Northview-Such An Elegant Garden And Oh, What A Shed!

One balmy Pennsylvania afternoon, last August, I visited my GWA (Association for Garden Communicators) friend, Jenny Rose Carey, in her Philadelphia garden and am sitting here thinking about how beautiful it must be looking right now. Luckily, I took heaps of shots and am so happy to be able to share this very special garden with you.

The family home

Many gardeners forget that green is a colour and just how effective green on green can be.

Jenny Rose is all things horticulture, author, educator and historian but first and foremost a brilliant gardener with a great eye and is the Senior Director at The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Meadowbrook Farm in Jenkintown (more on that stunning property later).

A quiet place to sit

Begonias just beautiful begonias

great use for a stump!

A Bit about Northview….

On Jenny Roses’ website, she writes “Northview’s 4½ acre site was originally part of Wilmer and Anna Atkinson’s 1887 100-acre Victorian Model Farm. Some of the trees planted by Mr. Atkinson (the Founder and Editor of the Farm Journal) remain, including a beautiful 150-year-old Japanese maple.  The current property includes the original 1887 farmhouse and carriage house.”

I climbed up to the top to enjoy the view

such a pretty feature

This delightful garden, like many private gardens, I am lucky enough to visit, is a reflection of the gardener who created it, Jenny Rose, it’s an elegant garden that’s for sure. This garden offers both form and function and is so respectful of gardeners who have worked that land. There’s lovely, tasteful pieces of artwork scattered throughout, some whimsy pieces, just for fun, long vistas for the mind to rest and drink in the verdant green lawns and breathe the air around old trees and really experience the many places to sit and just be.

How delightful

Hydrangeas in full bloom

Step through the gate to see what treasures await

Picture perfect arbor

Even the birds get a very cool place to hang out here

You can’t help but breathe deeply as you walk under this canopy

Perfect afternoon light to capture this beauty

I love a good stumpery, look at the beautiful lichen and fungi

Nature has an open invitation to visit this garden

OK, so, I will freely admit that I am a sucker for potting sheds and places where people work behind the scenes (I’m a bit of a sticky beak) in gardens and Jenny Roses’ potting shed is, I think No.1 on my list…it is a thing of beauty in itself, such organization, so many pots, so gorgeous, I could see myself sitting in one of those wicker chairs, looking out over the garden and sipping a hot cuppa…could be my dream Air BNB, in fact! 

The Potting Shed..from the outside, but the real magic is on the inside.

for those times when you need to sit outside your lovely shed

I would like to sit here and drink tea, wouldn’t you?

a lovely garden path

I could sit in that shed for months, looking out at that garden and writing a book…ahh what would I write?…what would I call it? This Philadelphia Life, perhaps……

Jenny Rose and her family generously host visitors to her garden and you can request a visit by contacting her on http://www.jennyrosecarey.com/northview-gardens. It would be a fabulous place to go with a group of like-minded garden-loving pals on a Spring or Summers day. 

Thank you, Jenny Rose, for so generously sharing your garden with me.

Why not…GIve it a try?