Not-So-Secret Garden

Philadelphia is a city that takes horticulture seriously. It's the home of the largest indoor flower show in the world. It's also the home of world-class gardens like Longwood and Chanticleer. Ann got the gardening bug when we moved to Philadelphia 15 years ago, and has invested a lot of time, effort and ingenuity into creating a pretty nice little garden for us. The folks at the Garden Club of America asked if they could photograph her garden for inclusion in the Archive of American Gardens, part of the Smithsonian Institution's Horticulture Services Division (those guys have some pretty cool gardens under their purview, too). When it came time to make the submission, we figured our garden needed a name. We decided to call it La Colline, for three reasons: we live on Chestnut Hill ("colline"), our home has a French Colonial aspect, and this was also the name of one of the most popular restaurants on Capitol Hill in our days in D.C. So La Colline is how one of 6,350 gardens included in the Archive, available for "scholarly and educational purposes as well as... design inspiration." At this writing, it doesn't appear that our photos are live on their website (though we have received their lovely "Certificate of Appreciation"), but when they're up, I'll link to them. Meanwhile, if you're in the Philadelphia area, you can look for a small feature on La Colline in Philadelphia Home Magazine this spring (they found us, too... our garden is not-so-secret).