Date: Fri 13-Sep-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Illustration: C

Location: A10

Quick Words:

Suburban-Gardener-Philadelphia

Full Text:

(`Burban Gardener, notes on Philly viewings, 9/13/96)

Suburban Gardener-

A Letter From Philadelphia

By Anthony C. Bleach

I was told it would be far better to take a cab to The Art Museum in

Philadelphia last week. But I love to walk the city, to read the epitaphs on

the heroes of The Revolution and The Civil War: "They fought to free the slave

so that all men shall be free."

I was reminded of those lines by Wordsworth: "Bliss was it in that dawn to be

alive, But to be young was very heaven."

The Cezanne exhibition was sold out, but the general collection had more than

enough Cezannes and Monets to refresh me completely. I was also pleased by the

plantings along the way from 30th Street Station and back down the Benjamin

Franklin Parkway.

One rich in texture and low in upkeep had a low, slim hedge of forsythia

behind Coreopsis verticillata and groups of day lilies in the wings. The

flowering starts with the hedge, is taken on by the lilies and is continued

until frost with the foamy clouds of the coreopsis. Height and winter interest

was given by a Japanese Black Pine at each end.

The entrance to the art museum was emblazoned by a huge medallion-shaped bed,

scarlet Salvias in a half circle, then purple Salvias and completed with lemon

yellow pom-pom marigolds.

Near the end of the Parkway, by St Peter and Paul Church, were planters with

bronze-leaved Cannas complemented by cascading Contoneasters.

My favorite planter that day was a windowbox at the Mellon Bank. Out of a

ground cover of purple-flowered Petunia integrifolia grew arching stems of

Pennisetum grass. But the flower heads were brushed with a deeper purple.

Not only freedom and art were alive in Philadelphia!

(Anthony C. Bleach coordinates the horticulture degree program at Naugatuck

Valley Community-Technical College in Waterbury.)