The Gardens of Mill Fleurs

Every garden has something to teach me.   Here we are at the last garden of our four day tour.  The Gardens at Mill Fleurs is located along the Tohickon Creek in Pennsylvania.   We were getting lots of rain from the Hurricane Ophelia and this was a wet visit.  Nevertheless, one I enjoyed very much.  Barbara and Robert Tiffany are the current guardians of this dramatic location.  Barbara, pictured below with the purple umbrella loves to share this space and her stories from the past thirty years creating this garden space.  

This site has drama.   Along the creek a gristmill was built around 1742 with the lumber sawmill operational in the 1790's.  

What is largely a collector's garden, with lots of unusual plants grouped in a systemic fashion.   One area was all about plants with variegated leaves.  Another was many varieties of dwarf conifers.  Or weeping plants, or twister stems.

This little one caught my eye.  A variegated Eruybia divaricatus 'Snow Heron' or wood aster.  Unfortunately the rain was fierce and the light dreary.  

Barbara Tiffany of Mill Fleurs in Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania, likes to group by texture, structure or variegation.

Barbara had a lot to say and clearly enjoyed sharing her knowledge.   At first I thought she was a little nutty like many gardeners can be.  But then peppered through her tour she would say something that stuck me as true.  The way I garden.  Here are a couple:  Start with small plants as they adapt better; 

The more i know, the more i realize i don’t know.