Charles Cresson's Hedgleigh Spring was the first private garden I visited during the recent Philly Fling. Bright and early on Friday morning our bus pulled up by this historic house...![]()
There was a sign with a QR code out front, it led to a page on the Swarthmore Historical Walking Tour website, a project of Nate Linderman, a Boy Scout in Swarthmore. Clicking through I learned that Hedgleigh Spring is named for the old springhouse on the property. It's located on the grounds of the original Hedgleigh Farmstead, owned by the Cresson Family, and the garden design dates from the 1920’s. In her blog post Pam Penick wrote that Charles is the 4th generation to care for the garden, can you imagine?
As you can see by the blue sky and t-shirt-clad "Flinger" Friday was a warm dry day, the tropical storm and rain that would mar the next two days hadn't yet arrived.
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The side garden was a tropicalisimo-inspired foliage dream.
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Complete with a potted agave.
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I think this is the spring house, built over the original spring for which the property is named.
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There's an entire garden right there on the roof.
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I'm always a sucker for the passionflowers.
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Looking across the back garden.
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And if my memory is correct this planting was off to the left of the above photo. Opuntia!
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And more agaves...
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Sabal minor I believe.
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Attention to groundcovers was evident.
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Lest you think this was a small garden...
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Patina of time.
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I love the vintage swing-set and the old laundry drying rack.
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Up near the back of the house there were a lot of containers, large and small.
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And a tillandsia hanging from a fancy birdhouse (bird shelter?)...
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More of those containers.
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As our time in the garden was about to end a fellow Flinger asked if I'd been to the pond at the back of the property, I had not! It turns out is was behind the fence shown in the eighth photo above.
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There was a definite sense of history in this garden, something that I felt throughout our time in Pennsylvania.
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Time to get back on the bus and on to the next garden!
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