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by Lori Rose
Northview Gardens is the lovingly tended home and gardens of Jenny Rose Carey, a treasure of the southeastern Pennsylvania gardening world. It is difficult to separate Jenny Rose herself from the gardens she tends. She is a charming English American who has written about, served on the boards of, lectured or taught at, and advocated for just about every public garden, horticultural society and garden club in our area and beyond. She is an author, photographer, teacher, enthusiast and champion for gardeners and gardening. Her Northview Gardens is a hidden gem right across the county line, not far from the Temple University Ambler campus, where Jenny Rose worked for over a decade as adjunct professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and then as the Director of the Ambler Arboretum.
One would think with such an impressive resume that Jenny Rose would be a stuffy academic, but she is far from that. The Oregonian’s review of her book “Glorious Shade” says, “The book feels like you are learning all about shade gardening from your favorite, chatty neighbor.” She wears a perpetual smile, and one can hear it in her voice and in her writing.
According to Jenny Rose’s website, “Northview is a garden of four-and-a-half acres that contains smaller garden areas within it. Each of these separate areas have a theme or share certain environmental conditions. This allows me to pick a palette of plants that suits the soil, sun and water conditions while also adding the look that I am trying to achieve.”
Northview is a certified wildlife habitat. The small ponds are designed with splash blocks to encourage birds to drink and bathe. No insecticides or herbicides are used in the garden so there is a wide variety of insects for the birds to eat. And although she grows plants from all over the world, Jenny Rose has spent a lot of this past year organizing forums and being an advocate for native plants and why they are important. She says, “Northview Gardens was lawn and trees surrounded by invasive plants when I moved here in 1997. Now it is a collection of various gardens that reflect my own growth as well as the growth of the gardens as a whole.”
The website explains, “The garden areas are linked by paths that allow you to walk around the garden. Many of the gardens contain seats or benches placed where you get a quiet place to sit or something to look at. There is a range of water features throughout the garden that bring sound, coolness, and water for wildlife. The whole garden is managed in a way that minimizes water use, uses environmentally friendly practices, and considers the impact of the garden on its occupants and the surroundings.”
“I love lavender and have always wanted lots of it growing in my garden,” Jenny Rose says. “It can be a challenge to grow lavender in the cold winters and hot humid summers here in Pennsylvania. In the summer of 2003 we planned a family vacation to the south of France where I knew that I would visit the lavender fields. I wanted to see how lavender was grown there and bring those lessons home to Northview. I had been planting my lavenders in a soil that was too rich and full of organic matter. I realized that I should be placing them in full sun, and providing them with a lean, stony soil that was slightly alkaline. The following spring we started to install the new dry garden and then, with plenty of irony, it rained and rained on my dry garden. My neighbor was sure that I was putting in a swimming pool.”
Over the past 29 years, the gardens have evolved. The dry garden, which hasn’t been watered since 2004, became too successful. Over time, plantings have had to be pulled out, and some trees have had to be removed to reduce the shade. Jenny Rose calls this “editing the garden.” When an oak tree fell during a tornado, what used to be a shade garden is now in full sun. Jenny Rose was unfazed. She says, “Just pivot, move shade plants out and put sun plants in. Learn as you go along, learn from mistakes. Have fun. Don’t be too serious about your garden, treat it as a playground. Gardening is about doing.”
The word “whimsical” is defined as playfully quaint or fanciful, especially in an appealing and amusing way. It is the perfect word to describe some areas of the garden “rooms” at Northview. Let’s start with one of my favorites – the moss garden, home to a stunning fountain sculpture of a copper teapot pouring into a teacup that Jenny Rose found one year at the Philadelphia Flower Show. The combination of the fountain surrounded by moss and cool shade plants, and the sound of pouring water are so inviting that Jenny Rose placed a table and seating area nearby, complete with a tea set, for visitors (and her grandchildren) to stop and sit awhile.
The Stumpery showcases roots and stumps from fallen trees that are upturned and then surrounded by shade plants. Victorian gardeners loved stumperies, and they fit right in with the 1887 date of the house. Look for the Stump Singers, made from chunks of cut trees where the round mouths are formed from the scars where branches had been cut. They sit on pedestals fashioned out of slices of tree trunks, wearing more trunk slices as hats, singing acapella to the birds.
One day while driving through Kent, CT with her husband, Jenny Rose came to a screeching halt. There on the side of the road was a glorious (huge) metal sculpture of an elephant. Her husband loved it so much that she ordered one for his birthday and had it delivered to Northview. The driver told her how much fun he had bringing the sculpture across the George Washington Bridge, and how people would honk their horns and wave as he traveled by. The elephant sculpture sits in the sunshine among a handful of smaller sculptures… of peanuts.
