“Garden of Distinction” Award
Philadelphia Horticultural Society (2020)

This historic building housed the Century Club, a local women’s club dating back to the early 1900’s. The UCWC purchased the site in the 1990’s. In 2018, after an extensive building renovation, the congregation started the process to renovate the existing landscape, which contained an old barberry hedge along the public sidewalk, unusable sloped turf areas above the hedge, an under-used lawn, and a few unkempt areas adjacent to the building’s main entry.

Goals for the redesign included: creating a more attractive street presence; developing outdoor spaces usable by children; and using native/adapted plants that would survive without supplemental irrigation, in keeping with Unitarian Universalist principles.

To meet these goals, the existing hedge and turf on the slope were removed. Low accent walls, made of reused slate pieces, were added at the corner of the lot and at each side of the main entry walk. A new natural shrub row of ‘Shamrock’ inkberry (a low-growing, locally native shrub) was added at the top of the slope, defining the upper space and freeing the slopes to become perennial-filled pollinator gardens. The look of the garden changes dramatically through the year depending on bloom season and time of year, as shown in the photos on this page.