Chanticleer Offers New Attractions for the 2015 Season

Home to more than 30 public gardens and historic landscapes, the Philadelphia region is a tourist mecca for avid gardeners. One garden not to be missed is Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania, named one of Top 10 North American Gardens Worth Traveling For by the Garden Tourism Awards. This 35-acre “pleasure garden,” on the grounds of the old Rosengarten estate, is a botanical wonderland with more than 5,000 plants and a dozen diverse gardens featuring woodlands, meadows, orchards, shade gardens, perennial gardens, and more. Each year, the gardens continue to evolve, as Chanticleer horticulturists adorn them with their unique touches. The gardeners here are also artists and build their own garden furniture, fences, gates, fountains, and bridges using wood, metal, and stone.

“Highlights at Chanticleer this season include the exciting tropicals and summer annuals blooming on the terraces around our two historic houses, the Serpentine Garden burgeoning with artichokes—the first time we’ve grown this crop—and our new elevated walkway floating over a meadow and through a grove of quaking aspens,” says Bill Thomas, executive director of the Chanticleer Foundation.

Other attractions include the pond area, where lotuses and other aquatic plants flourish in the midsummer heat, and the Gravel Garden, which offers a mixture of textures and colors amidst the dramatic structural forms of agaves and yuccas. The shaded Bell’s Woodland and Asian Woods are peaceful retreats from the sun, featuring contrasting shades of green accented with flowers. The former features the plants of eastern North America while the Asian Garden is populated with the native plants of China, Korea, and Japan.

Chanticleer is open to visitors Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., until November 1. This season, Chanticleer will also host two new photography workshops: Digital Perspective on Flower & Garden Photography with Allen Rokach, July 24 to 26; and Vision, Craft, and the Desire to Grow with Rob Cardillo, October 23 to 25. For more information or to register visit chanticleergarden.org/workshops.html.

Classes on gardening are offered in the evenings at Chanticleer, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society, on topics ranging from bog gardening to pruning small trees and shrubs. For the full list of programs, visit pennhort.net/chanticleer.