Sculptures of Trees and Stone

Xris at Flatbush Gardener is hosting the upcoming Festival of the Trees, and has proposed the theme of “trees in the concrete,” all puns intended and otherwise, to help spark the creative.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to share a walk through the Topiary Garden at Longwood Gardens.

Toward the end of last summer (2006), after my own encounter with blog ennui, I began to explore my local area to shake things up. Pennsylvania is still new to me, and Longwood Gardens was a great find. I took hundreds of pictures (and will be returning in May for spring blossoms).

The Topiary Garden was a first for me. I may have seen pictures of topiary before, and seen a few nice coppices here and there, but I’ve never been in a full-scale, Alice-in-Wonderland-esque topiary garden – and boy was this one cool.

Animals, geometric shapes, flowers, and gorgeous stonework truly set this space apart from the rest of the gardens. It was impossible not to have fun in there!

The topiary are crafted from yew trees: Japanese yews (Taxus cuspidata) and English yews (Taxus baccata), which bear lovely red fruit.

According to the Longwood Gardens website,

"Gardeners shear these topiaries every July and August, and it takes years to develop the desired forms. The garden today includes more than 50 specimens in 20 different shapes."

When we came upon the Topiary Garden, we’d already spent the day walking all around the gardens, and it was just about to rain. Big, purple-grey clouds gathered as we were greeted by deeply colorful roses, and a low stone wall.

The topiary may look rigid – but when you get up close, they’re actually incredibly springy! All the branches love to play and dance, so you can get up close and make the shapes wobble and wiggle and wave with the slightest touch of hand. The gardeners are true artists – you don’t see many exposed cuts -- just nice, smooth needles carpeting all sorts of amazing shapes!

When we finally exited the Topiary Garden, we were met with the fire-eyed Chinese Foo guard dogs, and a warm afternoon rain. Despite its meticulous manicure, this garden is amazingly vibrant and friendly!

The Forests of Chateau Mumu

Each of our two vacation resting places had their own unique forest character. If you think there are a lot of pictures in today's post, you can imagine how many I had to leave out!

Chateau Mumu, our first stop, was nestled in among a stand of young deciduous trees, dominated by what I believe to be either Chestnut trees, Chestnut oak trees, or possibly Chinkapin oaks – or perhaps both, or something else entirely! They stood out to me because I had not previously seen trees with these big, wonderful, toothed leaves. Further investigation will be needed for certain identification, especially since I'm still stumped by many oaks. File the tooth-leaved trees under mystery.

Other oaks, Sugar maples (Acer saccharum), Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) and the odd evergreen also grew in the woods. I was particularly surprised by what appeared to be three young Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii), the likes of which I have not seen in almost a year (where once they dominated my landscape in Washington). I can’t imagine what Douglas fir might be doing in the Poconos, and I didn't see any of their cones around, so I’ll leave these up as mystery evergreens, to be identified at a later date.

The forest floor at Chateau Mumu may have been even more exciting than the rest of the woods. Great piles of fallen leaves scattered amid rain-soaked mosses and Pennsylvania stones made for fun investigations by the puppies, and plenty of fodder for my camera.

As always, suggestions for identification of the mystery trees is welcomed and encouraged. Next week I’ll give you a full review of the places we stayed, and of course, many more pictures from our adventures in the surrounding forests and parks!

The silo and her trees

I’m not certain just why I love this silo so much. When I finally get out my watercolors, pencils, and charcoals, I think that the silo and her tree-neighbors will be among my first subjects.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Trees consume the bank farmhouse

According to my landlady, these are the remains of what was once an enormous bank farmhouse. By “bank” farmhouse, she means that it was built into a bank, which slopes upward to connect with the silo seen in the last image.

This house was originally at least four stories tall, with I don’t know how many rooms. It must have been an amazing sight to see! Now, the remains of the farmhouse are overrun with great tall trees, including several of the “water trees” of which I spoke the other day. [Eventually I'll get you their common identity].

Sadly, this house was destroyed in a fire many years ago. I’m not sure what has caused all the stone to fall, except for continual erosion. Clearly there is a lot of history in this house, and I hope to learn more as I live here. The big old tree, I am told, is a linden tree; like the farmhouse, it was much much grander before being destroyed in the fire.

Walking through and around this house reminds me of when we visited the ruins of Nim Li Punit in Belize. The great city still boasts incredible stone structures, but all throughout the ruins grow ENORMOUS trees which have consumed what was once a thriving community.

I wonder if the inhabitants of this house ever dreamt about the trees that would one day grow through the very rooms in which they slept, and ate, and gathered. I almost feel as though I am trespassing when I walk through these ruins, and for the most part, I walked around the perimeter only.

At times, it seemed like I could hear their voices in the stone. Perhaps it was merely the chatter of the clack-clacking water trees on the wind. It’s amazing to see how their roots have taken to growing along the mortar, as if feeding off the stone itself. I think that the trees took this opportunity to do what they do best: reuse materials to make something new.