The Northwest Philadelphia area is blessed with four prominent public gardens, all of which are a legacy of the Quaker love of horticulture and reverence for the natural world.

Morris Arboretum & Gardens in Chestnut Hill, Awbury Arboretum in Germantown, Ambler Arboretum in Ambler, and Meadowbrook Farms in Jenkintown all began as private farms or estates. Four notable families are to thank for the fact that today they remain intact and open to the public: siblings John and Lydia Morris, the descendants of Thomas Pym Cope, Jane Browne Haines, and Alice and J. Liddon Pennock, Jr.

Each is a testament to our region's historic love of horticulture and to the particular tastes of each founding family. They are all well worth a visit and your support.

Morris Arboretum & Gardens

The Morris Arboretum & Gardens, a classic botanical collection focused on trees within a broader garden setting, is a testament to the vision and generosity of siblings John and Lydia Morris. Descended from a prominent Quaker family, the Morris siblings created the impressive estate they called "Compton" in Chestnut Hill, featuring an immense High Victorian Gothic country house designed by noted architect Theophilus P. Chandler.

As passionate travelers, the siblings collected plants, art and decorative items from around the world, with a particular focus on Asia. By 1914, their estate had expanded to 166 acres, boasting an extensive collection of over 11,000 labeled plants representing temperate floras from North America, Asia and Europe.

John Morris, who was actively involved with many philanthropic and educational organizations, including the Franklin Institute, American Philosophical Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, City Parks Association, Penn Charter School and Haverford College, retired in 1891 as head of the family's successful iron foundry. In retirement, he continued to focus on philanthropic and educational pursuits.

Meanwhile, Lydia Morris devoted her life to civic affairs, historic preservation and the creation of the gardens at Compton. Later in life, she hoped that the art she collected would go into the newly constructed Philadelphia Museum of Art, but its famously complicated director Fiske Kimball thought otherwise.

In a remarkable act of generosity, John Morris left the estate in trust to his sister upon his death in 1915, hoping that it would eventually become a public garden with horticultural classes. Lydia Morris fulfilled this vision by bequeathing the estate to the University of Pennsylvania in 1932, ensuring its preservation and ongoing educational mission.

Perhaps their greatest accomplishment was generously protecting the future of their beloved estate. Although the main house was demolished in 1968, the gardens and educational programs at the Morris Arboretum continue to thrive.

Awbury Arboretum

Awbury Arboretum, a 55-acre green oasis nestled in the heart of East Germantown, stands as a testament to Quaker simplicity and resilience in the face of urban challenges. The arboretum's origins can be traced back to the mid-19th century when descendants of Thomas Pym Cope, a prosperous Quaker merchant and entrepreneur, began acquiring land to create a country estate.

Cope made his fortune mostly through a line of "packet" ships which ran on regular schedules between Philadelphia and Liverpool, among other routes. With that fortune, he turned to politics and philanthropy and was involved with many important local institutions in the early 19th century, from the original Philadelphia water works in Center Square to the founding of Fairmount Park to Haverford College.

Cope's granddaughter, Mary Drinker Cope Haines, and son Henry Cope purchased the original farms that would eventually grow into Awbury, reaching approximately 100 acres at its peak. The family collaborated with several notable landscape architects to transform the farm fields into a picturesque Romantic landscape, reminiscent of the style popularized by Alexander Jackson Downing, often regarded as the founder of landscape architecture in America.

Saunders, in partnership with Thomas Meehan, a nationally renowned nursery owner, adapted the land by creating undulating valleys, strategically placing groves of trees and designing picturesque view corridors. Saunders also assisted with the creation of more formal flower gardens near the family's houses. When 55 acres of the common land was donated in 1915 to the City Parks Association, Cowell, founder of the school of Landscape Architecture at Penn State, refashioned a tributary of the Wingohocking Creek into a series of ponds, channels and stone bridges.

It is notable that none of those landscape architects' work included the classic type of garden features found at, for example, Morris Arboretum. There are no stone balustrades, follies or statues. The few such features were modest structures made of wood and thatch (and long gone), more appropriate for the gardens of a somber Quaker family.

Ambler Arboretum, Temple University

The Arboretum at Temple University's Ambler campus tells a very different story of Quaker horticultural and educational efforts.

Founder Jane Bowne Haines was a member of the extended Quaker Haines family of Wyck House in Germantown. Her grandfather, Reuben Haines III, was a multitalented and energetic figure, and the family was known for their horticultural expertise, particularly their famed rose gardens at Wyck, which Haines inherited from her aunt, Jane Reuben Haines.