Flowers, flowers everywhere. On trees, shrubs, large perennial plants and small annual plants, in the sun, in the shade, around the pond and tied to stakes, in the rain garden and the dry garden, there are flowers in every color and for every season all around the property at Northview Gardens. The cutting garden is home to flowers of every size and color, each chosen for its longevity in the vase. One of my favorites are the dahlias, flowers that I have never grown myself. Dahlias are bulbs that need to be lifted out of the ground each winter and replanted again in springtime. That is something I never wanted to attempt, but as Jenny Rose teaches us, I will try, and learn from my mistakes. Dahlia flowers come in so many shapes, sizes, and colors, and the plants come in heights from a few inches to a few feet tall—there is a dahlia for everyone. And they last not for days, but for weeks in the vase. My other favorites are the zinnias. They too come in many sizes, colors and plant heights, and last a week or more in the vase. And although the plants won’t survive our winters, they are very easy to grow from seed in early spring.
Jenny Rose is the author and photographer of three books on gardening: Glorious Shade: Dazzling Plants, Design Ideas, and Proven Techniques for Your Shady Garden, The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Guide: How to Combine Shape, Color, and Texture to Create the Garden of Your Dreams, and The Essential Guide to Bulbs: Grow a Bounty of Beautiful Bulbs in Gardens and Containers that was just published in November 2025. Now that the bulbs book is complete, she feels that maybe it is time to raise up the voices of women in horticultural history.
“We live in one of the garden capitals of the country,” she says, “with over 35 public gardens at our doorstep, due in part to the many progressive women in our horticultural history.” Jenny Rose loves learning and teaching about these women and the ways they have shaped the way we garden today. She has a wonderfully informative blog that often discusses who these women were and how meaningful their work has been. Among the women who influence and inspire Jenny Rose are Jane Bowne Haines, and Mary Helen Wingate Lloyd.
Jane Bowne Haines learned the fundamentals of horticulture in a formal garden located in Wyck, a Germantown home that had been in her family since the early 1700s. She became a founder of the Garden Club of Philadelphia, and established a school of practical horticulture for women on a 71 acre farm near Ambler, where the school would be built in 1910. It was named the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, and is still a part of Temple Ambler today.
Mary Helen Wingate Lloyd, according to Jenny Rose’s blog, has multiple connections to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. She was one of the first female council members, she chaired some of the flower shows in the 1920’s, and was chair of the Library Committee. Mary Helen was also an early member of The Gardeners Garden Club and was editor of the Garden Club of America Bulletin.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Jenny Rose has in store for us regarding these and other important women in Pennsylvania’s horticultural history.
Jenny Rose Carey wears many hats (her favorites are pink). She is a gardener, a teacher, a lecturer, an author, a photographer (she has over half a million photos in her collection), a historian, a board member, an advocate, a plant society member, a volunteer… so what is Jenny Rose most enthusiastic about? Being an educator and a teacher.
A teacher by training, Jenny Rose taught middle-school-aged children in her native England before moving to the U.S. Her Mom taught English, and her Dad was a botanist. Teaching is at the core of who she is. She has taught all ages and different types of people in schools, at the Barnes Foundation, and at Temple University, among other places. She has advised, taught, and organized others to come in and teach, and what she wants most is to help people have their own gardens. She feels that this is her way of making a difference, of doing something for the world.
The way she gardens at Northview is her show and tell. She uses her lectures, online presence and garden to demonstrate how to garden in tune with nature rather than against it. Garden history is another of Jenny Rose’s passions. She has learned how people in the past have gardened, and she has always gardened “the old fashioned way,” using compost, propagating plants from cuttings, and saving seeds. “I did not get on board with sprays etc.,” she says. “No sprays or poisons. They are detrimental to you and the animals and insects that call your slice of garden home.” Jenny Rose wants to help people garden for joy, and in the process be a healing influence on the planet.
Northview Gardens is only open to the public three times each year, and I encourage anyone who even remotely enjoys strolling through nature to plan a visit. There is so much to see, and seats and benches invite you to stay a while to observe the wildlife that is enjoying the garden with you. There are over one hundred places around the four and a half acres to sit and savor the gardens. Jenny Rose says “When you actually sit in the garden you will see and appreciate so much more. People come and do bench tours to see why each seat is situated in a particular place. Immersion is good for our souls.”
I am inspired by Jenny Rose and Northview Gardens to incorporate a seat or two into my small garden area, and to grow more flowers for cutting including zinnias and dahlias. What will your visit to Northview Gardens inspire you to try in your own garden?
Visiting days for 2026 are April 24, June 5 and September 25, from 10am-12pm. The price is $20/person. Carpooling is encouraged. RSVP jennyrosecarey@gmail.com for directions to Northview and any questions.
Northview Gardens is located at 1650 East Butler Pike, Ambler, Pennsylvania 19002. For more information visit www.jennyrosecarey.com/northview-gardens.
Lori Rose, the Midnight Gardener, is a Temple University Certified Master Home Gardener and member of GardenComm: Garden Communicators International. She has gardened since childhood and has been writing about gardening for over twenty years.