Tour a Charming English COTTAGE GARDEN in Pennsylvania

What perfect weather. It's great weather. Lovely light. This is beautiful. Well, the morning always helps, but sometimes people don't want to wake up so early in the morning. Let's start with fruit and flowers. Okay, perfect. Now, is this garden themed or? Oh, all of them are themed. Oh, they're all themed. Yes. Tell me a little bit about yourself first, before we go in to see your fruit and flower. So, I was born in England. No way. Yes, I was. Yeah, I know. I've lived in the Philadelphia area for 38 years, though. Never cracked her accent. Nope, nope. And I've always gardened, so it's just fun to carry on that tradition and bring my British gardening heritage to America and try and teach people how to grow more flowers and bulbs and all of those things. And what brought you to Philly? Because Philly is known as the garden capital of the United States here, so it's kind of perfect for you. I met my American husband who was from Philadelphia, Oxford, so. Oh my goodness. Well, there you go. And then you also worked in plants all your life, though, however, right? First as a teacher. So, I taught in England high school, you know, 11 through 18 year olds, actually. And then I taught high school here. Then I ran a business. And then I went back to school to study horticulture. And then I taught horticulture at the barns and Temple University Ambler and I teach at Longwood and all kinds of other places. That's fantastic. And we can't wait to see your garden. So, here we are on a really beautiful day and you're going to start with the flowers and fruit. Yes, fruit and flowers. Fruit and flowers. I have little things, the aid memoirs. This is our nemesis, the million bunnies. Yes, so you go in the gate and so the gate has a purpose to keep all the bunnies out. Okay. So, it has a satisfying click. There you go. Yes, I like that noise. When you come in here, we garden all the time for wildlife. And when the sun comes up a little more, you'll see there are all kinds of different pollinators. This is Nicotiana, a gorgeous color. It is a really pretty color. Especially backlit with the light coming through. It's also quite an ample flower. I know. It needs staking, I guess. Well, my son-in-law, he learned how to weld so he could make me a little arbor. They're great, a little copper arbor. So, he needed a project. Yeah. So, but what it does is it gives... Oh, there's a swallowtail right there. Yeah, look at it. It's just hanging out. Cold, it's probably cold this morning. It's too cold to actually fly. Yeah. So, that's case in point. So, we do not spray anything. Yeah. I've lived here 28 years. We don't spray any herbicides, any pesticides. And we don't use an excessive amount of fertilizer either because what we do is really try and let the soil nurture the plants. And I know it's like a new thing, but at the same time, it's an old thing. And that's how I grew up. We didn't really have those things. I grew up in the tradition of cottage gardening where you have what you have and you use it. So, you do what you can do with the land. And most of the time when I was growing up, the most important thing was obviously vegetables because we were still feeding ourselves, you know, in England at that time. And many people had vegetable gardens, but there were always flowers amongst it. And it was actually very typecast because my father and grandfather did the vegetables and my mom and my grandmother did the flowers. And I would follow them around, especially my grandmother. She had a true cottage garden. Yeah. And I just loved it. And she just grew everything from seed. And I think that's what we need to get back to. Growing things from seed has much lower impact on the earth than shipping big pots of things. And get more biodiversity that way as well. Yes. Yeah. Interesting. So, are a lot of these flowers then grown from seed or from a bulb? I know you work with bulbs. It looks like a dolly is coming up. I have a lovely gardener, Hannah, who we work together and I couldn't do all of this by myself, but we try and intersperse annuals, such as the Nicosiana, with perennials like this absolutely amazing flocks called Gina. Yes. And this one... Which almost looks like a little purple because when I planted it, it's pink, but maybe it's the lighting or the shade. Yes. Well, look, it goes with my... Look, how about that? They need redoing, but you know... Well, you know what? Not as redoing as mine. There we go. You know, you can see my preferred colour palette is... Yes, obviously. I wore even pink for you. I appreciate that. You see my pink door behind us? Look, it's like camouflage. I know, we'll be really quite lovely against the door. Should we go and stand next to the door? Yes. Where is everyone? Yes. Actually, that Nicosiana looks closer to the colour that you and I are both wearing. Yeah. So, I mean, one of the other things I think that people... I get a lot of visitors here. We do a lot of garden clubs come through and everything. And so I think the key things to how I like to garden are that you make smaller gardens, but then you cram all the things into the same space. So it's... And again, it's what's old is new again. And things like zinnias. If you can grow zinnias, how many pollinators love these open-faced zinnias? It's just like a helicopter landing pad, as Sondra liked to say. Yes. And then you get these lovely combinations like a Nicosiana. Look at that. Like that little frame right there. And the different shapes as well. And your asters are not quite out yet, but I'm sure they're going to look amazing in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. And that's the thing is it's a continuous show. Yes. So if you only show your garden once a year or you're having a wedding or a party or something, you can plant just for that. I think it's very interesting because we're going on a number of garden tours this number of this week. And a few folks said, my garden looks terrible at this time of year. And I was like, oh, that's interesting that like some folks gardens like are planted for a certain time of year. And then there's other folks where they're like, it's a theatrical progression. Yes. You know, so... That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. So I was like, oh, it's interesting. August, September, I feel like my garden looks really is like at the height. Yes. And then, and some people are like, I was like, well, you must have not planted any asters. Yes. Or annuals because... Yeah. Oh, that's true too. I think if you have a perennial garden, you're waiting for that fall show of our lovely native perennials. Right. But I think there's, if you'd like to have flowers, you can have flowers. I think I have a flower out most days of the year. Right. And even the bulbs help you transition through. Cause I see that the dahlias really for us go through up until the first frost really. And then they start looking worse for wear unless you pull them out. But my aim is to try and teach people this sequential type of gardening where in this same bed, you might start with some tulips and hyacinths say, because we do a lot of, for cutting. We don't always cut them, but you know, we love to have like some jam jars of things around. But to show how you use one bed, but then make it pop up in between. And this is accessible for folks, I think too, because you can look at this and you say, I might not have a big outdoor space and you could, this is a, this is one planting bed and you can have a lot in one bed. And I think that's probably the essence of cottage gardening too. Like you said, you only had a tiny space and you fit everything as you possibly can into it. I think that's why people relate to this style is because you really can do a lot with a very little space. And this is outside our carriage house. And this is where we host the groups and things. Middle one is really pretty too, especially with the light on it. Oh yes. I mean, cottage gardening in a way, like it's also, I wouldn't say it's lawless, but it has like less rules. You know what I mean? Yes, yes. Definitely the way that we garden, yeah. I think people like to have a little, like don't tell me exactly how to do it. Or like if I have to really trim the hedge, you know, you could let it, you know, be a little run wild and run amok a bit. And also the intermingled. I think the intermingled thing is important to me because if you have it in rows, like it was a vegetable garden, which you would if it were for a true cutting garden or something and you wanted production, that's different. But for this, we want to be able to cut, but we also want the pollinators to enjoy it. And you know, the fragrance, you've got that lovely anise hyssop there. This is like Sondra's favorite smell in the whole world and I'm smelling it. Yeah. Osmosis Sondra. Yeah. But the nice thing about that is for those of you who garden with deer and rabbits, things that are very fragrant foliage, they don't tend to get eaten as much. So you'll see those outside the fence as well. Is this like a triloba, a labrudobeca, or which one is this? Yes, it is a triloba. There's Hannah leaning over the fence. It's the Hannah app. Yes, that's right. Well, what I love about this, I got it from a friend. So that's the first thing I love about it. Right, of course. So, you know, true pass along gardens are the best because you imagine that person and she's since passed. So then this becomes