AHS 2006 Convention Tour Gardens

    Our tour gardens and their settings are quite simply fantastic!  Many have hosted other national and regional groups such as Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), Hardy Plant Society, National Rhododendron Society, International Magnolia Society... You get the idea. Our gardens have been featured in the PHS Green Scene magazine as well as Fine Gardening and Southern Living. The Thyrum Garden is in the Smithsonian Institute’s Archives of American Gardens; the Krombolz Garden is included in the book, Creating Beds and Borders; and the Tiffany Garden was seen on HGTV’s “A Gardener’s Diary.”

    In keeping with the convention’s theme, Hostas by Design, each of our tour gardens features art or garden design in ways that should intrigue convention attendees.  All are large gardens, the smallest being over two and one-half acres. Several are sited in remarkably beautiful, natural environments. Hostas are spread throughout all of these exceptional gardens.

Betty and Michael Drummond’s Garden.  Sequestered on sixteen acres of wet woodland, Tallwood combines both lush, natural forested areas with sensitively planted estate lawns and garden beds.  Here we will present our “Heritage Walk”-- a garden designed to honor and to tell the stories of the many people in our area who have contributed to the amazing variety of hostas.

Doris and Wayne Guymon’s Garden, WynEden, sits in the rolling hills of the Brandywine Valley – Andrew Wyeth country.  This garden has a hillside planting of thousands of hostas laid out in large bands of color leading down to two large ponds.  Additional beds with multiples of specimen hostas continue this theme in sweeps of blue, gold and green interspersed with over 2000 different perennials.

Barbara and Robert Tiffany’s Garden.  Situated around a 1742 gristmill on the Tohickon Creek in Bucks County, Pa., the gardens surrounding MillFleurs are built on a very dramatic site which slopes steeply down to the stream’s edge.  Although this garden contains the largest collection of hostas in the Philadelphia area (over 1,000 different species and cultivars), the beds themselves are woven across rocky slopes with exceptional artistry and include many collections of rare and unusual woodland perennials.

Walter & Emilie Cullerton Garden. Oxford Gardens is a three acre property of  woods, a barn, a pasture, a rill, and a well house all setting the stage for a collection of over 600 Hosta cultivars.  The garden will be entering its seventh season after the Cullertons retired and moved home and garden to Pineville.  The Hosta are accompanied by a variety of woodland/shade plants as well  as sunny perennials.  The sunny pasture is home to a nascent conifer collection along with rare and unusual shrubs and trees.  A plant lovers delight.

Inta and Skip Krombolz’s Garden, Fox Hollow, is a lavishly planted stroll garden that combines a flare for the dramatic with Inta’s original wrought-iron garden sculptures.  Ribbons of hosta wind through the many beds of both familiar and exotic plants.  Variegated plants in all combinations abound, and each turn in the garden presents intriguing vistas. This is a thoroughly delightful garden, chock full of fascinating plants and plant combinations.
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Conny and Jim Parsons’ Garden.  Sophisticated color combinations, both in flower and leaf, are the driving vision behind the gardens at Holly Lane. The broad sweep of entrance lawn is bordered by a kaleidoscope of bright blooms, and the scene is enlivened by a maze of shady island beds. Here individual hostas of similar and/or complimentary appearance are skillfully placed by an artist’s hand and elegantly integrated with other shade-loving plants.

Eve and Per Thyrum’s Garden. A garden of many rooms, Frog Hollow includes several water features, a knot garden, a cactus bed and many delightful garden sculptures.  The home of a devoted collector of woody plants, the garden provides a variety of wonderfully shady niches for a collection of hundreds of hostas, including miniatures growing among bog plants.

Chanticleer  While the Delaware Valley is famous for its many splendid public gardens, the standard bus tour will include only one of these. Expanding on our theme of designing with hostas, Chanticleer features an extensive shade garden which creatively combines large groupings of hostas with many other native and exotic shade-loving plants in a tranquil woodland marsh. Including both new and innovative garden styles with more traditional ones, Chanticleer is a uniquely rewarding garden experience.

Russells Wholesale Gardens. One commercial nursery is included in our tour because it offers unique experiences to our society. In addition to a stunning, long display border, Russells Wholesale Gardens offers acres of hosta and unusual companion perennials at wholesale prices. Cliff Russell has long been a member of our chapter. The nursery is owned by his son, Alan, who has offered to give a brief behind-the-scenes tour of the wholesale process during our visit.