My gardener, Shaun Kass guest blogs from the Woody Plant Conference
A few weeks ago, my gardener, Shaun Kass, attended the annual Woody Plant Conference held at the lovely campus of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.Due to the success of their Perennial Plant Conference, the sponsoring institutions felt a need to educate and promote the use of woody plants and organized this event thirteen years ago. It draws nursery and garden center personnel, landscape designers, horticulturists, and avid gardeners. Shaun enjoys attending gatherings such as this one to expand his vast knowledge of horticulture. It's also a reunion of sorts, as many of his friends and former colleagues attend these events, as well. He was kind enough to take these photos and share them with all of us. Please enjoy.
1 The Woody Pant Conference held at Swarthmore College. The Scott Arboretum is the campus of the college and has a world renowned collection of woody plants.
2 The conference is co-sponsored by Chanticleer, Longwood Gardens, Inc, The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College and the Tyler Arboretum. All are well-known Delaware Valley insitutions.
3 Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight' Japanese hydrangea vine - a nice, silvery-foliage climbing vine
4 The Scott Arboretum's famous amphitheater where the conference attendees had lunch
5 These are ancient moss-covered Liriodendron tulipifera, tulip trees.
6 The amphitheater was designed by Thomas W. Sear, a landscape architect. He was in the first graduating class of Harvard in 1906 in landscape architecture and began his career working for the very famous architecture firm of the Olmstead Brothers in Brookline, Massachusetts before settling in Philadelphia to work on major projects including this one, as well as Mt. Cuba
7 This is the campus observatory.
8 A courtyard of one of the dorms in campus with Honey Locusts
9 Beautiful detail work on the architecture
10 Looking out and into the Scott Arboretum with a tall White Pine as a focal point
11 A small Chinese Garden, which once had a fountain in it
12 This is an extraordinary sculpture of a red oak leaf made from a soil piece of trunk of a very old dead red oak.
13 Amazing detail of the veins in the leaf
14 It is built to bear weight.
15 Pinus wallichiana, Himalayan Pine - this tree has a bluish cast to the needles and long cones, up to 10 inches long and 2 inches wide!
16 The architecture was designed to look ancient. The stones of the building are Wissahickon Schist, which is in short supply today and was often quarried on site, while digging the foundations. The roof is made of slate.
17 A very corky variety of Sweet Gum.
18 Longwood Gardens introduced a variety 'Corky' and it very similar to this one.
19 A grand old specimen of Kentucky Coffee Tree, Gymnocladus dioicus
20 A true cedar in the arboretum
21 A nice specimen with a double leader of Japanese Umbrella Pine, Sciadopitys verticillata
22 The beautiful bell tower, which can be seen from almost every direction on campus
23 Cedrus deodara, the Deodar Cedar, a true cedar with its honeycomb-like cones that stand upright. We mistakenly call our Eastern Red Cedar a cedar when in fact it is a Juniper, Juniperus virginiana.
24 A fun sculture with a mature Paperbark Maple in the back
25 A grove of Paperbark Maple's, Acer griseum
26 Look at the exfoliating bark - this looks ornamental and beautiful year round.
27 A wide expanse of lawn - it has multiple uses since it is a college campus.
28 Swarthmore College's famous White Oak allee, which leads up the main path from the train station to the college.
29 The Scott Arboretum has been replacing dead trees with new Swamp White Oaks, Quercus bicolor.
30 Looking back towards the train station - what a great entrance to a wonderful college.
31 Adirondack chairs casually placed on the lawn - notice anything funny?
32 All of the attendees quiety seated in the Lang Performing Arts Center
33 Topics included Beautifying the Urban Landscape, Tapping the Plant Diversity of the Eastern US to Enhance Gardens, Titillations and Tribulations in Tree Breeding, A Promising Plants Forum with 3 Delaware Valley Horticulturists, The Influence of Plant Biodiversity on Landscape Pest Management, and a Travelogue of Searching the World for Oaks.
34 The amphitheater with attendees enjoying lunch - lunch was provided and quite delicious.
35 A more modern building on campus with a pair of Hinoki Cypress
36 A courtyard with younger woody plants including Japanese Katsura
37 Here is the Japanese Katsura with Edgeworthia papyifera, a marginally hardy in NY plant.
That ampitheatre is unbelieveable. Just beautiful!
Posted by: The Blushing Hostess | August 12th, 2009 at 6:52 am
It is nice to see Honey Locusts in landscaping. I have them all over my property. When we bought it we were told they farly rare trees these days. The thorns on them are quite amazing and dangerous.