Linda. Well, you know what? That's why I don't know the name. Linda has made herself known. I know, but isn't that a gorgeous part of gardens? It is, it is. Linda would like to be heard. Yes. And so, you know, that part of gardening, especially when it is something that has pollinator value, you know, and the bees not only love it, but the birds do. Yeah. So we leave the seed heads on. So my little grandson, who is now six, he came through my herb garden the other day. He said, Granny, is this a messy garden? And I'm like, yes, Ollie. I'm so glad you noticed that at the young age of, I think he was five at the time. And I'm like, yes, it is a messy garden because nature is messy. And I think that's the thing. We very much spend a lot of time inside our houses trying to clean up. Sanitize it. Yes. But this is, there is, it's rough around the edges. It's a little wild, you know, but wild in a way, not wild like we think of the word wild maybe as having to look like nature, but wild in that you can do what you like, as you said. Right. And then you have some wild strawberries and some blackberries coming through too. Which is really nice to see. And then maybe a huckleberry. Blueberries. And then some currants and some, and then for the birds, I do aronia in the corner. What else do I have? I have amelanchia behind there. And then I have a medlar tree over there. Oh, very nice. Which is very UK. It's very English, English cottage garden. It's in the rose family there. And then raspberries behind that. Also fondly called the horse's anus. Oh, yes, we won't go there. Yes, it does look like that. But, but I also like to make gardens welcoming. So you'll see every garden has somewhere to sit. And it's pink. Often. Yes, yes. This one, it happens to be pink, but then fragrance like with the flocks and everything. So, so what is it about the pink that you love? Just makes me happy. That's good. Okay. It's a happy color. But I also, I do love color and all our family love colors. So we all have our own colors. And then, you know, if you buy a pair of shoes, they're pink, they're mine. So that makes sense. We're color coded, including toothbrushes and things like that. That seems like something that you had started when you were young. Yes, carried on. Yes. Close the gate. Got to get that click. Yep. Ready? That's a better click than a gun click. You know what I mean? Yeah. The bunny actually gets it. Yes. And then we have, look at these. They're still clinging on from last night. They have the last bit of last night's fragrance on them. But if you look at that flower, look how gorgeous that is. Yes, that's pretty. Now, is this just growing in the landscape or did you seed this in? I don't know how we first got it. I think we probably seeded. Okay. But it's a biennial, short-lived perennial. So when you get it, then you have to make sure that the young plants for next year are growing down there. So this little insignificant thing down there is next year's. How tall is that? Six foot tall, you know, flower. So this is something that we have in our landscape naturally. Never seeded it. And it's just really lovely to see. I feel like this is the first year that we saw it. Yep. And it's just such a delight because it just comes out and it's just so tall. Yeah. And it has that nice little yellow dish on it. And that, you know, you're planting it for the evening moths. Yeah. Because they're the ones that are going to pollinate it. But we are here in suburban Philadelphia. So we have to give nature a little bit of a helping hand. Right. Yeah. Precisely. Yeah. But if you have it naturally, that's great. Yeah. Fantastic. But we do try and add a lot of natives and we have, you know, all kinds of different ones. The Joe Pie is looking good. And this next garden that we're going to see, the rain garden, is actually designed to be native plants. And it was designed to catch the water that was flooding my neighbor's backyard. Oh, OK. So this is another thing people can do to help their environment, is keep the water so to infiltrate slowly. So was it coming off a roof or something? No, we're on top of the watershed between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, believe it or not. So everywhere, the house is up and the rain garden is down. So every corner that we have four corners of or five corners of where we have swales, lakes, ponds, rain gardens. Well, that's great. I mean, that's fantastic. And that's also working with your neighbor to like solve an issue. She was very unhappy about it. So I'm like, I can help. I can help. Which doesn't always happen. Sometimes it's like, you know, to each your own. That's right. So the first asters are coming out. Very nice. Yeah. Oh, nice color. Yep. And then so this is goldenrods and jopi and bactesia and amsonia. And milkweeds. Yes. Yeah. So we have a somewhat you can try and get down the path there. I think the jopi is going to stop me from going further. You can just push through if you like. There is some amsonia too. Wow, look how high that is. Well, we have berms because the whole idea is this is a funnel shape. Right. So when you push through the vegetation, you'll see there is a swale down at the bottom. And all it is, is you dig the horseshoe shaped hole and then put the mud around the back. Nice. And it just happened that it was very clayey. And so it lingers a little bit. It's almost like a full pond, but not really. You're just kind of giving a hug to the water. That's right. You know what I call them? Just that. Oh, welcoming arms. Welcoming arms. So the house is up. Yeah. And then the water flows down here through the pebbles. Yeah. And then we put these big stepping stones so you have access. How many? Is there like an inch of pebbles? Did you put any kind of other crusher run or how did you? This one was just more pebbles, big pebbles on this one. But it can flood all the way out of the garden. You know, when we get a big rain. Yeah. But then, you know, the arms contain it, send it down there because we have all the spring peepers down there. So it's a very simple. And then we used a combination of plug plants and seed. And then whatever else came from the rest of the garden, like some mountain mints. And what else do we have? I think I see Vernonia maybe. Yes, Vernonia, Monada. And then we have a few shrubs like Itea and Clethra. And then a few ferns like Royal Fern. We can hear my birds, Royal Fern. But there's like a bridge there that you can. And then there's a pond down there. It's like a muddy, muddy hollow. Fantastic. Most people will probably not want that in their garden. With my shoes today, probably not. Yes, maybe not. But anyway, but it's fun. I'll take your word for it, Jenny Rose. Yeah. Nice bird. Yeah, really good song. Oh, yes. And then this bit, where we were looking at it, looks like nothing particular now. But this is. So much in the seed bank here. Yes. And the nice thing is that this is where my little spring bulbs live. Oh, fantastic. So this is a Stinn's garden. Yep. You know, in the true tradition of growing bulbs in lawn. And it's a lovely way to add bulbs to your landscape. And then we leave it and don't cut it again until after Labor Day, really. And so all of it we put, we mix in a wheelbarrow. We buy all the named cultivars and then throw them all in one wheelbarrow, mix them up and then take a handful out, dig a hole and then put grape hyacinths, snowdrops, crocus, scylla, fritillaria. Do you have to do that every year or you just do it? Because a lot of those are perennializing, right? And we find out what likes it here. Yeah. And then add more of those. Oh, little, little tiny daffodils like Elka. Oh, the little mini ones. Bulbacodiums, yeah. They love that. So there's one called White Petticoat. Yes, which is very pretty. And then fritillaria. It's more about the cup and then it has like... Yes, it's all cup and then a tiny wee ruffle. Yeah. It's like one of those old... What are those? Like those used to play the records, you know, like those... Oh, gramophone. Yeah, gramophone. Yes, yeah. So the nice thing about this is we do add to it, but you don't have to keep adding to it because they will multiply. And I do have a new bulb book coming out in October, so... Fantastic. What's it called? The Essential Guide to Bulbs. Oh, fantastic. So there you go. So look out for that. I'll show you the front cover. Awesome. But, you know, this is a multi-season use and you don't have to have every bit of your garden looking fantastic every month. But you can have a peak and then a valley and then a peak and a valley. What a metaphor for life, isn't it? Yes. Oh, yeah. We might get too philosophical. Isn't that a nice light though on the corn crib? It is just so beautiful this morning. So, you know, I'm lucky enough to have this infrastructure and then I do go out antiquing and try and find other things that will, you know, make fun additions to the landscape. I have a nice shed of antiques and... I bet you do. That I have not yet got to display. Well, just keep on working on it. You'll have more antiques than there is to display. And that's a nice thing to display. This dolith drum is just so awesome. I just want to point this out. Yes. Fluffy and... Elegant and... So if you look at the textures, this is the book bed that the previous book was the Ultimate Flower Gardener's Guide. And we had a bed here of just peonies. And we're like, okay, we can do so much more with this. So we added some white daffodils. I do like to theme my colors. So if you notice, it's mostly blues, whites, and some pinks in here. They are my preferred color scheme, but I do have, as you saw, some hot color beds as well. But then we added hardy chrysanthemums so that they'll be good through Thanksgiving. That's right, yeah. And I like how the chrysanthemum is not like the button that you normally typically see that you buy, but when you let them grow wild in your garden, they really, you know... Fill in, they fill in. And then between the agastache and the phlox and the thalictrum and the yarrow and all the other things that are in here, you know, you get this moundy, but you get some ups and you get some downs. You've got the verticals of the agastaches. You've got the round heads of the phlox and the fragrance. And then I do love gardening against a fence because you can either tie to it or you can use it as a backdrop. So there's clematis growing on the fence, some roses growing on the fence. So it's been a show since the first daffodils and tulips came up. That's great. Do you want to go in? Yeah, let's do it. Oh, this is the replacement one because we had a tornado here a few years ago. Yes, and so my neighbor's tree came whirling around like Dorothy and landed and crushed this whole thing. This gate doesn't have a satisfactory a click. Oh no. Welcome to the cutting garden. Yes, yeah. So this has, I mean, you couldn't really sit on that chair now. No, but that's a chair for the flowers, you know. It is. So, you know, there's quite a lot of annuals, but the thing about annuals is they bloom and bloom and bloom if you keep cutting them. And sometimes they recede sometime, I find, you know, depends on the annual, but sometimes they'll happily recede as well. And also, if you notice, I did have a garden tour here the other day and the lady said, wouldn't it be nice if you cleared these paths so you could see the raised beds? That's a very passive aggressive way of saying clean up lady. Well, back to the messy garden. Maybe that's my reputation. Maybe that's the next book. That would be great. Yeah, the messy garden. I think that might be it. So what I love about this is you just, you can walk through. And this is something I learned from our other helper, Joe, who is of Italian descent and loves to clip everything. So any hedges that you see clipped, that's Joe. And Hannah and I just love more of this, you know, overflowing style. Exuberant. But as you can see, there's more things coming. So we've already had, and we do leave the seed heads on. So this confuses some visitors because they're like, shouldn't you have chopped that down by now? They don't. It's sort of like an anti-gardening garden. You could say, well, I'm gardening for birds. I'm gardening for insects. It hasn't quite filtered into the general mindset. Right. So we are. Maybe it's been programmed into certain people's heads. Dead head, dead head, dead head, clean, clean, clean. You know, sometimes I would feel like people say clean up under it because it might be fungal or this disease. And it is that cleanliness mentality that people carry into their homes as well. So it carries out into nature too. You're right. I think you're right about that. So it's an interesting thing that I give lots of lectures and I get lots and lots of comments online and everything about questions like you do. But I feel like this is a sub theme of this whole year because I've had more and more questions about, well, when do I know it's time to cut things? And my answer more often than not is don't cut here and then leave it over the winter. And that still is hard for some people because they want to clean up the, you know, the flower bed for the winter. Yeah. And actually, even with, you know, we have a meadow and people say, well, when do you want it? When do you mow it? And I say, well, it's also what you want to, how you want to manage it. And we manage for birds and insects. And so we don't mow it until the winter is done and we get out there the first bit of spring that we can that's dry because we want the insects to emerge from the stems. Yeah. We want the birds to have the seeds over the course of the winter. And, you know, and I know you even feed the birds here. We saw a bunch of them enjoying the seed as well. And it's just like, it's something to be interacting with nature in that kind of capacity with your garden. And I think during the pandemic, more people realized that, you know, even if you have a small balcony or a backyard, you can interact with nature. I mean, I feel like that's one of the joys of gardening is just to be in touch with your surroundings and also living a seasonal life, which I know a lot of people are talking about, even eating and things like that. But to have that, where today Cosmos is blooming, Cleome is blooming, the dahlias are coming, dahlias are coming. But, you know, like you came, if you came a month ago, the conquador lilies would have been out. Right. So you relish what's there, and you notice the turn of the seasons in a way that is a richness to life and is an antidote to depression and, you know, being sort of divorced from nature in a way that our grandparents' generation would never have known because they would have been much more in touch with the land. I think part of it is also telling people to appreciate a different kind of beauty. Yes. Because there is an architectural aspect of this as well. It's the same thing with teasel. People always come into our land. We didn't plant it there, but like people, and it's not even one of our native plants, but people are like, what is that plant? Because it's architecturally interesting and you kind of leave it up and they've never seen anything like it. And so sometimes it's just about, you know, teaching people that like, even in the age of it. I absolutely love when tulips start to age and they start to drop their flower heads. You'll see that in my book. There's like a little, you see the, I love parrot tulips. So at the beginning of the book, they're in their prime. And by the end, there's another picture. There's one in the middle of them, you know, looking fine. And then there's one at the end where the petals are dropping and I'm still enjoying them. The senescence, I think, is also gorgeous. So, yeah. Well, that's another metaphor for life. Yes. Enjoy all stages of life. Indeed. You know, it's sort of, I do think there's a whole philosophy of gardening that, you know, we can really take into our relishing of our lives and everything like that. Well, I'd love to see some more of the garden. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Oh, did you see the pawpaw patch? When you do filming. We'll do, okay. There's amazing number of pawpaws down there. Well, Hannah could actually take us through. Hannah will take you. Yes. The pawpaws are just like, and there's my little... We could... Yeah, you just make yourself at home. Oh, yes. They're just about to... Hannah, could you open up the top of the shed? I know it's not very... And also, can you pop the umbrella up in the herb garden in case we get a chance to go in there? It's a lot. This is nice as well with the... It's yellows and blues and we have the, you know, water and everything. Yeah, that is very pleasant. Yeah. And now you've themed the color of the patio with the color of the plants I see. Yes, yeah. So my husband loves yellow. So when we got married 42 years ago, we had yellow bridesmaids dresses because I was only 23 at the time. So you can work out how old I am. But I didn't know that I was meant to enjoy my colors. So I picked yellow bridesmaids dresses and made the dresses for. So anyway, so this is the pond. By default, he has to like pink too. Oh, yes, he does. He even wears pink shirts now. He's a very grown up boy. So these are, you know, more wild. There's a lot of wild around here. Yes, I could see that. I have a lot of animals that use this garden. Look at the begonia grandis here. Yes. Oh, now there's a good tip. If you want something... So begonia grandis is a hardy begonia and I have the white in the fruit and flowers and then I have this pink one. And I have found one of the best planting combinations I want to share is our native matensia, the Virginia bluebells that comes up early, dies down early, pair it with the also shade loving begonia grandis and that comes up late. So it doesn't interfere with the matensia and the matensia is gone. And then this comes up. That's fantastic. I always share this one because in shade gardening, you want succession. Right. So my first book is Glorious Shades. I do a lot with shade gardening as well and I did more with hostas until the deer came in and ate all of the hostas. Oh, fantastic. I know. Here we go. And we do let things seed in. Yes. So like the hydrangeas seed in. It's not a good year for our mop head ones. We have one or two, but they are... We had a very big frost and killed most of them down to the ground. So you have some that are kind of like... So is this more acid soil that you have? We're actually quite neutral. Okay. We're really quite neutral. A little bit acid. Yeah. But the soil... The macrophylla types get sensitive to that color change. I actually have pink, blue and purple when they're in their prime. Interesting. So this normally is a whole sea of hydrangeas. You'll have to come back next year. This is the play area here and we have the lunch spot, which is a nice shady place for lunch. Very nice. So I have the two grandsons. So you have