Wasteland to wonderland

PHILADELPHIA - In 1997, Diane Newbury and her husband, Steven Berman, bought a large 19th-century house in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill that needed overhauling from top to bottom. So did the two acres surrounding it.

Imagine overgrown trees, poison ivy and patchy lawn. Superimpose a gummy pool and enough paved surfaces to park a truck fleet, a greenhouse covered with wood paneling, and a broken fountain filled with dirt.

"A bit of a wasteland," says Berman.

But Newbury was undaunted. In fact, she says, when she first laid eyes on this rather forlorn L-shaped property on the Montgomery County, Pa., line, "I had tingles all over my body. I told Steven, 'I don't care what shape the house is in. I want it.'"

Newbury, an architectural and landscape historian with a sprightly gardener's heart, was OK with the endless punch list this old house would _ and still does _ require. She was ecstatic about the chance to create the kind of landscape most gardeners dream about.

That's still the mission, one a self-described "plant geek" like Newbury knows takes a lifetime. So, though she's been at this for more than a decade, her grand garden adventure has, in one sense, barely begun.

In another sense _ just look! _ her garden's grand already.

She's planted unusual trees, shrubs and perennial beds throughout, a soothing white border in the pool area, a breezy yellow-orange-lilac combo by the front door. She's crafted a charming groundcover garden by the restored greenhouse with a flowering carpet of moonlight, mint and lime thymes.

She literally uncovered a stone terrace in a neglected boxwood stand, pulling grass out by the fistful to reveal the stone below. And the dirt-filled fountain now trips with water, just as it did in the 1930s, when Mildred Benson Packard lived and gardened (well) here with her attorney husband, John.

Newbury's curiosity led her to some archival microfilm of Mildred Packard's three-part story in Good Housekeeping magazine in 1936, during the Great Depression. Called "My Garden," it describes lush plantings all around her gracious home, which was designed in Gothic Victorian style by architect Theophilus Chandler in 1887 but reconfigured several times over the years.

The article records Packer's desire, not unlike that of many of the era's wealthy horticulturists, to replicate a Tuscan garden in the walled part of her own. "I am enchanted to try my hand at courtyard gardening," she wrote.

Newbury has tried her hand at it, too. She's filled the shady courtyard with colorful potted plants, as it was in Packard's day. This is her family's refuge now, as Newbury says, "a good place for resting the eyes" or sharing meals with her husband and two children.

Now that the fountain is working again, Berman, a tax attorney, considers this his favorite spot. "I like to just sit and take it all in," he says.

A person could get lost taking in all these "outdoor rooms," and Newbury does, sometimes returning to the 14 indoor rooms of her stone-and-stucco house only after darkness makes it impossible to keep working outside.

For all the effort, Newbury's goal is to make her garden look effortless. "I want it to be lush, full of plants, no dirt showing, beautiful colors, full, easygoing, not fussy," she says.

And so it is. But how does she do it?

Very deliberately, it turns out.

While most of us see plant, crave plant, buy plant, Newbury is that rare breed who tackles one major garden project a year, studiously meshing her knowledge of horticulture and design. A native of East Greenbush, N.Y., she has a degree in art history from Beaver College (now Arcadia University) and a master's degree in historic preservation from the University of Pennsylvania.

She also completed the three-year horticulture program at the Barnes Foundation arboretum school.

"Diane is very thoughtful, always very methodical," says Susan Yeager, a gardening friend from Wyndmoor. "She has a thought and a purpose when she sees something and knows that she'd like to use it. She disciplines herself to get certain colors to keep certain beds a specific color scheme."

It helps to have great soil. Newbury needs only a little compost, mulch and soil conditioner to help with drainage. No chemicals. And she does most of the work herself.

But Newbury's like the rest of us in one important respect. "I don't know how else to say it," she says. "I just love plants."

You can tell she loves climbing roses. Armfuls tumble off the Wissahickon schist walls of the house and garden.

'Cornelia' is pale pink, as fetching as raspberry sherbet. 'Westerland' blushes at once yellow, red, pink and amber. The blooms of 'Zephirine Drouhin' are vivid cerise with white eyes, and 'Graham Thomas' is a shower of velvety butterscotch, each deeply cupped flower sporting up to 100 petals.

Their arching canes and scents of clove and lemon, to say nothing of the scale and beauty of this extraordinary garden, overwhelm a visitor. It's a reaction Newbury understands _ and shares.

"It's just so beautiful," she says, looking from the lower boxwood garden up the hill to the house.

Find the Perfect Mother's Day Gift Today!

She acknowledges that building a garden has been "an odyssey" that's likely to go on and on. "I can't possibly do everything that needs to be done," she says, with little hint of weariness.

Suddenly, Newbury spins around. Her arms make a wide arc that pulls in a good chunk of the vast lawn before her.

"This grass is going!" she vows with gusto. "It's destined to be a garden."

___

© 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer.