Fling Prequel,the Bonus Round-Intas' Garden

  I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to visit some of our great public horticultural institutions  across the US, but it's a particular pleasure to be welcomed into a memorable  home garden created by a gifted gardener. During our brief 2 day sojourn into Pennsylvania prior to Garden Bloggers Fling, my friends and I were fortunate to visit the garden of artist Inta Kromboltz, who fashioned it and  nurtured it for over 30 years. The gardens of an artist always seem to have a little extra something, perhaps because their creative eye sees things the rest of us do not.
 Intas' garden is a textbook study in the use of foliage, texture and layering . Flowers were completely incidental, and justifiably so. The garden is rich in color, flowers or not.

 Brick homes are exotic to this left coast dweller. Earthquakes and brick homes don't mix well. I was immediately smitten.



Along the driveway a tapestry of shrubs , beautifully composed.


This indicates the scale.
 


Intas art.


I took many photos along this driveway area. I was so drawn to it , while recognizing that it is a  look that is utterly impossible for me to replicate in my climate. My enjoyment of visiting gardens in the east is enhanced by the unattainable nature of the gardens I see. 2 climate zones out of reach !





 A couple of Intas' very very cool birdhouses.




 This view was one I kept going back to -it takes vision to create this. I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong , but I believe these are Cornus kousa 'Wolf Eyes'. Unless the house was in the way , these magnificent trees were visible from many areas of the property.




 Abigail joined the tour.



Intas' studio. I have to say she had a pretty intriguing selection of rusty stuff in there !



 My island bed does not look like this.




  This was clearly  a northeast  version of our very own left coast Danger Gardens' Agave dish planters. . No collusion, two creative minds in radically different climates.


Enjoy a group of random images taken from various locations in the garden.







 When my friends and I were contemplating the possibility of seeing Intas' garden on this trip, we discovered that her house and garden were up for sale. Since we visited , the property has in fact been sold, and Inta will be off to a new adventure and a new garden in the Carolinas. I think we can all sympathize with the desire to be closer to family. And my friends and I were so pleased to see this wonderful garden before it passes into new hands.

 A couple days after my visit to Intas it was pretty cool to see her birdhouse in the gardens at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.







Comments

  1. Oh my! This was wonderful. The layering of plants and the variations in foliage color brought to mind aspects of the Hillwood Estate (without the creepy statues). You were so lucky to see it before the ownership passed to someone else, and your readers are lucky that you've shared your visit! And I have to add that the bottle tree in front of Intas' studio is the best I've ever seen - perfectly placed.

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    1. Kris, Inta had a red bottle tree too, but it was in an area that was very shady at the time of day we were there and my photos were so so out of focus. And the layers yes indeed, really fantastic.

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  2. Marvelous blog post Kathy! great series of shots. You should send a link of this to Inta. She'll love it.

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  3. I was blown away when I first visited Inta's garden ten years ago. What a treat to have been able to visit it one last time! Between yours and Deanne's pictures, I won't even bother to post my crappy shots...lol.

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    1. Kudos to Cindy for getting the contact info and getting us an invite. How close I was to never seeing this garden !

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  4. Wow, how lucky are you? Thanks for sharing it with us, and her mossy dish planters are fabulous! Looks like they might have been made of plough discs?

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    1. Bet that they are plow discs Loree, she had all kinds of interesting stuff in her studio. You might need a couple of those in your shade area !

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  5. I would think the Garden Conservancy would want to snap this property up. So glad you guys got a second visit in, probably a third visit for many of you. Someone -- Fine Gardening? -- needs these photos, and Deanne's too.

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    1. Unfortunately it's too late for the Garden Conservancy to step in. I think I have seen photos of Intas garden in FG, many year ago. If I recall correctly the exact age of the garden is 38. My garden seems to be perennially immature,since I dig stuff up constantly.

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  6. What an incredible garden! Breathtaking compositions. Thank-you so much for posting!

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    1. A memorable garden indeed. I'm glad I have many photos to enjoy !

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  7. An amazing garden - it's really bursting with plants. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. It's great to see private gardens that are so very perfect, tended by the owner and not 'staff'.

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  8. All this cool green makes me lightheaded!

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    1. Ha !None of that green going on in our neck of the woods this time of year ! I don't think I'd want to trade our golden brown hills for that humidity -though sometimes in the depths of August it's tempting !

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  9. I have had the wondrous pleasure of visiting Inta's garden 3 times over about 10 years - each time it so surpassed the last, even when I thought it had already peaked. Her garden is truly one of the finest in plant materials and design and one of the most gracious hostesses you can find. Thanks for highlighting it.

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    1. Thanks for visiting here Edward, and indeed it was remiss of me not to mention what a genuine and gracious garden hostess Inta is. What a gem of a lady, with not an ounce of pretension. We enjoyed the visit that much more!

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  10. As Loree said, "There's always an Agave." And there was!

    Spectacular woodland garden. Enjoyed seeing something so exotic. Your photography did it justice, too.

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    1. thanks Hoov, they don't make 'em like that out this way !

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    2. Forgot to mention that blue weeping conifer just dripping over the archway...ah, perfection!

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