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by Derek Fell
David Culp, a lecturer at Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, has published a popular book titled ‘The Layered Garden’ in which he describes how he designed his Brandywine Cottage garden. The hard cover book has sold more than 40,000 copies which is considered remarkable for a full color garden book. Located in Chester County, Pennsylvania the garden is only two-acres in extent but seems much larger because he has focused on planting the property in layers. He sees the ground floor plantings as one layer, a steep hillside slope as another layer. Each section of the garden not only has multiple layers of plants to take color high into the sky, it is layered in segments of time that dovetail to present interest through all the seasons. An expert on perennial hellebores and a breeder of new colors, the spring season starts with their blooming as early as February during a mild winter, in company with the flowering of yellow and orange witch hazels, white snowdrops and yellow aconites.
This is a system of design I have used at my 20-acre home and garden, Cedaridge Farm, where I am always seeking to carry color above my field of vision using tall trees and an under-story of flowering shrubs that are surrounded by shorter ground-hugging or knee-high plants like Spanish bluebells, primroses, blue woodland phlox, hostas in various shades of green and blue, and dainty forget-me-nots.
Culp describes his garden as a symphony, one that helps make him forget about the rest of the world. Perennials make up a large part of his plant palette because their floral displays are mostly fleeting and therefore present an ever changing display. Also, many perennials offer interesting leaf shapes and texture that changes with the season. He uses annuals sparingly – mostly as fillers and in combination container plantings - because he does not like their long period of bloom, providing color that never varies.
Culp was fortunate that when he moved to the property with his partner, Michael Alderfer, there were many mature native trees, notably maples and locust, immediately making the garden look older and more established. Tall needle evergreens like spruce, cedar and pine add interesting skyline effects. Two theme areas that add to the garden’s interest are a stone ruin with alpine plants hugging the stonework, threading their roots into every nook and crevice, and a gravel driveway planted with drought tolerant plants like sedums and agaves.
Within the walls of the ruin are clustered numerous container plantings, including stone troughs and terracotta pots. The troughs and pots vary in height, giving a layered appearance against the towering rough stone wall partially covered in evergreen ivy. Favorites for the troughs are agave, echeveria, primula and violas. Deer is a big problem since the garden is not fenced, so Culp uses deer repellents sprayed monthly on the most susceptible areas.
Vertical accents abound - such as purple foxgloves, yellow thermopsis, ornamental alliums and the scaly spire-like flower clusters of acanthus. Culp notes that rose pillars are particularly important for carrying color skywards. At the heart of the garden is a quadrant Colonial style vegetable garden enclosed by a white picket fence. Arrayed around the rectangular vegetable garden are a series of interconnected ornamental borders featuring plants in an assortment of heights , with Joe pye weed a late summer favorite for the back of the border. Shrub roses such as the Knock-out ever-blooming series add intermediate height in the ornamental borders, contrasting their billowing forms with the golden fleece-like cushions of Japanese hakone grass.
A good portion of Culp’s book is devoted to describing ‘signature’ plants. Many are rarities – such as the yellow lady-slipper orchid, a double-flowered adonis, many kinds of miniature daffodils, various trilliums including upright blooming West Coast species, and a vast collection of epimediums that only a passionate botanist could admire. His collection of bearded irises includes the flamboyant Japanese water iris (Iris ensata) that bloom ahead of all manner of lilium such as the yellow ‘Citronella’ Turk’s cap lily and fragrant strawberry-red ‘Star Gazer’ oriental lily.
Culp likens his flowering plants to theatrical performers, each with its moment of fame, making a big splash then fading from the scene to allow another star performer to take center stage. Perhaps the most flamboyant are peonies. His collection extends from the small cup-shaped shade-loving peony known as ‘Molly the Witch’ (Paeonia mlokosewitschii) to flamboyant hybrids derived from the Chinese herbaceous peony, Paeonia lactiflora. Throughout the text Culp offers lots of garden wisdom gleaned from many years of cultivating plants and designing spaces. For example, he notes, “As with many other flower forms in my garden, I like the single or semi-double better than the bodacious double-flowered pom-poms. Besides being more graceful, the flowers with fewer petals tend to be more upright.”
Derek Fell (1939-2019) is remembered as one of the world’s best most well-known and respected writers. During a career of more than 50 years as a garden writer, Derek Fell has authored more than a hundred garden books and calendars. He has written the Avant Garden department for Bucks County Magazine for the last seven years.