A whimsical garden in Norristown has been cultivated with care through the generations
The garden has evolved into a series of themed "rooms" and still has the dogwoods, orange azaleas and phlox the owner's mother planted.
The enchanted forest with its singing tree house, fantastical birdhouses, reflection pools, and Alice in Wonderland tea party sculptures seems as if it were created by the stroke of a wizard’s wand. In fact, the wooded fantasyland in Norristown is the creation of hardworking owners Bob Butera and Marilyn Sifford.
The couple bought his parents’ stone house on two acres in Norristown after Butera’s mother, Anna, died in 2002 at 101. Butera’s father, Harry, built the house in 1940, and he and Anna raised their eight children there.
Butera and Sifford had been living in Society Hill and wanted more land to garden. To get started, they had to clear out the poison ivy and invasive plants.
The couple took horticulture courses at the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion and engaged the services of Chuck Rogers, who had been curator of horticulture at the Philadelphia Zoo.
“He was a genius,” Sifford said, and Butera noted, “His sense of design was unparalleled.”
Rogers created wood chip paths through the property, laid out a vegetable garden surrounding a pond, and helped his clients pick plants at “wonderful” wholesale nurseries in New Jersey. Eventually, they had a well dug and an irrigation system installed to keep the garden watered.
They kept the outdoor stone fireplace that Harry had constructed (adding a stainless-steel gas grill), as well as the dogwoods, orange azaleas and phlox Anna had planted.
The two acres have evolved into a series of garden rooms, filled with trees bearing multicolored leaves, shrubs and perennials.
In the moss garden are wooden sculptures of Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, two watering cans painted with mushrooms, and a teapot. The collection once belonged to former Jenks Arboretum director Harold Sweetman. Artist Barry Marron of Ambler painted the sculptures their storybook colors.
Marron also painted a mural of Sicily — Harry’s birthplace — on the stairwell inside the house. And Sicily inspired the ornate wrought-iron balcony off Sifford and Butera’s second-floor bedroom. It overlooks the rear patio, the stone staircase leading up to a pond, and a pergola Rogers built.
Garden views include Rhode Island red dwarf Japanese maples, yellow skyland spruce, lilacs, purple clematis, and in late spring, hydrangea and lilies.
In 1943, Harry planted an oak, which eventually grew to shade the entire front of the house. When the tree died a few years ago, Butera and Sifford left about 16 feet of the trunk and created a tree house festooned with birdhouses. Marron fashioned a conical shingled roof on the trunk and fashioned a door to nowhere. At the base of the tree is a mailbox with a red button. Visitors who press the button are serenaded by Sifford, who has written and recorded 12 songs. Speakers are hidden in the tree.
During the pandemic, a neighbor regularly sat on the stone bench near the tree and listened to the music. “This is my church,” she told Sifford.
Without the enormous oak, the front yard went from full shade to sun, which required new plantings. Sifford designed a serpentine bed with blue juniper, arctic sun dogwood, copper beech trees, and pink dianthus.
The couple’s family and friends gather often in the numerous seating areas — wrought iron chairs and tables, stone benches, and one rustic semicircle of 10 tree stumps, which represent Harry and Anna and their eight children.
Bob Butera, 87, had a career in the state legislature and as president of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority before retiring. Sifford, 74, is a retired organizational change consultant.
As they have grown older, the couple have more helpers to haul and weed. Butera, who still plants the seeds in the vegetable garden, has added railings to stone garden stairs.
Sifford still prunes. While resting on a bench, she leaned down to pull weeds despite an achy neck. It is second nature.
The Butera-Sifford garden will be one of five featured on the Norristown Garden Club Tour, “Blooming in the Country,” 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 25. Tickets: $25, at norristowngardenclub.org. Proceeds fund community projects.