Blooming for 150 years

Toward the end of April, Noah Johnson’s street in Fairmount fills with pink cherry blossoms. The cherry trees may have been planted, he believes, when rowhouses were built in 1876.

Longtime Fairmounters call the block Centennial Boulevard. The homes were designed to showcase the latest trend in residential architecture as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The three-story homes were faced with stucco modeled to resemble stone and had tiled mansard roofs and enviable front gardens. Most houses in Fairmount, then and now, have small backyards but no front yards. Owners compensate with window boxes and planters.

Over the last 150 years, the “Centennial” homes have been altered. Some have been re-stuccoed or faced with brick. But they all still have their front gardens.

Johnson and his wife, Charlotte Burns, like their neighbors, have planted their precious plot with flowers and greenery.

The floral motif begins at the east end of the block, where Brian Augustine has painted a mural on the garage wall adjacent to his house. Augustine, a contractor and amateur artist, copied a Claude Monet painting of the garden at Giverny, the famous impressionist’s home in France. Augustine planted white rocktrumpet vines in his garden to complement the white water lilies in the mural.

Farther down the block Sam Cifelli has wound Christmas lights around the handrail going up his front steps next to shrubbery. He adds more lights during the holidays to the delight of Johnson and Burns, who live next door.

The couple purchased their four-bedroom, 2½-bath home in February 2025. Johnson said he let Charlotte do all the gardening.

By summer, Burns’ plantings were so lush a neighbor gave her a flier about the Flowering Fronts of Fairmount Competition sponsored by the Fairmount Civic Association. Burns entered the contest and won a prize. This summer she was a finalist in the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Citywide Gardening Challenge.

Burns’ success wasn’t just beginner’s luck. She grew up watching her landscape designer father, Bruce Burns, at work. Before moving to Philadelphia she gardened at a house she and her husband rented in Georgia.

Burns kept the English ivy and the heavenly bamboo she found in the garden and purchased annuals including begonias, impatiens, vincas, and multihued coleus at the local Ace Hardware store.

Her father helped Burns choose and plant perennials such as spikes of purple liriope, Silver King Euonymus — which has green, leathery leaves edged in white and speckled with gold dust — red-tinged pieris japonica and glossy abelia.

Gardening is challenging. While Burns’ creeping Jenny, an annual, “grew back this year,” she said, the hydrangea did not bloom, and she had to use a pesticide “for the first time” to remedy a lace bug infestation on the Japanese hosta.

Besides planting in the ground, Burns has filled window boxes and ceramic pots with colorful plants that line her front steps.

On the brick patio in the middle of the garden red begonias in a blue pot are centered on the white wrought iron table. She found the table and matching chairs at a Bucks County estate sale.

Burns embellished the garden with glass birds from the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire and glass flowers from the Philadelphia Flower Show. A ceramic frog was purchased at the annual Fairmount Flea Market. The cat banner and front door wreath were gifts from her mother, Cheryl Cunningham.

Johnson helps his wife with the heavy lifting, spreading bags of mulch, and moving the pots to the basement for storage in the winter.

Burns, a veterinary anesthesiologist, and Johnson, a battery scientist, met as students at Drexel University and married in 2021.

The couple had permission to string lights around Mario and Anna Crociata’s oak tree next door.

Burns planted periwinkle and hosta in the tree well and created a miniature village with gnomes and tiny houses. If an enchanted child takes one of the gnomes, Burns will purchase more at the nearby dollar store.

They hope Fairmounters will enjoy the flowering fronts on Centennial Boulevard for another 150 years.

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