the designated place for the children. Well, it's far away from water. Right. And because we have the caboose and everything, so it becomes a... You know, they want to come and play here. Yeah. And then we have the lawn because there's always bubbles and balls and, you know, soccer and things like that. And my new log garden has become the soccer goal. Oh boy. Everything has to be multi-purpose around here. But I do garden in a way that tries to encourage all ages and all abilities with gardening. And I've said many times, because my lovely husband, Gus, has been to more gardens with me around the world and I call him my trailing spouse. And I get a lot of trailing spouses who have zero interest in gardening, but they're very nice and coming with their other half. And so I try and have things that they find interesting or at least can poke around. Then I have, you know, all the horticultural... I had some nuts here yesterday and they're looking at every tree and trying to identify every tree. And then I have horticultural jokes and things like that, which I like, you know. So it's a garden on many levels. And here we come. So here's another one to your English heritage. Of course. Always up for a good cup of tea. Yeah, I'll come and give you a nice walk around if you invite me for tea. That's like a cuppa, isn't it? Yes, a nice cuppa. So I found this at the Philadelphia Flower Show one year and all my friends were saying, we found your teapot! And it's actually interesting because the potter, I think he lives in Florida now, but he is of Welsh extraction and so am I. So his last name was Jones. Yeah. And I have Jones relatives, of course, if you're Welsh. Well, I have a lot of Welsh, but my last name is Oakes. So I don't know if that's a Welsh name or not, but my dad is very Welsh. Is he? But from like the darker Welsh. Oh, yeah. There's like a Celtic Welsh. Yeah. So, I mean, I used to have dark hair and dark eyes, so maybe we're related in another life. We might be related. And also the tall Welsh. Yes, yes. My dad is very tall and my brother's almost seven feet. Oh, really? Yeah. I think that's the Welsh heritage. Yeah. So this is the moss garden, and it was an area where it was just very mossy. And you leaned into it, basically. Yes, because a lot of people say, I want to get rid of my moss and put them on. And you're like, this is, that's what wants to be there. And it's not like if you went to, you know, a traditional moss garden, where it is like pristine. This is the, again, the messy moss garden. But this has been, again, how fascinating. My little two-year-old grandson, he spends endless time picking up the marbles, putting it in a teacup, you know, filling up there and then going and having tea at the little tea set over there. So, you know. I also love the wood wall that you put together here. Like, and it's just like hollowed out pieces of wood. Yeah. It's great for little insects. Oh, yes. Chipmunks and squirrels. And also from a design point of view, when visitors come through, there you have the view into the teapot. Yeah. It's very whimsical. Like, there's a lot of whimsy in this garden. And I think that's also what you get with like that more cottage gardening. Yes. Like no rules. Also, don't take yourself too seriously. Or your garden too seriously. And then behind you there, we have the stumpery and the logheads. And the stump men. Yes. Yeah. They're actually meant to be us doing singing. So they have night, you know, like those carolers that you get at Christmas. The round mouth. Yes. So it's meant to be. And we do have to keep replacing them because logs rot, you know. But this, the stumpery is a victim. My face rotted off. I know. Yes. My mouth fell off. Yes. There we go. And then you get this lovely view of the waterfall. Wow. When did you put this in? 10 years ago. Okay. So I've been working on the garden for 28 years. And, you know, slowly, slowly, I've added to different things. But I design all the gardens myself. And it's usually to solve a problem that we have. So you saw where the moss garden is behind us. So this area flooded all the time. And it still does. Because if you look, the house is up and the water flows over grass, doesn't really infiltrate. So we've got this low stone area. Yep. Where the water flows over the stone. Yep. And comes into the, we call this the lake because of the other one being the pond. So it comes down here, flows over here, fills it up. And you can see all kinds of little creatures and things in there. And this whole area floods, even those stepping stones. So if you're on the middle, it's like an island. Because all of that at the back floods. And then behind it, we have cisterns. And the water goes into the cisterns. You are very wet