Maria Luisa, Infanta of Spain (1832-1897) was the younger sister of Isabella II, queen of Spain. She married Antoine, Duke of Montpensier, youngest son of the French King Louis Philippe, and became Duchess of Montpensier. Most of the grounds that form Maria Luisa Park today where originally part of the Palace of San Telmo and … Continue reading Maria Luisa Park in Sevilla: the Garden of the Lions→
I first heard of the Delaware Botanic Gardens in 2017 when a fellow Massachusetts landscape designer mentioned that she was traveling to Delaware to volunteer her time planting a new meadow. This meadow was to be the central feature of a fledgling botanic garden in southern Delaware, and was designed by the internationally renowned Dutch designer Piet Oudolf. Oudolf is a “rock star” in the landscape design community, who championed a romantic, sustainable, prairie style of grasses and perennials that are woven in soft drifts. I was immediately intrigued, and visited the garden when it opened a couple of years later.
Below is an excerpt from The Garden Tourist’s Mid-Atlantic: A Guide to 90 Beautiful Historic and Public Gardens, available here.
Located close to the Delaware beaches, the Delaware Botanic Gardens at Pepper Creek is the newest public garden in the state. It was founded in 2012 by a group of Sussex County residents who share a passion for horticulture and it opened to the public in 2019. Situated on 37 acres along Pepper Creek, the garden is an oasis of flowers and grasses, natural wetlands, and woods that are home to birds, pollinators, and other wildlife.
photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
The half-acre Rhyne Garden welcomes you in the parking lot with ‘Brandywine’ red maple trees underplanted with 300 native shrubs, 12,000 flowering plants, and 86,000 spring bulbs. Beautiful in design, this garden serves an important function in stormwater management. Its central swale collects water runoff from the parking lot, and the plant roots of water-tolerant rose mallows and soft rush serve as natural rain filters that clean the water as it is absorbed. Pollinator plants including coneflower, wild indigo, bee balm, and phlox stabilize the soil on the slopes.
photo by ray bojarski
Above: Piet oudolf’s designs for the garden. marking out the flower beds: photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
piet oudolf during installation. photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
Sited on an upland plateau, the spectacular two-acre meadow garden is the jewel of the property. Designed by internationally acclaimed Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf in his signature prairie meadow style, this garden begins blooming with alliums, achilleas, baptisias, and penstemons in spring and provides a stunning display through late fall. Peak bloom time is in late summer, when coneflowers, heleniums, milkweeds, phloxes, and liatrises provide a myriad of textures and colors. Originally planted with 85% native plants, the meadow has matured into a vibrant ecosystem. As flourishing plants self-seeded, they have created a beautiful tapestry that provides food and habitat for bees, butterflies, and birds.
photo by stephen pryce lea
Adjacent to the meadow is the Folly Garden built on the site of a former 20th-century farmhouse. Planters, old fences, and retaining walls recall residents who once called this garden home. Drifts of spring bulbs, hellebores, columbines, and ferns create an intimate garden space. The Learning Garden serves as an outdoor wetland classroom encircling a small pond.
The Woodland Garden is a 12.5 -acre riparian forest with freshwater wetlands on the banks of Pepper Creek. Mosses, ferns, and spring ephemerals flourish under the canopy of sweet gums, oaks, loblolly pines, American hollies, and sassafras. A walkway leads to the Knoll Garden, the highest point on the property, with a splendid view of Pepper Creek and the animals that call it home.
photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
The Delaware Botanic Gardens continues to grow and mature. Not only are thousands of bulbs and plants added each year, but the Gardens now offer guided tours and educational programs. A true community endeavor, fifteen volunteers form its governing board and hundreds of volunteers plant, weed, and maintain the gardens. From Girl Scout troops to college students, professors, local nurseries, and corporate sponsors, this is a unique, inspirational garden that is supported and cherished by its community.
To learn more about the garden’s founding, see this article in Flower magazine.
Deputy Executive Director stephen pryce lea hosts a garden tour of the piet oudolf meadow. photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
volunteers in the garden. photo courtesy delaware botanic gardens
Delaware Botanic Gardens at Pepper Creek
30220 Piney Neck Rd., Dagsboro, DE 19939, 302-321-9061, delawaregardens.org
Epiphyllum, often called orchid cacti or climbing cacti, is a group of tropical succulents. There are more than twelve species, including some hybrids. These plants typically have long, flat stems without spines that trail down. With proper care, they produce large, fragrant flowers that bloom at night in the spring or summertime. In their natural […]
Please click “Continue Reading” for a more detailed description, scientific and common names, scientific classification, origin and habitat, care tips, and photos!
OK but first a shout out to Earth Day. TTP remembers the first Earth Day, but mostly because of all the other struff that was going on, mostly anti war things and the Kent State shootings, deciding to try out grad school to study botany, and other things. Sorry, Earth.This is called yellow ginger and it is not real ginger but a member of the Aristolochia or birthwort family. Our wild Ginger is almost a weed in our shade lawns and TPP first saw this plant at Brooklyn botanical garden back when it was still a botanical garden. It is a smallish herbaceous perennial witth upright stems. Our native wild ginger is Asarum canadense, a creepingplant with purple flowers along the prostrate stem often hidden from view by the heart shaped leaves. This plant has 3-parted flowers although a dicot, and is quite fuzzy. And it is the genus Saruma, and if you are quick with word games, you’ll notice that Saruma is Asarum spelled backwards with the a moved to the end. A botanical joke? Enjoy.
In late 2023 I was given a few mangave pups by a visiting , who had separated them from his plants. They overwintered in the basement and I planted them out in spring of 2024. Can you see the two mangaves in this photo? No? Only see one? Here they are with arrows… This one (on the left in the above photo) was repeatedly chomped on by visiting rabbits. This one, Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’ (on the right), was never touched. They were just a couple of feet away from each other, yet one was allowed to grow and look gorgeous, the other was snacked on all summer long. The only difference that I can see is that ‘Lavender Lady’ was mostly surrounded by Juniperus conferta ‘Blue Pacific’, and maybe that made it uncomfortable for the rabbits to cozy up to? Interesting. I will remember this in for the future. Since ‘Lavender Lady’ has Agave attenuata parentage it’s not at all hardy and I’ve lifted it for the winter. I left the other one in the ground for the rabbit jerks.
Truth be told, there’s now another mangave in the mix, since I brought this M. ‘Bloodspot’ home from a plant swap. Nobody else wanted it and I couldn’t let the poor thing go homeless.
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