scruffy grass (no more lawn to mow!) replacing these areas with trees, shrubs, and perennials focused on the interest of shape texture, and different shades of green.  You now enter through a “tunnel” of green into the light of a circular garden whose focus is a beautiful bird sculpture by Inta Kromholtz.

Linger in the former garage, now transformed into an art studio and gallery.  The studio was featured last spring in “Grow” magazine in the article “Building Creativity” with photography by Rob Cardillo.  Lucretia is an award-winning botanical artist who taught ‘Art in the Garden’ to young students for 20 years.  Her framed pieces will be for sale in the studio during the tour. Follow the soft meandering path to circle the walking meditation garden featuring river birch, hostas, turtleheads, ferns and sitting area.

The garden was awarded a blue ribbon by PHS. It is a bit wild contrasted to manicured as Lucretia tends it herself without machinery but with the assistance of a delightful nine year old boy who lives around the corner and shares her passion for the garden.

Gardens of Taddy Dawson

A garden of surprises…

My garden is like my mother’s jewelry box - everything is tight, perhaps tangled, some say messy and because I’m a plant addict, it is all a “drift of one.”   I’ll be as surprised as you at what is happening when you visit.  There is underlying structure in the form of rooms - I think of the driveway as a picture gallery and the small tile terrace as a dining room.  These spaces are decorated with plants.  I love the ones that self-sow and I have a difficult time pulling them up: poppies, coridalis, dicentra exemia, forget-me-nots, spurge, silene and lychnis.  Where they choose to be can be delightfully surprising.  

I must admit, addict that I am, I’m a sucker for fragrance.  If I had to leave my garden and take only one plant with me, it would be my gin and tonic plant: illicium floridanum.  It’s next to a mahonia bealei, very painful to work around, but I feel no pain, because I brush up against the illicium. Its leaves give off an intoxicating fragrance.  When you visit, I’ll have some ready to serve and, weather permitting, you can join Emily Dickinson’s “little tippler leaning against the sun.”

Gardens of Nina Schneider

Richly and densely planted garden rooms…

Our Chestnut Hill garden is a on half acre surrounding the 1954-built house, which we have occupied since 1989. The garden was designed and constructed / planted in stages over the years and has evolved into a dense collection of mixed borders that feature an abundance of hydrangeas, approximately 60 different varieties. The property includes a small vegetable garden, rock garden, and new gravel garden.  Sharing our home with two rambunctious greyhounds makes nicely manicured lawns out of the question. Expect to see container plantings, roses (reds, yellows, oranges) and the driveway wall plantings that are an ongoing experiment to test plants for drought and heat tolerance.

Reception Site is Historic Hope Lodge, Fort Washington

https://www.historichopelodge.org/

 After visiting these amazing gardens, we will gather with friends to enjoy a snacks and drinks reception at near-by Historic Hope Lodge.  We will have the opportunity to tour the first floor of the two-centuries-old Georgian style mansion, enjoy landscaped gardens defined by brick walkways and stroll the rolling meadows of the 44 acre property.  All member families at the reception will also be able to choose a plant (or more!) from the interesting plants donated from the gardens of board members.

HPS/MAG COVID-19 PRACTICES AND POLICIES: All HPS/MAG In-Person Events shall be subject to all COVID-related requirements imposed by any state, local and/or federal agency.  Guests and invitees should apprise themselves of any such requirements prior to attendance.  All HPS/MAG In-Person Events shall also be subject to the COVID-related requirements, if any, of the garden host.  All attendees must bring a mask for every In-Person Event, in case it is required. 

Non-vaccinated attendees at events must sign a COVID waiver. Click here for the waiver. Please bring it with you to the event.