Haines grew up on her parents' farm and orchard in Cheltenham, just outside Philadelphia. In 1891, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College, a Quaker-founded institution, and continued to earn a master's degree in history. She stayed on as a Fellow and librarian.

Horticulture was Haines' primary passion, and her travels to Germany and the United Kingdom introduced her to gardening schools and pioneering "plantswomen" like Gertrude Jekyll, credited with creating the popular English Cottage Garden style.

In 1910, Haines assembled sufficient funds to buy a 71-acre farm in Ambler and, with her experiences at Bryn Mawr, bravely founded the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, which became the only school of its type in the United States at that time.

Haines believed in providing practical horticultural training for educated and earnest-minded women who loved country life and pursuits. The school's curriculum included orchard care, farm tool use, lawn and shrubbery care, livestock care, botany, chemistry, vegetable and kitchen gardening, beekeeping, poultry raising, carpentry and agricultural bookkeeping.

As the school grew, Haines hired impressive staff who expanded the curriculum and raised standards, and eventually provided special training courses during both world wars.

Faculty member Bush-Brown designed the campus' formal teaching gardens, with advice from the Olmsted Brothers firm and Farrand, one of the first professional women landscape designers in the United States. Farrand designed gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, projects for the Rockefeller family on Mount Desert Island in Maine, and served as the consulting landscape architect for Princeton and Yale universities.

In 1952, the school became Ambler Junior College but faced financial struggles. In 1958, it formed an alliance with Temple University and became its Ambler Campus in 1961, allowing Temple to expand beyond its primary North Philadelphia location.

The Ambler campus continues Haines' pioneering horticultural educational mission. After a destructive tornado in September 2021 uprooted and damaged numerous trees, transforming the wooded campus landscape, Temple Ambler has used the recovery to study the impact of climate change on the mid-Atlantic landscape and now offers fascinating insights on its website.

Meadowbrook Farm, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

Meadowbrook Farm, on 25 acres in Jenkintown, was the private house of Alice and J. Liddon Pennock, Jr. Its gardens tell yet another story about its owners and creators and its preservation today.

Liddon Pennock was descended from a noted Quaker family that owned a wholesale floral business that continues today as Pennock Floral. The business occupied a specific niche, serving both suppliers and retailers, and was also affiliated with Thomas Meehan's famed nursery in East Mount Airy.

Founded in 1882, the company grew through the Roaring Twenties but began to struggle when demand for its particular services declined during the Great Depression and World War II. In 1933, Pennock had to leave Cornell University to join and help the family business.

But the company survived those challenging decades and grew to serve as the event florists of choice for Philadelphia society weddings, funerals, and debutante parties in the post-war decades. It expanded with outlets elsewhere on the East Coast and Midwest. The company is credited with providing some of the earliest floral deliveries by airplane, starting around 1945.

Pennock devoted himself to floral design and client service, overseeing the floral décor of Patricia Cox Nixon's wedding in 1971 and the White House Christmas decorations from 1971 to 1973. Tall, handsome and vivacious, he married Alice Weber Herkness, who came from a family of successful real estate developers. Her maternal grandfather was Charles Enau Johnson, the founder of the eponymous Charles Eneu Johnson & Company, one of the earliest and foremost ink manufacturers in this country. Her father appears to have kept connections with both companies, including the development of large tracts on the north side of Philadelphia through the early decades of the 20th century, and left his daughter quite wealthy.

Despite the challenges of the Depression, Alice Herkness' parents' wedding present to the newly married couple in 1936 was the house and land that was to become Meadowbrook Farm. Architect Robert McGoodwin designed the house in his classic French Norman style, with expansive slate roofs, terraced gardens and an impressive view.

Surrounding their house, Pennock created a series of intimate garden "rooms," each with its particular mix of planting accented by architectural or decorative features. They reflect the influence of English garden designer Sackville-West, who was known for her series of garden rooms at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. Pennock added his particular floral designer aesthetic, creating a "bijoux" visual fantasy of shapes, textures, colors and varieties.

Pennock's particular enthusiasms appear elsewhere in his life, including his sartorial preference for colorful bowties and vintage-styled English rowing blazers. The living room of the main house features elaborately carved 19th-century Chinese rosewood furniture that Pennock daringly painted white, more Tony Duquette's Hollywood film sets than Quaker Philadelphia.

Pennock generously left his beloved house and gardens to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which continues to manage the property.