Mt. Cuba Center
The return of the native
8 October 2024
By: James Lennox
You ought to know by now that I have a thing for woodland gardens. I seek them out wherever I go (e.g., Bodnant and Gresgarth) and am even trying to create my own on an old sheep pasture at La Corolla (see my American woodland) - an enduring labour of love.
Woodland gardens tend to shine in spring with ephemerals popping up at every turn before the tree canopy leafs out for the summer. That's when the hordes descend on the lookout for colour-clashing azaleas and fleeting bulbous beauties.
My addiction to all things sylvan goes further. I'll visit them at any time of year, even in a September heatwave, when the main attraction is less the flowers on the woodland floor than the blissful relief from the blazing sun. Throw in a few other sneaky late-summer surprises and you've got yourself a winner in my book.
Mt. Cuba Center is an estate of almost 1,100 acres in northern Delaware on the East Coast of North America. Its USP is the trial, cultivation and promotion of plant species native to the mid-Atlantic region, a cause championed by its then owner, Pamela Copeland, from the 1960s onwards. It wasn't long before Mt. Cuba was being referred to as a first-rate botanical garden on a private estate. The garden was opened to the general public in 2013 and now contains over 1,000 native plant species, many of which have been grown from wild-collected seed and which are at risk of extinction in their natural habitats.
An admirable endeavour. But does Mt. Cuba Center work as a garden? The answer to that is a resounding ‘yes’. There's nothing revolutionary about the general layout - the areas surrounding the house are more formal and structured with the design and planting becoming looser further away. And there's nothing wrong with that - after all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Aside from the beautifully curated woodland, what is startling here is the use of native species and their cultivars in a strictly controlled formal setting. In Europe we've become accustomed to seeing North American perennials deployed in generous swathes, as at the American Museum in Bath, often verging on the prairie-esque in scale, with winding paths cut through towering monsters.
At first glance, the South Garden adjacent to the house at Mt. Cuba, appears to be nothing more than a conventional arrangement of lawn flanked by herbaceous borders. Look more closely and it's a skilfully arranged demonstration of how to reinvent traditional European-style beds using local flora already adapted to the conditions. Tradescantia ‘Concord Grape’, Gillenia trifoliata ‘Pink Profusion’, Amsonia hubrichtii, Rudbeckia maxima and choice native grasses among others all rub shoulders successfully.
This leads on to the remarkable Round Garden, a kaleidoscopic, high-octane, full-throttle extravaganza, adding at least another 10 degrees to the sweltering heat - it's just as well the centrepiece is a pool in the form of a Maltese cross to cool things down a touch. Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’, its less often seen cousin Coreopsis palustris ‘Summer Sunshine’ and Echinacea purpurea ‘Pica Bella’, Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’ and Symphyotrichum laeve var. laeve ‘Bluebird’ play nicely together and are well enough behaved (and managed) that they don't overwhelm a relatively tight space.
The last two are fine examples of top performers from Mt. Cuba's plant trials. The goldenrod in particular deserves a spot in any herbaceous border, its compact size and good manners singling it out from its brethren.
The Trial Garden itself features prominently, acting as a transition between the formal gardens and the woodland proper. Amsonia, Carex, Asclepias and Hydrangea species have all recently been put under the microscope, with a few Vernonia and ferns (Thelypteris kunthii and Lygodium palmatum both eye-catching curiosities) thrown in for good measure.
The ambition of Mt. Cuba is everywhere on display, its driving mission to preserve native species and convert local gardeners to their appeal. One part of that process is demonstrating how natives can be incorporated into domestic formal settings. Another is to show often undervalued natives in a carefully curated version of their natural setting, easy on the eye and still attractive to wildlife.
Far too often, in the UK at least, the inclusion of native woodland in a garden is nothing more than an excuse to ease off on the maintenance, cut back on the already underpaid gardener's hours and let the brambles, nettles and bracken romp to their heart's content under the guise of providing valuable habitat for endangered wildlife (usually code for the owner's own blood-thirsty cats and feral dogs).
Not so at Mt. Cuba, thank goodness. The woodland here has been carefully planned with gently meandering paths leading across undulating slopes. Thugs are kept under control by strict editing while preserving a naturalistic feel - light touch gardening at its very best. There are no obviously man-made vistas, no intrusive sculptures, just a heightened version of nature subtly tweaked here and there.
Interventions don't come much more understated than the three pools created by damming a small stream. This watery glade with its mirror-like clarity is one of the more deliberate pictures created in the woodland, setting off the majestic trees (oaks, maples, tulip trees, ash and beech - so much good stuff to choose from) while allowing the visitor a chance to marvel at the scale of the undertaking.
The only other clearing in the woods is a more typical open space, given over to wildflowers and grasses, that acts as a pause in the procession of delights that unfolds along every path. Flowering dogwoods surround it, the slightly quirky preference for using Benthamidia rather than the more usual Cornus florida merely enhancing the non-conformist bent of the place.
Of course, certain sections of any woodland garden will be ‘resting’ in September. The podophyllums and arisaemas had been and gone, and the trilliums (of which Mt. Cuba holds a national collection) were but a shadow of their spring best. The opportunity to see them earlier in the year, as well as explore further the outlying estate beyond the ‘gardened’ areas, provides just the excuse I’m looking for to warrant a repeat visit.
So does Mt. Cuba succeed in its mission? Well, I hardly needed winning over to the cause. Focusing on native species makes perfect sense when the gardener is as spoilt for choice as East Coast locals - and the textbook examples conjured here of incorporating natives in garden settings cannot be bettered.
But the need to look further afield for plants does arise in less botanically favoured parts of the world. Gardens in the UK and, dare I say my part of Northern Spain as well, would be much less varied than the plantings at Mt. Cuba if they only had local species and plants derived from them at their disposal.
I'm certainly no purist when it comes to plant origins. Mt. Cuba certainly inspired me, but perhaps not in quite the way it intended. Rather than being content with my own native flora, I came away with a renewed desire to grow some of Mt. Cuba's gems for myself, but on my hillside in Spain. I’m now on the hunt for Spigelia marilandica, Scutellaria incana, Gentiana clausa, Neviusia alabamensis, Isotrema macrophyllum - well, the list goes on. When I do get my hands on them, I’m hoping they'll look right at home in my own homage to the American woodland.
More information here: https://mtcubacenter.org/
