What s Growing On At Chanticleer Garden

Hello everybody, it's Paul here dragged out of retirement. Well, not exactly dragged out of retirement. Kind of persuaded with a all expenses paid trip to Chanticleer Gardens, one of my favorites. So here we are in the front, this wonderful garden. We'll start off by looking at this in more detail and then we've got lots more to show you. If you're looking to jump ahead to spring, a two hour drive down the Turnpike to Chanticleer Gardens is an absolute must. It is my favorite garden for early spring delights, and delight is the word. We're at the front entrance where you buy a very reasonable ticket to enter this wonderland of gardening skills. Dave here is responsible for this part of the garden. I'd love if you could just tell us what's going on here, because I'm seeing lettuce, I'm seeing old favorites, I'm seeing some unusual stuff. Well, I always like to have a lot of spring color and like vibrancy when people first come in. My idea was bubbles. You have that pastels, you have blues, you have yellows and pinks, and so it was going for something very effervescent and bright. The more I can mix in vegetables and herbs, they're textural, they're colorful, they can handle a light frost. Lettuce looks so delicate, yet it is actually quite cold hardy. Yeah, very tough plants and quite a conversation piece as well. So let's look at some of those dramatic plants. I'm seeing fox gloves, which you'll have to explain. It's not really in chronological order, is it? Yeah, yeah. I buy those, and I have those growing in, and they're big and instant sort of color and architecture, and they have that dramatic, they have the spikes, and really fun to sort of add into. And the color lines are to die for, aren't they? Yes, yes. Such a great plant. They're some of my favorites, so I always have a soft spot for them. And the range of color is phenomenal, isn't it? Yeah, yellows to reds to blues, yeah. So a mixture of annuals, a mixture of perennials. Tell us a bit about some of the perennials you've got tucked in there. Perennials, I have a lot of things just kind of dotted in, and so those kind of play into my spring display where they're emerging, and you get little variegated foliage like the arundo over here. You get the big foliage of just like things coming up. So that sort of ties into spring display as things are coming up, and then also that goes into my summer display. So I get kind of a seamless transition. Yeah, so it really is a display just to get people excited. They come through the gate, which is exciting. It's a wonderful entrance you got, and they come here to buy the ticket, and it's like, wow, this looks good. Set the pace, set the bar. Yeah, the rest of it's going to look pretty wonderful. Yeah, I certainly hope so. Well, I'm standing next to the famous teacup, which is part of a teacup garden. All right then, Dave, so what have we got here? I see a lot of those lettuce, but this lettuce has a kind of a blotchiness to the leaf. Yeah, that's actually one of my favorite lettuces. It's flashy trout's back. It's a really old variety. I love it for the color, that little modeling. It has a really nice sort of romaine-type form, and it's also really delicious. It's one of my favorite for eating in the garden as well. And lots of jolly jump bucks. You can't go wrong with those, can you? Yeah, no. I mean, they're so cheerful in the spring, and they're tough as nails, so you can always rely on them for color. And the tulips are going. I was expecting the tulip, and they're just past their best, I take it. Yeah, just past peak. That's why I like foxgloves, because I can always rely on them for late spring. Tulips can kind of hang on to a little bit later into the season, but I always have foxgloves. And this little courtyard is fairly protected, I imagine, so the irises are pretty well ahead. Yeah, it's a real microclimate, and I try to use that to my advantage. And so I get a lot of early flowering things that are about a week ahead in some cases in other areas of the garden. So I try to use that to my advantage. All around, you've got lots of containers full of all kinds of unusual. I see some perennials out there, yeah? Yeah, containers make things fun. So I'm always sort of moving things in and out, and mixing different things, because it makes it more dynamic. So I use perennials, I use annuals, I use biennials, I use woody plants. And so as things transition through, I'll move containers in and out. And that moving, do you have a little dolly to do it, I imagine? Yeah, yeah. Don't strain your back. Yeah, it's a great workout. So we just moved to the side of the main teacup, the little fountain. We're up here, because you get an idea of just how many plants you've squeezed in this. It's about five feet across, is it? Yeah, I like to kind of squeeze it in. Just tell us some of what's going on here, because it's a lot going on. So I was going for textures, and colours, and very reds, and a lot of moments in there. So I do have a lot more vegetables, and annuals, and perennials dotted in through here, just to add to that diversity. And that big leaf, red foliage plant? Yeah, so that's a red mustard green, and then right next to it is a mizmizuna, a mizuna, which has that nice red foliage. And I allow them to bulk, because I love that little, yeah, just that little spring of sulphur yellow. And I'm seeing parsley in there, little English daisies, and all kinds of things in there. Yeah, there's always plants coming up here at Chanticleer. It's probably the most planted garden you can come across. Yeah, and just remember though, the more plants that you like, the less space there is for weeds to come in. So it makes your life a lot easier. It certainly does, yeah. Well, as you can see from this shot, it is an explosion of colour. So if you're coming to Chanticleer, always start off with the teacup garden, because Dave, every year it's different, isn't it? Yeah, I'm always rethinking. Always rethinking, and this is a brilliant, brilliant design for you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, I hope that whetted your appetite. We've got a lot more to show you in the coming weeks from Chanticleer Gardens, and a very happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there.