Part of our trip to Philadelphia in June was to see the flower show, but another reason I wanted to visit the city of brotherly love was to check in on Hailey, one of our recent graduates from SFA. She was following in my footsteps by interning at The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College this summer. This garden is very special to me because I was a summer intern there 13 years ago (Wow, that long?!?), and I have many fond memories of my time spent in this quaint area. The horticulture I learned and the people I met transformed my life.
If you’ve never heard of The Scott Arboretum, it spans across the entire 300 acre campus of Swarthmore College (I’ll add that if I interchange campus and arboretum, just know I’m talking about the same thing). It was started in 1929, and around 4000 taxa grow here. Anytime a list of the most beautiful campuses in America is published, Swarthmore is usually near the top, no doubt thanks in part to the beauty of the arboretum.
We first visited the Cunningham House, an observatory that was converted into the arboretum’s main office, and found the beds showing their transition from spring to summer. Many of my friends that I knew back in the day still work here. We got to touch base with Claire Sawyers, the arboretum director, and Jody Downer, special projects coordinator. Horticulturist Josh Coceano came up with his team of interns, Hailey, Julia, and Ellie. They were freshening up the container plantings, a job that I also had as an intern. They edited a container the same way I learned, to approach it and look at the plants for anything that is off—a yellowing leaf, torn foliage, or a flower that needs to be deadheaded. It always amazed to me to see how some slight tweaks made a container planting look more attractive.
The Cunningham House clothed in its mature plantings and seasonal flora.
A group of containers welcomes guest to the Cunningham House.
Josh talks to Julia (left) and Hailey (right) about how to edit the containers.
Hailey freshens up a Physocarpus in a container. While most people think that containers are just for annuals or perennials, the arboretum frequently uses shrubs or juvenile trees in planters.
Hailey said she and the other interns did this cool succulent and xeric planting.
I liked how these plants echoed the terra cotta color of the urn.
A few other plants around the Cunningham House caught my eye. These Salvia nutans looked lovely en masse.
Most Deutzia are white, but this large Deutzia × hybrida ‘Magicien’ was blushed pink and looked spectacular in full bloom.
I love Stachyurus for their winter blooms, but if they also have variegated foliage like this Stachyurus chinensis ‘Magpie’, it’s even better.
Claire said the rose garden was looking the best that it would for the year, so we headed there first. The Dean Bond Rose Garden was established in 1956, and in the years since graduates have been able to choose a rose from the garden to wear for graduation. Today, it holds around 300 different roses. One of the neat shifts since I was an intern is that the garden was redesigned to replace the rose monoculture with a more diverse planting. More disease tolerant rose cultivars were also chosen to reduce the need for spraying. These slight cultural shifts now help the gardeners to manage this space organically.
The Dean Bond Rose Garden plantings have diversified since my internship at The Scott Arboretum.
Salvia,…
… Geranium,…
… and Lavandula diversify the rose garden plantings away from the monoculture it once was and make it harder for pests and disease to sweep through the population.
I’ll be honest. Roses have never been my thing because of all the care and upkeep they require, but I would love to have a planting of disease-resistant ones like you see here.
I so wish that we could grow these lollipop ‘Globemaster’ Allium in the south. Alas…
My friend Jeff Jabco who is Director of Grounds at Swarthmore stopped by to chat about the rose garden. Jeff is also current president of the International Clematis Society, and he has helped to introduce more new varieties to the garden. Many are dwarf clematis that are slowly making their way into the market for small patios and windowbox planters. He even helped coordinate The Scott Arboretum starting a Clematis cultivar trial with Chanticleer and Longwood Gardens in 2014 to evaluate new varieties coming out of Europe. The faint baby blue ‘Dutch Sky’, which caught my eye the minute we entered the rose garden, was each garden’s number one performer. It was covered in flowers, and I can’t wait to try this cultivar. (Here’s the current link to read about ‘Dutch Sky’, but after July 2021, it looks like this link will be the permanent place to learn about it.)
Clematis ‘Dutch Sky’ was rated the best cultivar in the trials at The Scott Arboretum, Chanticleer, and Longwood Gardens.
A close up of the light blue flowers of ‘Dutch Sky’ Clematis
Even back when I was an intern I noticed how well Clematis scrambled up the arching stems of rambling roses along the back trellis. I didn’t notice it until Jeff commented on it, but even this trellis had been redesigned. He said that since Clematis need something to cling to, they couldn’t just be smooth metal poles. Therefore, a committee helped conceptualize the trellis supports that a metallurgist then made. The poles would have metal curved into waves and small rods to help support Clematis.
Jeff Jabco shows us the trellising that was made for the rose garden to also provide support for the Clematis.
Here you can see the thin rods and wavy metal.
I didn’t realize it until later, but the waves give the trellis a nice texture.
The metallurgist also made incredible gates for the entrances to the rose garden. Notice the details on the roses and the hummingbird.
Jeff walked us across campus talking about more changes to the grounds. For example, Maxine Frank Singer Hall is a brand new building to house biology, engineering, and psychology, and the landscape around it is planted to mimic an eastern woodland habitat. They even created a stumpery on the southeast side of the building from a fallen tree.
Maxine Frank Singer Hall is sleek, stylish, and sustainable.
I love how they incorporated this fallen tree back into the landscape.
A few other shots from our trek across campus. I always make a point to stop in the Harry Wood Courtyard Garden to see if there’s any teaching scribbles left on the wall. This trip I lucked out! These slate panels are for great outdoor instruction.
‘Ryusen’ is one of my favorite Japanese maples for its weeping habit.
Every time I see this Cornus kousa 'Wolf Eyes', I swoon. It’s planted on the north side of a building to protect from harsh sunlight.
The bracts almost hide amongst the white margins on ‘Wolf Eyes’.
One of my favorite parts of The Scott Arboretum are these masses of Sporobolus that are planted in a grit mixture. These areas of campus are prone to flooding, and below the plants are cisterns that help to redirect water back into Crum Creek. Since I last visited, I like how they added the Allium and Dianthus for a pop of color.
We left Jeff and went to catch up with other gardener friends Chuck Hinkle and Lars Rasmussen who were on the north side of campus. Chuck shares my love of herbaceous perennials. He showed us nearby plantings where they had done some massings of shade perennials and Baptisia near new buildings. By this time it was lunch. They offered to show us the green roof after we ate, and they encouraged us to go catch the traffic circle.
If you want to learn more about those, then keep an eye out for part 2 that will feature more about our afternoon visit to The Scott Arboretum.
An interesting play on colors and textures in shade.
Chuck said this Baptisia 'Blueberry Sundae' did really well in the Mt. Cuba Center Baptisia trials, and they had used it on campus in different areas.