here. Unbelievable. Yeah. And you're up like towards the headwaters. We are. So it's... But I feel like our downstream streams aren't doing that well, you know, because of development. We're in suburban Philadelphia here. So when you try and let it go down more slowly, so it can... Yeah. Just to percolate slowly through the ground. Do you want to... Hopefully it doesn't flood too much over that the fish are like overboard. Oh, I have been out there with a net. They can get through those ones. Do you want to go over the waterfall? Sure, absolutely. And then you'll see these beds. We make small planting beds. So this is back to my original point was like make small beds. Don't make large beds. You can get a really good effect in this. And so this is a native Euphorbia correlata. It's almost like a baby's breath, isn't it? Exactly. But nothing eats it. Yeah. And then... Nothing would want... Yeah, Euphorbia, right? Distasteful. And then we have mixed with that though. It's not all natives. That's a Japanese Rufinus. That's a Fernleaf Peony. And then we have Agastachys and the Bottle Genshin. Yeah, the Genshins are so beautiful. It's also interesting if you put something like this, what just naturally moves in too. I know. I'd be very curious, you know, because all of a sudden you've created this like... Lovely, you know. Yeah. Habitat. Yeah, exactly. And also the other thing is you can help it out a bit by taking seed from one area to the other. And then if you notice, this is very dry. So we have creeping thyme over the whole of this bit. Oh, yes. And then popping up, we have some lilies and things like that. Which is really interesting how you could create that little micro habitat where it's something super dry and then you have something that maybe likes a little bit more wet. Like a Stilby down there. Yes, yep. Okay, let's go up and over. So in the tornado, this used to be one big rock. And now a limb came down and cracked the whole thing. It cracked the rock. And it's like a 750 pound rock. Wow. Yeah, so... That's some kind of force. There's a big drop. So it's like six to eight foot drop. We have these like stones that the birds can wash themselves in. Wash themselves in. Like a weir rock type thing. Yeah, exactly. And then the bees come in and just get a little bit of water. Do you have to turn this off in the winter months? We do turn it off and then put bubblers in. It's many different ponds. So we just put bubblers in all the different bits to stop it. I mean, we have some winters where the whole thing is just completely frozen over. But we're not as cold as you. Well, this is fabulous. Wonderful. And then if you turn around, you'll see the log walk, which is a new addition. That's tornado wood. And so this is our new bit that we're working on. So this is all from the tornado, and you just kind of turned lemons into lemonade. Yes, again. Yes, yeah. So this is a brand new garden. We've just been starting planting it. Mostly natives. It's going to be down here and the soccer goal. And then we've moved all our cast iron, very uncomfortable furniture into one place because nobody likes it. Very nice to look at. Exactly. And then a hugelkultur in the background. A hugelmound, yep. So we have three of those in the other side. But, you know, we just try and make the most of it. Well, this is absolutely wonderful. And now Jenny has to catch a plane. Yes, to England. Exactly. Well, thank you very much. To keep up the accent. You know what I mean? I know. Yes, I know. I really have to try harder. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. My pleasure. Come again. Absolutely. And then you have your new book on bulbs and your newsletter as well, which people can get a lot of inspiration from. So if you go to my website, thank you for mentioning. Yeah. Jennyrosecary.com and I do a once a month email newsletter. I am a garden historian, a garden writer, obviously garden photographer. I take the photographs from my books. And so I just, well, tell you about my trips to England. See where I, you know, you can find out where I went. Absolutely. And if you ever get a chance to come on one of the private garden tours that ever happen in the area, I would love for you all to see it. But we'll get some really wonderful shots. And thank you again and have a safe flight as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have some more lovely garden tours from our trip this summer coming throughout the year. Now, if you enjoy videos like this, do us a favor and leave a comment, subscribe, hit the notifications button, or even become a channel member. That helps the channel grow so we could keep on producing more videos like this. Thank you again. And we'll see you in the next video here on Flock.