Drinking up beauty in Chanticleer's Teacup Garden
June 30, 2016 Eight years ago, on a family road trip through Pennsylvania, I visited Chanticleer on a lark (I was planning to see Longwood Gardens but changed my mind at the last minute), and my understanding of what a garden could be changed forever. Not merely because the garden ...
Meadow views and fantasy treehouses at Longwood Gardens
June 27, 2016 Contrasting with the many formal and traditional gardens at Longwood Gardens (a Philadelphia-area estate garden I visited earlier this month), the 2-year-old Meadow Garden presents an appearance of wild nature. The meadow’s 86 rolling acres of native grasses, perennials, and wildflowers come into view from a shady ...
Those who play in glass houses: Conservatory and Indoor Children's Garden at Longwood Gardens
June 26, 2016 Maybe Southerners don’t need conservatories because our winters are pretty green. Growing up in the South, I don’t recall ever visiting a conservatory until I started garden traveling to northern states. (We don’t have a culture of spring garden shows either, perhaps for the same reason.) Call ...
Rambler roses and dancing water: Formal gardens at Longwood Gardens
June 23, 2016 Classically formal gardens aren’t my favorite style of garden, and that’s doubly true if roses are involved (they so often look leggy and lonely unsoftened by companion plants). But Longwood Gardens, a Philadelphia-area estate garden I visited with Diana/Sharing Nature’s Garden earlier this month, surprised me on ...
Enchanted Woods children’s garden at Winterthur: Not your typical playground
June 18, 2016 Forget wooden playscapes, jungle gyms, and climbing walls. The most magical children’s gardens consist of natural spaces that invite exploration, slowly reveal secret spaces, and encourage imaginative play. Such is Enchanted Woods, the children’s garden at Winterthur, located in Winterthur, Delaware, which I visited with Diana/Sharing Nature’s ...
Dogwood enchantment and a wild windstorm at Winterthur Gardens
June 16, 2016 The Brandywine Valley of Pennsylvania has been calling my name since 2008, when I passed through during a family road trip and fell in love with the rolling, wooded countryside, its charming villages and Revolutionary War history, and numerous estate gardens that make it a garden traveler’s ...
Visiting the 9/11 Memorial, 13 years later
November 11, 2014 The blue-sky, sunny day was reminiscent of the beautiful morning of September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked and the World Trade Center towers fell. During our trip to New York City in mid-October, my daughter and I visited the 9/11 Memorial. Now almost 15, my daughter was ...
Autumn amble at New York Botanical Garden
October 24, 2014 After touring Wave Hill on October 11, my daughter and I took the train to the New York Botanical Garden. Although both NYBG and Wave Hill are located in the Bronx, mass transit between the two ate up some time, and we had tickets to a Broadway ...
Visit to Wave Hill in New York City, Part 2
October 22, 2014 Wave Hill, an estate garden in the Bronx in New York City, which I visited on October 11, was romantically blowsy in the Pergola, Elliptical, and Flower Gardens near the entry. But it got a bit bolder, even Hollywood, in the Aquatic and Monocot Gardens. These two ...
Visit to Wave Hill, a Hudson River estate garden in New York City
October 20, 2014 I traveled to New York City with my daughter on October 10 to see public gardens. On Saturday, our first full day in New York, a chilly rain didn’t keep us from visiting Wave Hill, a 28-acre estate garden in the Bronx with a million-dollar view of ...
The High Line park in NYC, a skyline promenade, part 2
October 19, 2014 At the end of Part 1 of my post about visiting the High Line in New York City last weekend, we’d just entered Chelsea Market Passage. After the dimness of the passageway, you exit into bright sunlight on the aptly named Sun Deck. Wooden lounge chairs resembling ...
Up on the High Line, a skyline promenade
October 19, 2014 Have you ever flown across the country to see one garden? I did last weekend. Rapturous articles and blog posts about the High Line, New York City’s garden-park conversion of an abandoned elevated rail line through the city’s old Meatpacking District, had seduced me for 5 years ...
Lovely Lancaster Ave gardens at Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 19, 2010 Playful wall decor in a Lancaster Avenue garden Wrapping up my series about Garden Bloggers Buffa10, I’ve saved some of the best gardens for last, as did our hosts in arranging access to the remarkable Lancaster Avenue gardens for the final day of the event. We had ...
In Elizabeth’s and Jim’s gardens at Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 18, 2010 A week ago today Garden Bloggers Buffa10 was wrapping up with a self-guided tour of the incredible Lancaster Avenue gardens (more pics tomorrow). Before we hit Lancaster, however, my travel partner Diana and I opted to stop by co-host Elizabeth Licata’s Allentown garden for a second, less-crowded ...
High tea in the garden of Mike and Kathy Shadrack: Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 16, 2010 Two buses carrying the garden bloggers of Buffa10 jounced slowly down a long, skinny driveway in the woods near Hamburg, New York, to deliver us to the creekside glen that is Kathy and Mike Shadrack‘s garden. A former London bobby with a sly wit, Mike has authored ...
Japanese Garden in Buffalo’s Delaware Park: Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 14, 2010 One of the stops on Friday’s bus tour at Garden Bloggers Buffa10 was the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park. Part of Buffalo’s historic Olmsted Parks System, the garden was constructed in 1974 by its Japanese sister city, Kanazawa, but as Buffalo fell on hard times the park ...
