My mother gave me a box of photos. A fairly large box, and as I’ve been going through it, I found photos of one of my gardens.

This particular garden was completed in the mid to late 90s before my parents sold the house and moved back into the city. This house was located in Haverford in Lower Merion Township.

This garden does not exist today because the people who bought the home ripped it out soon after they purchased it. I had planted a period appropriate garden for the house. The house was built the turn of the 20th century and was clapboard.

My father was obsessed with keeping the original clapboard intact so it was quite the process to get the house painted. I have no idea if the house still has all the original clapboard.

This original garden had 56 roses of different varieties and cultivars. With the exception of JFK and Peace which were hybrid teas, the garden roses were predominantly old garden, antique, and David Austin roses. This garden was planted in the early 90s so that is when I first became aware of David Austin roses.

In 1997, I was interviewed by a writer from the Philadelphia Inquirer about rose growing and this particular garden. It took up space on three pages and was syndicated all over. It was kind of cool. I should be honest that the article came about because I wrote him a letter complaining about a prior article he had written on gardening. 

I loved this garden. And the funny thing is it was a layered garden before I knew what layered gardening was or if layered gardening was even a thing then as far as a term.

I think everyone has a garden style. This is always what I have liked: lots and lots of plants and flowers and trees. A layered garden. My friend David Culp gave it a name for me. Before that, I just thought it was my gardening disease. It was really nice when I realized that it had a name and wasn’t an actual disorder, that it was something desirable.

Even then, I have lots of plants in every bed and mixed things up in my pots.

Now the thing about this garden is, it was very pale. My mother liked the whole concept of a mini Sissinghurst, and as I’ve mentioned before, I think it was because I was asked to be restrained on color in this garden, that my own garden today is a riot of color.

My parent’s garden was loved by everyone and it was a pleasure creating it. I planted the whole thing myself and all the years they had it I maintained it for them.

People always think you can’t do your own garden, but you actually can. now I admit, I have some limitations with my current garden with things I cannot do myself like the tree work, and I need help with the mulch because there are just so many areas for pine straw and wood chips. But other than that it’s still just me.

I have ordered some plants already for the spring because I have things I’m going to have to replace I believe because of the latest deer incursion. And that is because the winter weather has thrown off the spraying schedule to repel the deer.

I saw someone post on social media about what spray they should get for the spring. I’m sure they were less than enthused when I said you should have a year-round deer repellent plan, but you have to. Having a year-round plan actually does help.

The nice thing about this garden that I am showing you photos of is there were no deer in my garden back then. Those were the good old days.

Thanks for visiting my ghosts of gardens past.