Philadelphia on January 18th

The lights show has run well the past two nights and I'll be on duty tonight. While the weather has been quite cold, we've had steady attendance at the event thus far. This is a quick blog to mention something that will be more detailed very shortly. Lori, our volunteer coordinator, is pulling together some evening volunteer events in the winter with the intent of not only getting together but keeping everyone informed on what is coming up this year. We'll arrange one in each of the months of January, February and March. I will also be doing short presentations at each of these and showing some of images of the various gardens I've been able to see over the past two years. The first volunteer event is on January 18th and I'll be talking about some of the gardens in the Philadelphia area. These first five images are of Chanticleer, the garden that awarded me the scholarship that allowed me to travel in the first place! A special thanks to Bill Thomas, Executive Director at Chanticleer, and the Board of the Chanticleer Foundation that awarded the scholarship. Lori will be sending out cards shortly to our current volunteers but if you are a past volunteer, potential volunteer or maybe a volunteer that for some reason doesn't receive the details, give Lori a call at (608) 752-3885 (ext 20) for event details. Put this first one on your calendar (I think we'll be having soup). Some of the other talks will include gardens of Los Angeles and New York City. The images here are just a sampling. We truly hope these events will help continue our connection with volunteers over the "off months" so we're ready to rock and roll in the spring. Whether me blabbing at these has any value is incidental as the true reason is keeping up the camaraderie. We hope you'll attend these and sit back and relax (although the bench below at Chanticleer is short on cushions, it look cool). Below is part of the campus of Swarthmore College which includes the Scott Arboretum. The entire campus is considered a botanic garden with the majority of plants labeled.
Below are two shots from Winterthur (actually in Delaware) but not far from Philadelphia. Cool gardens and natural areas.Below are some shots from The Morris Arboretum which is operated by the University of Pennsylvania. Neat garden although it poured rain when I was there. Further below is a new "canopy catwalk" that is quite amazing to traverse.Any visit to the Philadelphia area is not complete without enjoying the gardens and conservatories of Longwood Gardens (below), considered to be one of the best (if the not the best) botanic gardens in the country.