Edgewood Gardens

“Edgewood”, is a private garden which has been evolving since the family’s move from the UK in 1995. Situated in Exton, in SE Pennsylvania in USDA zone 7a, the garden is not open to the public for visits or for plant sales. Plants can be ordered online, and purchased at plant sales and at presentations. The garden is home to several thousand hardy plants, trees and shrubs, grown in a variety of microhabitats including raised beds, xeric beds, bog gardens, woodlands, and cold greenhouses.

The 1.6-acre garden is situated just below the ridge-line on the northern side of the Great Valley, 300 feet above the valley floor and 600 feet above sea level. With perfect drainage, a southerly aspect and shelter from the worst of the prevailing winds, the garden is ideally situated to push the hardiness limits of many plants that would traditionally be considered impossible to grow here. The garden is enclosed by a deer fence, without which everything edible in the garden would be destroyed. The soil is slightly acid and rocky, and the garden is traversed by a 40-degree slope around 400 feet in length and rising 75 feet. The hill and the acre at top of the slope is native deciduous woodland. With the exception of the raised beds along the driveway and around the house, none of the soil has been modified.

Sharing over 20,000 digital images of the plants and garden at ‘Edgewood’ was the primary driver behind the development of this web site. The ‘Garden Overview’ album includes images annotated with descriptions of major garden areas. The ‘Plants’ album displays photos of individual plants, categorized by botanical hierarchy (which doesn’t necessarily follow the latest ’trends’). The ‘Garden’ album takes you to a collection of images showing more general views, captured during the various seasons since fall 2000. The latter includes a ’Homeland Security’ section which contains pictures of all the family pets which are vital to keeping away all those critters which would otherwise consume the plants.

John has grown a wide variety of alpine and woodland plants and bulbs for more than 40 years and is a recipient of the Alpine Garden Society Gold Merit Medal. He has traveled extensively to study plants in habitat, especially Trillium in the SE USA. John regularly contributes articles to the publications of several horticultural societies, and lectures widely. He contributed a chapter discussing Cyclamen in North America to the book, “Genus Cyclamen in Science, Cultivation, Art and Culture”, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. John received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and spent more than 35 years working in biomedical research, before driving a school bus for 5 years.