March 09, 2024
Courtesy/Rob Cardillo
In 'Private Gardens of Philadelphia,' the new book by author Nicole Juday and photographer Rob Cardillo's, due out March 12, gardeners share how they created their amazing backyards, like this one in Swarthmore, Delaware County.
With the city's flower show underway and spring around the corner, early March is a meaningful time for Philadelphia gardeners — many of whom find their kitchen tables taken over by grow lights and seedlings at this time of the year.
A new book, though, wants to show what gardeners can do at home, with flora that seems like it was taken right from one of showpieces at the convention center this week. "Private Gardens of Philadelphia," highlights 21 gardens in the region. Written by Nicole Juday and photographed by Rob Cardillo, the coffee table book goes on sale on March 12.
From a Haverford development's rose-covered privacy structures in to lush city hideaways in East Falls and Chestnut Hill to a floodplain-turned-rain garden in Wayne, the book displays the beauty of private gardens and shares the stories of how their owners created them.
"Philadelphia is the most important place for gardening, from the beginning of its foundation until today," Juday said. "That's one of the things that I try to bring out in the writing of the book."
The city has deep roots in gardening, and especially private gardens. In the book, Juday writes that when the Quakers settled in the area in the 1600s they brought with them a love for nature that was unlike Puritan New England at the time. From there, she said private gardens took off in the late 1800s and early 20th century, some of which still survive today. Longwood Gardens, the Morris Arboretum and Chanticleer Garden all started off as private properties, as did Bartram's Garden, the oldest surviving botanical garden in the United States.
At the same time, Juday said, this is an area with a good climate for gardening, workable soil and uniquely shaped terrain.
"Located on the geologically oldest part of the continent, the land has few sharp edges and almost no flat areas, but instead offers mellow, undulating contours," Juday writes. "Interesting rock and water features lend themselves to enhancement, and perhaps to the temporary fantasy of being tamable by the human hand.
A private garden in Downington.
Juday and Cardillo, who are both gardeners, acknowledge in the book that many of the spaces pictured are the products of serious commitments and more time and effort than many people might want to take on. That is not to dissuade any fledgling gardeners: Many of the people featured spent decades working on their spaces, they said, and knew nothing about gardening when they started.
"Most of the people started from scratch, so they started with nothing, and then over the course of 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, created something magnificent," Juday said.
Cardillo added, "Most great gardens have been planted more than once."
'Private Gardens of Philadelphia' show gardens from around the region and tells Philadelphia history with gardening..
The 21 gardens in "Private Gardens of Philadelphia" are in wide-open spaces more commonly found in the suburbs versus the concrete yards most city homes have. Only seven gardens are located in Philadelphia proper. But Juday and Cardillo said they'd be open to another book exploring more gardens in the area.
For now, though, they hope they can shows what is possible with a little bit of luck and a lot of trial and error.
"(Gardening) is not like singing or something where there's this innate natural talent that you have or you don't have, it's very learnable," Juday said. "But it does take time and it takes effort and it takes becoming familiar with the materials, how plants behave, the names of things, the terminology the techniques, the practices. I hope that this book makes it seem less intimidating to acquire the knowledge that you would need to really pursue gardening."
