Destinations // THE WYCK HOUSE
A Rose in the Hand
by Iona Clark
EXCERPT //
The Wyck House
Germantown, Philadelphia, PA
The Wyck Historic House, situated on Germantown Avenue near West Walnut Lane in Philadelphia, boasts a historical, untouched farmhouse and the oldest original rose garden plan in the country. At Wyck, the flourishing rose garden boasts 50 varieties of old garden or “heritage” roses, meaning they bloom only one time a year.
“Things have always been added to the garden, but never removed,” says Kim Staub, executive director of the Wyck house. Two rose varieties at Wyck, the Lafayette and Elegant Gallica, are the progenitors of this variety all around the world. “Anywhere in the world you see these varieties, they all come from cuttings here at Wyck,” she says.
Kim, who proudly led me through the layout of the garden, said that most people are just as shocked as me when she tells them about the Lafayette and Elegant Gallica. Even though they were right in front of me, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that these roses were the first, the true originals of their kind, and now they are all over the world tracing back to where I was standing.
For nine generations (1690 - 1973), the Wyck house served as an ancestral home to the Wistar and Haines families. Because of the preservation efforts made by the Wyck team, the garden, farmhouse, and other structures on the property remain in their original, purest form (there is even still an ice house in the garden!). Along with the gardens and other foliage like shrubs, fruit trees, and blooming summer flowers on the property, Wyck also holds more than 10,000 items belonging to the original homeowners, as well as more than 100,000 family documents ranging from journal entries to recipes to the very first plan sketched out for creating the rose garden.
The farm now functions as a community garden. “It’s not individual plots; everyone gardens together. All you have to do is just show up,” Staub says. Staub explained that many people who utilize the community garden at Wyck may not have a backyard to garden in, or may have never seen a garden at all, and garden tools are provided to all volunteers to maintain the grounds. At the end of the day, anything from the garden can be taken home by those who helped out. Any leftover produce at the end of the session goes to the community fridges to nourish the residents of Germantown. If fresh produce is your thing and you like seeing your work come to fruition, be sure to visit Wyck and ask for Kim, who will set you up and show you the ropes.
The grounds are open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and house tours can be scheduled on Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays from noon to 4. //
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