Rocking a dry garden at Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden
Every time I visit Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden, I get a familiar feeling. Many plants we grow in Central Texas appear in this Pennsylvania dry garden, and it’s fun to see them in a new context. Although the garden bristles with yuccas, agaves, and cactus and sways with grasses and airy perennials, the backdrop of tall trees and lush gardens shows that it’s situated in a most un-Texas landscape.
This is Part 7 of my visit to Chanticleer during the Philadelphia Area Fling last September.
From the Pond Garden, a narrow gravel track winds up a steep slope through meadowy plantings.
Looking back at the ponds below
In late September, the fall perennials were in full flower, alongside maples starting to turn.
Pines — not something you’d see in Central Texas
But Yucca rostrata? Oh yeah! How surprising to see it growing on a Pennsylvania hillside, no?
A living bouquet at my feet
A tucked-away seating area in the Gravel Garden
View from the benches
A pruned-up agave, which has no doubt been moved indoors for the winter.
Stone steps lead to a bench along one side of the hilly garden.
Beyond the bench, Minder Woods offers a shady woodland garden to explore. But let’s take in more of the sunny Gravel Garden.
So pretty with diaphanous grasses and bobblehead yuccas and meadowy perennials all around
A vine-shaded arbor curves along the edge of the hillside, overlooking the ponds and other gardens.
A tall boxed cactus stands out amid low flowering plants.
And mouse-eared prickly pear
Looking ahead to the Ruin Garden — next post!
These cone-like seedpods charmed me. They look like little chocolate roses.
Gulf muhly and eryngium gone to seed, along with sparkling white flowers
Another look
Russian sage and that cactus
Beyond, I spy Chanticleer’s famous stone-sofa living room.
As I mentioned earlier in this series, I visited Chanticleer twice on this trip, once before the Fling began and again during an afternoon soiree Chanticleer hosted for us. Drink tables and a bar were set up just beyond a stone armchair.
Angie Lueschen (Minnesota) found a comfy spot on the stone sofa. Notice the stone remote perched on the sofa arm.
Angie was joined by Natalie Carmolli (Michigan), Margo Rabb (Pennsylvania), and Amy Ellsworth DeWald of Decolonize the Garden (Maryland) — all new Flingers, I believe, except Natalie. It was great to meet them!
Margo introduced me to Joe Henderson, one of Chanticleer’s incredibly creative horticulturists.
Looming in the background, the half-shrouded Ruin calls to you with open doors and windows. Let’s explore that next time.
Up next: The fairy tale Ruin Garden at Chanticleer. For a look back at Chanticleer’s lush Pond Garden, click here:
To read about my past visits to Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden, follow these links:
- Gravel garden at Chanticleer reminds me of Texas, October 2021
- Chanticleer rocks a Gravel Garden, June 2016
- Ruin & Gravel Garden, July 2008
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Digging Deeper
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All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Pam, I notice you mentioned digging up plants like the agave. How do you suppose they keep some of those other cactus alive over extremely cold winters?
That would be a question for the folks at Chanticleer. You might find the answer among their gardening videos, if you hunt around on their website or Facebook page.
Goes to show that dry and rock gardens come in all types. Some of your seed head photos are truly gorgeous. I have the Chanticleer Book and all of the non hardy plants get packed up and moved under cover. They actually have a video of it on their youtube channel.
Thanks for sharing that info, Elaine. I enjoy their videos whenever I catch one.
As always, all gorgeous photos. I especially love the seasonality shown in the photos of dried seed heads against fall-blooming flowers and grasses and a few evergreen plants. I live in South Texas and that’s something that we could learn from, instead of trying to keep tropical green foliage and grass all year ’round, contrary to good sense regarding climate and water usage.
I would love to see more of an embrace of the quieter season of Texas gardening too, especially in commercial landscaping. My pet peeve is when landscaping services whack back fall-flowering grasses in November or December, leaving stubbled mounds for two months when we could be enjoying their beauty.