Sussex Priarie Gardens was started by Pauline and Paul McBride in May 2008 from a field near Henfield in West Sussex.  Astoundingly they planted it in two weeks with the help of 40 friends – including the then ambassador to Luxembourg.  Some cooked, some planted, all had a fabulous time.

Paul studied horticulture in Scotland and then worked as a gardener for the Commonwealth Graves Commission in France, where he met Pauline who was sorting out accomodations for British gardeners coming to maintain cemeteries from the First and Second World Wars.  They worked for 12 years for a family outside Luxembourg, creating a 30-acre garden for them before embarking on their own adventure.

They were inspired by Piet Oudolf, and actually gardened beside him to create a 54,000 sq ft border with over 20,000 plants.  They familiarized themselves with his favorites - Sanguisorba officinalis, Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau’, various thalictrums and molinias are major players in their own garden.

The Sussex land was part of Pauline’s late father’s farm.  They planned it in a romantic, naturalistic style, using  bold groups of flowering plants and grasses that as Paul has said “have a close relationship in form, foliage and simplicity of flower with native or non-native counterparts”.  The colors used are soft and muted with an informal style that blends with the Sussex landscape and the four acres of borders attract a rich diversity of wildlife. 

When they inherited the land there was a scant 3” of topsoil over yellow/blue clay.  To encourage plants and not weeds they drained the entire site, putting in drainage pipes every 33’ and ploughed the beds before rototilling in 1,000 tons of grean waste they got free from a composting firm to ensure a rich tilth that their amateur gardening friends could plant into.

The planted over 30,000 plants, 90% of which they propogated themselves, and they continue to apply a thick mulch of green waste annually – although the they let it sit for two years before using it as it is so rich.  This has helped keep the weeds down, but they also have two full time gardeners and an army of volunteers.  The beds are designed in a broken spiral formation with a wide path down the center, with a field of sheep at one end and a great tea room/nursery/gift shop at the other.  

The borders themselves are planted with huge block plantings of the same species with 3’ paths running through them that narrow as the season progresses.  The plants vary in height due to the differences of soil fertility, some clumps such as Persicaria polymorpha, are giants and you are dwarfed walking among them, the proximity of the plantings means you can experience everything close up – sounds, fragrances, colors, shapes.

As the perennials chosen mature quickly the garden is never static.  The beds also have different characteristics.  The pond bed is aptly named for the three ponds in it, the North and South Mounds were created from the drainage soils and are mainly purple and yellow colors, the Cleat Border was inspired by James van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme and is composed of large blocks of grasses and rudbeckieas.  The “Wee bed” had a plethora of echinaceas in candyfloss colors. 

All the beds are punctuated by sculptures, either commissioned or added by local artists.  Some of them such as the wire balloons on the lawn are designed and made by Pauline – my favorite were flowers made from old vinyl records that dot one of the central beds.  There are also sheep, pigs and chickens; a bed and breakfast; a garden design business; and an enticing nursery. I couldn’t resist buying a wonderful sheep tea cosy knitted by Pauline’s mother from the wool from their flock.

Sussex Prairies (sussexprairies.co.uk)

The Mt. Airy Learning Tree (MALT) has organized an Annual Hidden Gardens Tour for 20 years.  This year they showcased 13 homes that have never been featured on the tour — two in Chestnut Hill, three in Germantown and eight in Mt. Airy.  

We met Eric Sternfels, the organizer and local gardener and artist, at the first gardens, a row of homes on McCallum Street.  A European feel with a great sense of community and gardens with obscurely placed sculptures and other pieces of art.  Sternfels selected the sites by scouring the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s City Gardens Contest winners, leaning on his local gardening network and the old-fashioned method of revisiting gardens he liked, with the hope he might run into someone.  “It’s really astonishing the amount of knowledge you’ll find is available if you get involved in this little local garden community, it’s amazing how much these spaces have filled in since I saw them the beginning of May.  When you’re a gardener, you’re always just missing something. Something’s always just coming into season or just going.”

The next Mt. Airy garden we visited was built in the 1950s by a colleague of renowned modern architect Louis Kahn. Gardeners are friendly people, the host offered us cookies and told us his wife had planned the central feature, a 5,000 gallon garden pond stocked with Koi with an upper bog area that biologically filtered the water without the use of mechanical skimmers.

Only one garden on the tour really stood out, but what was special was the passion evident in the gardeners and the friendship and reciprocity emanating between them.   No wine this time but we had a great crepes and coffee at a Mt. Airy cafe we discovered last year on another garden tour.  

My favorite home, and one I've always wanted to explore.  It was built in the early 1900s in a Quaker style but with an Italianate terrace to the side.  Originally there were 17 acres, now reduced to a couple and the formal garden this pergola connected to has disappeared.  Wonderful old wisteria vines wrap around the columns and provide shade in the seating area around what is now a pool.  Looking at the house plans that were framed inside this was once the site of a formal garden, with spectacular views over rolling countryside and terraces down to a formal garden and more terraces below.  Now unfortunately it looks down on the roof of neighboring houses.

There were wonderful details throughout the house, light airy rooms, bookshelves and a wonderful small fireplace complete with ash and damper that went nowhere -- the current owner said when he finally found the house plans he discovered that in the 1920s when they added a pool room and porch they just knocked down the chimney to make room but left the fireplace.  I loved the thick stone walls and the chunkiness of these supporting brackets.  Everything on a grand but simple scale.