Posted by: Marie | August 12th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Is it an optical illusion or is that one Adirondack chair unusally large?
Posted by: Becky from Wisconsin | August 12th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I grew up in the village of Swarthmore, PA. The campus is 10 minutes from my parent's home. The campus has always been beautiful!!
Thanks for sharing the photos.
Posted by: JoAnn from West Chester, PA (formerly from Swarthmore) | August 12th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Terrific pictures Shaun right down to the detail work on the architecture as well as your great views of the beautiful amphitheater. I think I like that pair of Hinoki Cypress because of the really dark green color and the Japanese Katsura is equally beautiful. I don’t think I have heard of those before but if the names don’t roll off my tongue frequently, I have a tendency to forget anyway. Real gardeners like you and Martha totally fascinate me with your knowledge of trees and plants. I don’t know a white oak from a paperbark maple, although I know a little about palm trees. Well, I hope you took lots of notes at the conference – I have a feeling you’ll be doing some new plantings at Bedford. Hmm, I wonder what Martha has her eye on.
Concerning the Adirondack chairs, the one in the middle is so huge it looks like its sitting on a hill. Clever optical illusion – I think! Thanks Shaun. Trish
Posted by: Trish | August 12th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I love that campus! Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Teresa Touey | August 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Shaun did a wonderful job giving us a tour of the campus. Not that I would wish to go back and become a full time student but I bet the conference was very stimulating. It is always so nice to enjoy fellowship and knowledge in a relaxed state of mind.
Posted by: Margie | August 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I only KNOW, Shaun, that you had a good time at this convention, as the love for and knowledge of horticulture surely runs thru your veins (mine, too!) I now see the symbolism and correlation of the white oak leaf in the background of the conference's sign - Swarthmore's renowned white oak allee! It actually reminded me of The Nature Conservancy's white oak leaf logo.
Yep! Liriodendron tulipifera...the good ole tulip poplar! (I could recite that one by heart. [giggle] ) The amphitheater looks almost spiritual, too - so sacred-looking and serene. The arboretum had (as most arboretums do!) many nice specimen trees, didn't it?...several photos, actually, reminded me a little bit of Longwood Gardens, which of course is yet ANOTHER lovely (to say the least!) garden of grounds and conservatory to visit!
I KNOW this was a welcome respite for you, networking with others of like minds and interests...looks like you had a really good time! Thanks for sharing with us some of your 'points of view'. I as a kindred spirit welcome them always!
=^..^=
"The person who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world."--Charles Dudley Warner
Posted by: Cindy Bricker | August 12th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
--Wed., 8/12/09 Hi. I enjoyed Shaun's photos of plant conference at Swarthmore College. What is his background? Again, I'm unemployed & discouraged. Thanks--
Posted by: Mina in northern Vt. | August 12th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Hi Martha, What a great blog with photos and all from Shaun. I can sure see why you choose people like him to work for and with you, because he is always out there learning new things to enhance his job. Kudos to both of you. Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | August 12th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Swathmore Bryn Mawr all maintain a beautiful campus for students faculty staff and neighbors. Don't hesitate to donate to heritage colleges they are the jewels in the crown of this country --they set a standard we can not allow to disappear. Just like the post office can we allow the postal service to disappear?.Write a letter to a distant young relative with your thoughts and such leave a legacy of handwritten documents not a twitter
Posted by: HBE | August 13th, 2009 at 6:46 am
this is such a beautiful campus, never heard of it before but definitely worth looking into it!
Photoshop
Artist
Posted by: jay | August 13th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
.
This is art!
How small are the TINY chairs? Would they seat a cat?
I see extremely tall, thin cats with varying pin high top hats - all seated per chair.
This is art.
.
Posted by: andyjspencer.blogspot.com | August 13th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
I am the manager of the greenhouse in the photo and I just wanted to say that yes, that Adirondack chair is GIGANTIC. It was made by a former student sculptor and was so beloved the arboretum bought it from him. Seats about 8...
Posted by: Bill Pinder | August 19th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Mind you, that does not apply if the stated deadline is missed because you failed to provide the writer with requested information or you held back on your edits until the last minute. ,
Posted by: Coder100 | October 22nd, 2009 at 9:57 am
What a shame. I grew up not too far from there and never heard about how amazing the campus is until after I had moved away. Great photos. You can tell that a lot of time, effort and creativity was put into these grounds.
Posted by: Architect Los Angeles | January 14th, 2011 at 2:39 am
Swarthmore College truly is a lovely campus. Its interesting to see the contrast between nature and the architecture of the college. Thank you for sharing these images.
Posted by: A. Coddington | November 10th, 2011 at 10:24 am