My short list of readings for avid gardeners has just become longer.
The book is The Art of Gardening: Design Inspiration and Innovative Planting Techniques from Chanticleer (Timber Press, 2015).
Chanticleer is an exceptional thirty-five acre public garden, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, thirty minutes NW of Philadelphia. It was established a century ago at the home of the Rosengarten family, and became a public garden twenty years ago.
The book’s authors include R. William Thomas (Chanticleer’s executive director and head gardener) with fifteen members of the garden’s staff, including seven horticulturists. Rob Cabrillo created the photographs, a prominent feature of the book.
The Chanticleer garden reportedly continues the original layout created in the early 1900s by landscape architect Thomas Sears; most of the floral and garden development has been accomplished since 1990, when the owner passed.
Chanticleer includes fifteen distinct areas. These are not enclosed, as “garden rooms” might be thought of, but well-defined small spaces within the sprawling property, separated in several cases by lawns. Each unique area has its own gardener who has freedom to manage the ever-evolving design of the landscape, while maintaining the integrity of the overall garden, the area’s relationship with other areas, and (quoting the book) “the union between plant and site. “
I am still working on this concept of “union” because all the plants in my garden are fully unified with their site, but never mind.
This arrangement of spaces and the relative autonomy of the gardeners makes Chanticleer an unusually rich resource for the home gardener. Each of the fifteen relatively small spaces displays design concepts and plant combinations that are ready for adoption or adaptation within the constraints of the typical home garden.
If Chanticleer were designed and managed by a single vision, it would be less interesting and less useful to the visitor.
The book has two major sections: Design and Plants. It also includes minor sections: introduction, afterword, suggested readings, index and a group photo of the several authors, with brief biographical notes.
The Design section (85 pages) describes the site, the arrangement of the fifteen smaller gardens, the use of built structures, the use of patterns to unify the overall garden, the evolutionary approach to garden design, uses of color, and specific examples of design concepts.
The much larger Plants section (205 pages), includes some bylines for the various writers, but likely was written mostly by the co-authors. This section includes observations about the uses and cultivation of individual plants, revealing the staff as a group of thoughtful plant lovers. They have the advantage over many home gardeners of careers in gardening and the opportunity to focus on their plants through annual cycles and over the years. (Speaking for myself, life’s many distractions interrupt the continuity of the gardening experience.)
Despite these multiple voices, the book reads easily, with consistent language throughout. This quality surely reflects the work of the editor.
The avid gardener would benefit from a few pleasant hours with The Art of Gardening, and from having it readily available on the bookshelf. A visit to this extraordinary garden should be included with a future opportunity to fly to the east coast.
As always with garden information from Other Lands, consider climatic and environmental differences with the Monterey Bay area.