Chanticleer Friday: The Gravel Garden

We're back at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania. This is week nine of in depth coverage of my September visit to the garden as part of the Garden Fling (there are links to all the posts at the bottom of the page). I have only one more post after this and then it's a wrap! 

Today we walk through the gravel garden, which we enter from the patio off the Ruin Garden...

"Sun-baked from its southwestern exposure, the Gravel Garden creates a feeling of mounting enchantment as you walk through the series of stone steps. Here the garden eschews plants that need constant irrigation, emphasizing instead tough, resilient plants — all set in a gravel mulch. Silver-leafed lavender, santolina, and thyme add a Mediterranean flavor with their aromas and textures, while spurges writhe like serpents among species tulips and diminutive daffodils. Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) brings airiness to the structured planting. Narrow spires of juniper (Juniperus virginiana ‘Taylor’) draw the eye up towards the pergola covered with purple wisteria in late spring. Trough plantings offer a viable and aesthetic alternative to conventional, water-thirsty containers. Perhaps the most striking sight are tree-like yuccas with their powder-blue spiky foliage and hula-skirted trunks. Uncommon in the region, Yucca rostrata needs full sun and resents winter wet ground." (source)

The Gravel Garden was the most difficult section of the overall garden for me to write about. I walked thru it back and forth and side to side several times and on two different days. With no structure to act as a mode of wayfinding my photos were a bit of a mess. C'est la vie. We shall soldier on.

There are many great plants to see, they may be a little out of order but that doesn't subtract from their fabulousness!

Looking backwards toward the Ruin.

I was thrilled to come upon these variegated Agave attenuata looking so happy, healthy and at home.

Yucca rostrata in the distance...

Backwards again.

There is a significant slope downward away from the Ruin, it's hard to tell in these photos.

Yep, looking over my shoulder, again.

The containers of desert plants were so well mixed into the Gravel Garden the illusion of permanence was seamless.

(another backward shot)

Yucca rostrata with major personality!

Yes, it's lifted.

Agave ovatifolia in the shade...

And on a sunnier day (I visited twice).

From the opposite side.

And heading back up towards the Ruins now. This photo was taken during the Fling visit on Friday afternoon and had I panned to the left you'd have probably seen a bar table and my fellow Flingers lining up for drinks, I wish I had. I was so intent on capturing the garden though.

The folks at Chanticleer treated us right during the Fling official visit. There were several food and bar stations set up, a band and dancing, and we stayed even later than we were scheduled for, it was extremely fabulous and quite decadent!

Alluaudia procera I believe.

Salvia argentea

Closer to the Ruin there is an outdoor living room with furniture made of stone.

They're more comfortable than they look.

I'll end this post with two photos I snapped back up near the Ruin Garden, just three minutes apart. I have no memory of taking these images, but it's terribly fun to see the garden empty...

And then filled with my fellow Flingers and staff member Dan Benarcik, on the far right.

Next week we wander through the Cutting Garden, Vegetable Garden and down thru Bell's Woodland.

Previous Chanticleer posts: Kick-off | Teacup Garden | Tennis Court Garden | House and Terrace Gardens | Elevated Walkway, Serpentine and Bulb Meadow | Asian Woods | Pond Garden | Ruin Garden

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