My Determined Daphne

About ten years ago, when I redesigned my front yard, I planted a winter daphne (Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’) in front of the seating area under my now-departed crabapple tree.

Visible just behind the weeping yew in the front of the photo, my daphne has persevered through all kinds of weather, including snow in April 2007.

I planted it because I had a shady front yard, a high-profile location I wanted to fill with a specimen plant, and most of all because I loved the way this plant smells when it’s in bloom, usually in late March or early April. Heavenly.

What I didn’t know at the time was that very few daphnes grow to maturity looking like the one in the link here. Many, if not all, of the ones I’ve planted or encountered, develop a strange tendency to start growing horizontally. Mine is so “sideways” now that much of its “trunk” lies on the ground, and most of the foliage branches are propped up on the flagstone landing in front of the bed. Recently, a deer (I think) stepped on it in the center, breaking off a big chunk of the shrub.

Ouch. Whatever roundish shape the daphne had before has been severely compromised, to say the least.

I winced and cut off the broken branch, then tried an experiment to see if I could “force” cuttings from the broken piece to bloom inside. No luck, as you can see.

This is as good as it got. A couple of days later, the leaves started yellowing and falling off, while the buds stayed determinedly shut.

Over the years, as my daphne has gotten older, harsh winters have made me think it’s about to give up the ghost.

In a real snowstorm, shortly after it was planted. Plucky little thing.

But to my surprise, when bloom time comes, in late winter, it perks up and lets forth with its gorgeous scent, determined to give me another season of bloom.

My daphne's buds, starting to open.

Now that my front yard is sunnier, I don’t know if the daphne will survive the sun’s onslaught.

No longer sheltered by the crabapple's branches, the daphne will now get strong sun in the front yard, even though it faces north.

Check with me this time next year. I would hate to have to move it, but if it proves necessary, I’ll try transplanting it, broken branch and all.  After all, it’s surprised me before with its determination to survive. Perhaps it will do so again. Fingers crossed.

American University’s Arboretum

Not far from where I live, in northwest Washington DC, American University has been establishing an arboretum on its campus that provides student, faculty and visitors with a garden-like setting to enjoy and take pride in. I’ve been photographing the campus for its landscape architect, H. Paul Davis (who also has designed many beautiful residential gardens in the DC area) since 2004, and thought I would share some photos with you.

While the original campus plan for AU (which was founded in 1893) was created by Frederick Law Olmstead Sr., it underwent changes over the years. These days, Olmstead’s plan is being revisited, but some of the most visually exciting areas of AU’s landscape are directly attributable to Davis’ vision.

The University's Katzen Center, with sculpture and plantings.

Another view of the Katzen Center "garden."

Older parts of campus include mature trees and a wandering brook,

Azaleas and a brook near the Woods-Brown Ampitheater at AU.

a “pocket park” with unusual perennials and a Japanese maple with benches inviting you to sit and talk,

Roper Pocket Park, with a naturalized pond and seasonal plantings.

and large expanses of lushly planted sweeps of colorful long-flowering perennials in front of the President’s House and neighboring Glover Gate.

The lawn at the President's house, near Glover Gate.

A mass of bold summer annuals and grasses capture the eye at Glover Gate.

In spring, I found Euphorbia paired with luscious yellow and white tulips along a walkway between buildings.

Euphorbia and yellow and white tulips provide a gorgeous spring combination.

The landscape design around academic buildings is impressive almost everywhere.

Hillside plantings behind a Batelle-Thompkins building, not far from Glover Gate.

A late summer afternoon in front of Battelle-Tompkins, with a Natchez crape myrtle in bloom and masses of coneflowers, shasta daisies and black-eyed susans.

In 2010, the plantings surrounding Battelle-Thompkins earned Davis and AU a Landscape Design Merit Award from the Perennial Plant Association.

AU’s arboretum is not only visually beautiful but is becoming a leader in sustainable management of an urban landscape. Its new LEED Gold Certified School of International Service building showcases a host of new green technologies, and the campus’s Media Production Center boasts a green roof. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll take a tour of the campus – even if you’re not in the market for a return to academia yourself, it’s inspirational and an opportunity for learning more about how an institute of higher learning has something to teach us all.

The Vale of the White Horse

In August I encountered one of the most mysterious landscapes I have ever seen – the Vale of the White Horse in Uffington, in Oxfordshire, England.  Although the Vale itself is fairly typical looking, with hedges delineating individual farms and holdings,

The Vale of the White Horse, as seen from an outlook near the White Horse.

it is the White Horse itself that makes this destination so special.

The White Horse, viewed from below. It's much easier to photograph from an aerial perspective, but I had failed to book a helicopter.

The White Horse is described in Wikipedia as a “highly stylized prehistoric hill figure”, created of chalk (it is estimated) during the Bronze Age some 3000 years ago. (For a better aerial view of it, click here.) The figure is about 375 feet long and is cleaned periodically to keep it visible. The surrounding landscape contains some unusual ridged hills called The Giant’s Stair, and above the White Horse stands a knoll known as the Iron Age Uffington Castle.

The day we visited, the landscape was windy and clouds scuttered across the sky. A child was running with a kite.

Flying a kite below the White Horse

The surrounding meadows were appropriately bleak, with an occasional outcropping of thistles.

Purple thistles dotting the meadow grass near the Vale of the White Horse.

I won’t forget the Vale of the White Horse. See it if you can.

Ghost Forest

On my last day of vacation in England in August, it rained. The friend I was visiting had a morning appointment, and so I found myself dodging raindrops in dowtown Oxford, visiting museums rather than gardens. I left my D300 at home but packed along my trusty Canon G11. Sure enough, I found plenty to shoot, starting with “Ghost Forest,”  a remarkable installation  at the Oxford Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum.

The outdoor installation of enormous tree roots called "Ghost Forest" outside the Oxford Museum of Natural History. On the left is a denya tree, the largest specimen in the installation.

The artist, Angela Palmer, sourced the tree stumps on display from fallen rainforest trees in Ghana, which have been decimated by illegal logging over the years (Ghana, which supports the artwork on display, became the first African country to sign an agreement with the EU outlawing trade in illegally felled timber, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.) Palmer has put on display ten tree stumps from commercially logged areas in the Suhuma rainforest areas of western Ghana. Three were trees that had been felled, and seven had toppled over during storms. I couldn’t decide which was more impressive – their size, or their beauty. But why choose?

The massive tangled roots of one of the trees from Ghana.

The installation has also appeared in Trafalgar Square and in Copenhagen for the U.N. Climate Conference. When I visited in Oxford, signage indicated the installation was about to close, but its run there has apparently recently been extended through July 2012.  For more information and extensive photos documenting this project, visit the Ghost Forest website or archived photos from The Guardian.