Meeting:

October 11, 2007

Guest Presenter:

Bill Thomas

Executive Director and Head Gardener at Chanticleer

Program:

“Chanticleer – A Pleasure Garden in the Making”

Covering 35 acres on Philadelphia’s fashionable Mainline, Chanticleer, once the private estate of the Rosengarten family, has been known for its majestic trees and verdant lawns.  Today, the focus of this garden, open to the public only since 1993, is on plant combinations, containers, textures, and colors, often relying on foliage more than flowers. Chanticleer awakens in the spring with several hundred thousand flowering bulbs, followed by unusual combinations of hardy and tropical plants. A ruin plays with indoor/outdoor relationships and staff-designed and constructed chairs, benches, fences, gates, bridges and even drinking fountains add imaginative and sculptural touches to the site.

Chanticleer is still being developed.  The staff are the principle designers, competing with each other and with the horticultural world to make the garden fun and visually exciting.

Bill Thomas took his audience on a behind-the-scenes look at this special garden, called “the greatest of the great gardens of the Philadelphia Region” by Adam Levine, author of Guide to Great Gardens of the Philadelphia Region.  The Washington Post called Chanticleer “one of the most interesting and edgy public gardens in America.  HGTV found it “imaginative and inspired...irreverent, exciting, peaceful and romantic.”

Bill, as Executive Director, also gave an insider’s view of what it is like to lead the organization that manages this special place.

Plant Raffle

The raffle provider for our October meeting was Easy to Grow Bulbs, courtesy of owner Jim Threadgill.