Philadelphia Garden Tour
As examples of the art of the designed garden, few can top Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, Longwood Gardens, Morris Arboretum, Chanticleer, and Meadowbrook Farm. The first two are large estate gardens that capture the glory of late 19th and early 20th design sensibilities; both are large-scale and eclectic in design, the result of careful and prolonged collecting and propagating of plants from all over the world. Winterthur is a masterpiece of naturalistic design; Longwood is more structured and theatrical in its approach. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, 167-acre Morris Arboretum is one of this nation’s finest and most complete remaining examples of the eclectic tastes of the Victorian era expressed in the art of the landscape garden. Chanticleer, long heralded as a premier pleasure garden, presents the visitor with sweeping vistas and a surprising range of experiences within the confines of a relatively small space. Meadowbrook Farm is an intimate garden, picturesque and beautifully orchestrated with its series of garden rooms.
Longwood Gardens is one of the world’s premier horticultural display gardens. Created by industrialist Pierre S. du Pont, Longwood offers 1,050 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows; 20 outdoor gardens; 20 indoor gardens within four acres of heated greenhouses; 
11,000 different types of plants; and spectacular fountains. In spring, Longwood is breathtaking with the Flower Garden Walk featuring tulips in a rainbow of color along with spring annuals, the magnolias and flowering cherries providing color and fragrance, daffodils opening by the thousands, and Peirce's Woods, abounding with native azaleas, columbines, Virginia bluebells, and foamflowers.
Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania was
established as a private estate in 1887 by siblings John and Lydia Morris and became a public garden through their wills in 1932. Home to over 10,000 labeled trees and shrubs, the Arboretum’s 92 acres of public gardens are a quintessential American eclectic Victorian landscape featuring a world class Rose Garden, North America’s sole surviving Victorian Fernery, generous vistas, delightful fountains and streams, remarkable historic garden architecture including the Loggia with its secret grotto, the Swan Pond with its classic Love Temple and the rustic Log Cabin with its working water pump. In addition, the Arboretum features a garden railway a large collection of contemporary outdoor sculpture, and a restored wetland with abundant bird life.
Chanticleer was the estate of Christine and Adolph Rosengarten, Sr. Their son Adolph, Jr., left the property to be enjoyed as a public garden, which opened to visitors in 1993. Originally, the estate was known for its majestic trees and verdant lawns. Today, the trees and lawns remain, but 
the focus is on plant combinations, containers, textures, and colors, often relying on foliage more than flowers. Tens of thousands of bulbs clothe the ground in spring, followed by orchards of flowering trees with native wildflowers blooming in the woods. Courtyards are a framework for unusual combinations of hardy and tropical plants. A serpentine of cedars, boulders, and agronomic crops undulates through a mown hillside. A woodland garden carpeted with Asian groundcovers and full of rarities leads to a water garden surrounded by exuberant perennials.
Winterthur is the former 1,000-acre country estate of Henry Francis du
Pont who had three life-long passions--gardening, breeding cattle, and
collecting American antiques--but gardening was his first love. Even
after he turned his former home into a museum, he referred to himself as
Winterthur’s head gardener and kept his 60-acre garden in private
ownership until his death in 1969. Located in the foothills of the ancient
Appalachian mountain range, Winterthur is a peaceful landscape of
rolling hills, woodlands, streams and meadows with seamless blending
of the agricultural land into the garden. In spring, the hills are awash in
azaleas and spring bloom.
Lovingly designed and created by J. Liddon Pennock, Jr. (1913-2003),
Meadowbrook Farm remains his garden legacy. Eighteen of its 25 acres
are lightly-managed second growth woods. The remaining seven acres
contain the private house, display gardens, and garden center. Elegant
and livable at the same time, the house has many interesting design and
decorative features. In the winter, the room is furnished and decorated in
a warm yellow-based scheme. Come summer, the furniture is changed to
a cool, white theme. The gardens complement the house's structure with
"rooms" that gracefully flow into each other. Terracing and hedges hide
adjacent gardens where a carefully planned vista opens up before you.
The gardens are formal, yet remain intimate, drawing the visitor to
continue onward to see what might be around the next corner.