There’s a place in Wayne, Pennsylvania, called Chanticleer. It’s a large garden estate that has been open to the public since 1993. The name means rooster in French, so there are stone and other roosters all throughout the property. I’m not sure why we haven’t been there more often! We decided to go there yesterday, for just about 30 minutes or so. We ended up being there until they closed; about 2.5 hours. We forgot how beautiful it is there. It’s not just all of the flowers and other plants – they also have amazing buildings, benches, chairs, a pool, a rock garden, fences, and other items that really work well together.
I also learned that they have educational activities, and do their part to reduce their impact on the environment. They use solar panels and rain water, for example.
It was so nice and relaxing to walk along the trails, stopping constantly to take pictures. My husband even carried his laptop so we could empty out the pictures to have the space to take even more. In all, we took more than 1500 pictures! Of course, we can’t put all of them on our Instagram accounts, but we will work on putting as many of them as we can!
We were far from the only people taking pictures there. We saw plenty of people, including a gentleman who told us he’s a professional photographer.
One of my favorite spots was the vegetable garden. They had an artichoke that was growing, there was plenty of dill, and even a row of asparagus that had gone to seed! I saw a hummingbird at one point, but not long enough to get over to it to take a picture.
In one area, there is a beautiful pool and two small buildings. The plants there were really amazing. I even saw a small cactus pear with fruit! Since I planted cactus pear seeds earlier in the year, and they recently started to grow, I was very happy to see that they can survive in this area (I’ll keep mine inside for the winter, of course).
What surprises me is that we still haven’t seen all areas of Chanticleer in our two visits. I hope to be able to see more of them soon. I realize, though, that the entire place transforms throughout the year, so there will always be something new to see. I’m looking forward to my next visit there!
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