Pretty Peonies

Peony 'Coral Charm' in the Knot Garden at Havenwood.

Color for the Weekend

Our first tree peony blooms! 

Just had to share this beautiful a red form of Paeonia suffruticosa that is in our Cherry Corner garden.  I watched anxiously over it earlier in the season, but it really does appear to be hardy enough to have weather our cold, snowy winter. I am so pleased! It is planted in a fairly sunny spot with a little dappled light. 

Have a restful weekend!
~Julie

Chanticleer House in Spring

My visit to Chanticleer House & Gardens in April.

Welcome to the end of my Chanticleer series! It has been nice to finally post these photos from my visit last April with my garden blogging friends, Pam and Carolyn. Chanticleer is a beautiful garden throughout, and it was a very enjoyable visit. Keep and eye open for roosters statues (like on the pillar above), as chanticleer is french for rooster.

If you are interested in reading more about Chanticleer, I recommend looking at their book that was new out last year, Chanticleer: A Pleasure Garden by Adrian Higgins. For me, the real thrill of this book was the beautiful garden photography by Rob Cardillo. His photos cover many seasons of the romantic garden, and there is a bit of information for the plant and garden history lovers as well.

So here we are, at Chanticleer house...

Chanticleer's Asian Woods

Chanticleer's Asian bridge... corresponding to this multi-stemmed tree and the dark-stemmed Arisaema.

Chanticleer's Asian Woods is beautiful in April! It is full of blooming woodland primroses, fresh hosta leaves, delicate peonies and many other woodland treasures. Orchids, Epimediums, Japanese maples and lady's slippers fill out the scene. Plant lovers, read on!

Chanticleer ~ Oak Bed Woodland

Chanticleer's Oak Bed filled with spring delights!

I had lovely weather and lovely company on the day I visited Chanticleer last April. The sunny, warm spring excited hundreds of plants into bloom on the estate grounds all at once. It was a beautiful time to visit!

Here are my photos of the Oak Bed. I found the planting in this area captivating; so many woodland treasures were all nestled together. It had the effect of a patchwork quilt which the gardeners had been knitting together these past years.  Each plant so quietly beautiful, supporting one another. I hope you enjoy the view!

Visit to Carolyn's Shade Gardens in Bryn Mawr, PA

View of Carolyn's Shade Gardens

Pam and I had a wonderful visit to see Carolyn at her gardens in April. What a beautiful garden! And certainly a plant lover's delight.

One of the defining characteristics of Carolyn's garden are all of the amazing, old trees around her property. No wonder she has found a love for shade gardening! The trees act as a luxuriant setting for everything else. Other people may have cut trees down for more sun exposure, but I am thankful that she instead created gardens that fit her surroundings and even added many more beautiful trees. Creativity is sometimes best displayed when we learn to work with a seeming "garden challenge." 

Post #202 - For the love of Blogging and my Readers

I meant to share this a few posts ago (for #200), but I have been rather caught up in trying to finish my succession planting series from 2011 before the bulbs really get going in this earlier spring! (So far I have done the Hill, Cherry Corner and the Shade Path... only three more to go... whew.)

Firstly, I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of my wonderfully encouraging and gifted readers from this past year!! You are scattered across the globe, but I have felt your warm wishes in Pennsylvania. I have so enjoyed the interactions that we have shared through comments and emails. It has truly been my pleasure to share a bit of our small garden "paradise" with you.

Peonies in June 2011

Wife, Mother, Gardener started a bit slowly at first, with only a handful of posts in its first year in 2010. My husband was the instigator from the beginning, and he finally assailed me a year later with pleas to beginning writing about what we were doing here in our gardening. It was his idea for me to write my first series of posts on our 2010 season in January of last year (see Part 1). Once I really got rolling in February, I have not looked back. So, I would also call this my one year garden-blog anniversary.

Blogging has become one of my major creative outlets: a place to put together both photos and the story of our garden and home-life.  So thank you to my Sweetheart for stretching me into it!

Also I want to say thank you to Donna at Gardens Eye View and Karen at Southern Meadows for mentioning me in their Versatile Bloggers lists! I so appreciate you ladies for all of your encouraging words this year, and for sharing your gifts in your wonderful blogs as well!

Here are seven things I hope to do better in my garden this year:

• Keep more seeds from damping off
• Grow more sun plants in our new sunnier backyard (more info on that to come... but so sad)
• Walk in the garden more and enjoy it!!
• Read a garden photography book and use it
• Think about stretching my plantings further in color and form
• Add more ornamental grasses!
• Have a garden party in early summer and add another in fall (more fun, yes?)

As another nonconformist, I am also going to bend the rules a bit. Here are some posts by other blogs that I have enjoy recently that you might also like to take a look at:

• Pam's English Cottage Garden - New USDA Hardiness Zone Map
• Brenda at Limestone and Maples - Who Cares what the Neighbors Think! - a piece on embracing our creativity and not letting our anxiety of what people think hold us back.
• Naomi at Out of My Shed - The no prune (well almost) method of tree training!
• Rosie at Leaves 'n Blooms - Why no Busy Lizzies this year? -  interesting post on mildew on impatients in the UK
• Christina at My Hesperides Garden - Snow in Italy!
• Bertie at What Ho Hidcote! - Snow - beautiful scenes from last year of this historic garden
• Donna's White Garden post
• Karen's Hellebores

I hope you all have some chocolate to enjoy today! I am going to try whipping some up for us this evening... perhaps you will want to try it too? Molten Chocolate Cake with Raspberries... yum. 

Happy Valentine's Day!