See George’s Gardens
May 30th, 2018
If you’ve ever wondered what my yard looks like, you’ll get a chance to see it on Sat., July 14.
‘Biokovo’ geraniums and allium ‘Globemaster’ bloom around the front-walk boxwoods at George’s house.
That’s the day of the Penn-Cumberland Garden Club’s “Plant America Beautiful” summer garden tour. My wife and I agreed to be one of the five or six residential stops on the tour, which takes place between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. that day.
The tour also will include stops at the Rosemary House Garden in Mechanicsburg (with exhibits from the Susquehanna Bonsai Society), the impressive community vegetable gardens next to the Ames True Temper factory in Hampden Twp., and the house and new gardens at Mechanicsburg’s historic Frankenberger Tavern.
Tickets go on sale starting June 1. Advance tickets are $15 and will be available at Ashcombe Farm and Greenhouses in Monroe Twp., Highland Gardens in Lower Allen Twp., the Rosemary House in Mechanicsburg, and Stauffers of Kissel Hill Garden Center in Upper Allen Twp. Tickets the day of the tour are $17.
Proceeds benefit Penn-Cumberland Garden Club – the West Shore’s biggest, oldest garden club that manages the Ames Community Gardens, gives plant-career student scholarships, runs flower shows and plant sales, and more.
If you’ve never done a garden tour, the way it works is that your ticket is a booklet that gives locations and descriptions of the participants. You pick which (or all) you want to visit in whatever order, then drive from one to the next on the tour day and hours.
Owners and/or garden-club representatives are at each stop to answer questions and point you in the right direction. In this case, wine-tasting, artwork, and music will be taking place at some of the locations.
Don’t get too excited about what you might see at our place. I’m a plant nut, horticulturist and garden designer, but our yard is more “test lab” than landscape haven. It’s also small at only one-third of an acre and is located in a typical suburban development.
You’ll find a lot of interesting plants and a fair amount of color and action, but a mini-Longwood or mini-Chanticleer it’s not.
I’ve basically sacrificed trying to do something impressive in favor of growing a ridiculous number of species and varieties for the space. The yard is not quite a hopeless jumble, but I do have way more onesies and twosies than good design would dictate. (You plant geeks will understand.)
Our side-yard Asian shade garden.
Our yard took that direction because my garden-writing career means I need to know first-hand how plants perform around here, and I need to keep up with the latest introductions – both for research/evaluation purposes and for photography.
It doesn’t help design-wise that I get a lot of trial plants from growers. While that’s good for staying on top of things, it’s hard to design nice gardens in drifts of one.
I’ve replaced so much grass with garden beds over the years that my lawn is now little more than paths that lead from one garden to the next. I at least try to pair things well within the beds, but that’s not easy either as trial plants croak, outgrow space, and/or need to move to make way for the new year’s lineup.
I constantly play the game of musical plants.
The one garden that’s fairly stable is my favorite garden – my Pennsylvania-German four-square-inspired vegetable garden. You’ll get to see that one in mid-season form and maybe pick up a few ideas for your own vegetable garden.
Other areas feature an Asian shade garden, a small pond with adjacent swing, a front yard filled with annuals and long-blooming perennials, and a fig tree espaliered along a garage wall.
My wife, Sue, likes to add all sorts of artsy/craftsy finishing touches, such as hypertufa troughs and molded leaves, small statues, and her famous “dish things” made by gluing different glass and ceramic objects together.
Our place may not resemble Longwood in any way, but we have fun doing it. And we burn off some calories out there…