On our way home from the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show, we stopped to visit the gardens at PHS Meadowbrook Farm. I’d made reservations a month in advance, fearing many other PFS visitors would have the same idea, but it was raining and we had the gardens to ourselves.

And such gardens! Each a perfect jewel box, opening onto another.Every plant, shrub, tree, and decorative object placed to harmonize with the whole or draw the eye to a particular point. Gardening as a fine art.

Meadowbrook was built in 1936 by J. Liddon Pennock, Jr. and his wife, Alice. Pennock, Jr. was known for decades as “Mr. Flower Show” and was heavily involved in the Philadelphia Flower Show right up until his death in 2003. The house and the gardens are both clearly influenced by English architecture and design, but still manage to seem fresh and interesting.