The owners of a large dairy farm and estate in Pennsylvania have included pockets of garden that link to the surrounding countryside and come to life in early autumn
WORDS KENDRA WILSON PHOTOGRAPHS CLAIRE TAKACS
The rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, remind many of theUK, and its mineral-rich pasture has helped to mould this land into a kind of English idyll. At The Farm at Doe Run, prize cheeses are made with the help of beautifully managed Jersey and Normande cows, Nubian goats and East Friesian sheep. Estate buildings have a similarly high specification: stone dwellings that once housed harness-makers and wheelwrights have been repurposed for cheesemakers, chefs and gardeners.
This Arcadian atmosphere is partly the result of the owners’ penchant for sourcing unusual and lovely things. Three enormous greenhouses were salvaged from the University of Maryland and rebuilt, with improvements, at Doe Run. They are used by the many gardeners (seven of whom are garden managers; there is no head gardener as such) for every aspect of gardening at the farm, including indoor planting and starting off vegetables, which are grown in close consultation with the owners’ chef.
Similarly, a collection of mainly dwarf conifers with excellent provenance had been acquired for their beauty, but had no particular home on the grounds. This was one of the first jobs for gardener Emma Seniuk when she arrived at Doe Run from Chanticleer. “We call it the Stone Bed,” she says of the conifer bed. “It was assembled over the course of a few weeks with the help of one guy in a skid steer [machine], and me leading the charge on tree and boulder placement.” Although the Stone Bed resembles a swale for managing storm water, its main purpose is to stage the owner’s passion for specimen trees. There’s an emphasis on coniferous blue and golden yellow, while the changing colours of the wooded hills are brought into this part of the garden in autumn with deciduous sugar maples grown as columns. Gingko is next on the list, to add further verticals of well-shaped, bright-yellow foliage.
The gardens, buildings and farm at Doe Run are managed by the owners, with a community of diverse employees given autonomy within their roles. Two gardeners, Jim Andrews and Jim Wunderlich, focus on spring and early summer planting. Emma was brought in
