Japanese Jewel Box Garden

Neighbors walking to the train usually pause to comment should they see someone in the front garden tucked away in urban Elkins Park. Over the 25 years that landscape designer and lecturer Sharee Solow (a life member of North American Rock Garden Society and the chapter newsletter editor) has been working this small (0.15 acre) plot, it has changed from poison ivy, yews, and barberry to an eclectic collector’s garden with Asian influences. The lot was initially bulldozed clear much to the neighbors’ shock but then the trees, shrubs and flowers kept coming in until it seemed impossible to fit another plant. When the front fragrant plum tree became too diseased to keep, the lawn was removed, and that half of the front yard converted to a rock garden. A colorful bog garden at the front door quickly followed.

With no interest in mowers, Sharee continued lawn removal in the backyard, asking her friend, landscape architect Doug Gable, to help convert all of it into a pond. He hand-placed every stone, including a waterfall that cascades into the pond through all seasons. Goldfish and aquatic plants remind her of growing-up in Florida. She also developed levels of enclosure over the years to screen houses only feet away and the SEPTA train at the rear property line using minimal planting space, giving it an oasis-like feel.

Traveling with her husband, world-renowned cellist Jeffrey Solow, to many countries including Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan with their centuries of gardening traditions, her design work became greatly influenced by those visits. Sharee returned to Japan through the European Landscape Contractors Association to study history, design, construction, and maintenance resulting the addition of a small karensansui and more bonsai. She designed the Japanese entrances and fence that encloses the garden along with a koshikake-machiai. The rear garden is mostly shaded, bonsai tables wrapping the space, with such a transporting affect that after a cello lesson one Japanese student almost cried, “It feels like I am back home.” None of this little rear garden is typically seen but always causes a gasp when the gate opens, which led one guest to call it a “jewel box garden.”

Sharee Solow lectures and belongs to numerous horticultural trade associations plus her garden has been on the covers of Tennessee Gardener and Pennsylvania Gardener magazines, as well as various gardening society publications.   

www.solowhorticulturaldesigns.com

Open Days 2021: Saturday, June 19
Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

REGISTRATION
Members $5 per person; General admission $10. Children 12 and under free.