Arborsculpture blog

wilma erlandson

I stop by from time to time to visit Richard Reames’ Arborsmith Studios website because I’m fascinated by the ways that he and others can turn living trees into art. He devotes a page to one arborsculpture pioneer and favorite of mine, Axel Erlandson, and links to other arborsculpture artists around the world.

Erlandson started bending, shaping and grafting trees in the ’20s, and opened his ‘Tree Circus’ attraction in 1947 on the well-traveled route between the Santa Clara Valley and the Pacific coast. That’s his daughter, Wilma, who wrote “My Father Talked to Trees.” Reames sells that book, his own Arborsculpture – Solutions for a Small Planet and other books and supplies at his site.

As I was surfing once again through the links on Reames funky and fun site, I was happy to find that he started new Arborsculpture blog, apparently last winter. Worth adding to your RSS feeds if you are interested in this kind of stuff, and who isn’t?

Here’s a short (3:39) video by Reames:

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Cuisse de Nymphe

cuisse de nymphe

I’m not much of a rose grower. I’ve got two varieties. One, ‘Princess Di‘, was sent to me out of the blue, unsolicited, by gardens.com shortly before they went out of business. I’m still not sure why. Maybe some PR thing like with the sloggers. I posted about it a couple years ago, and it still struggles in a bed that gets too little light and has too much competition from neighboring perennials. Still, it put out a few blossoms this year.

But my favorite rose (not hard to pick one when you only grow two) is ‘Cuisse de Nymphe’, which the English toned down to ‘Great Maiden’s Blush’. I planted it soley based on a passage in one of Michael Pollan’s books where he waxed poetic about it, roughly translating the French to ‘thigh of an emoted nymphe’. Sold me.

While the three plants I bought haven’t thrived (lousy soil, not enough light, too much competition), each blossom is worth the effort. And they smell even better than they look.

cuisse de nymphe

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Salix buds

With my wet soils, I’ve been big on planting willows of various sorts. (No, I haven’t been good about writing down species and cultivars.) I like them in summer, though they’re not much to write home about then. Even if they were butt-ugly in summer, I’d still grow them just to watch their buds break.

willow buds breaking willow buds breaking

willow buds breaking willow buds breaking

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Weird Willows

weird willow stem
Larger image.

This stem is from a shrubby willow I started from a cutting a couple of years ago. It’s a 6-foot-tall and -wide specimen now, with at least a dozen of the terminal stems flattened and ‘hyper-budded’ like this. Weird.

I asked one of our woody plant people and she said it’s a genetic thing, and that they’re used in dried flower arrangements. I’d also heard from another source that this might also be triggered by stress. It’s along the road and gets a lot of salt, but I don’t know if that would count.

I do plan to see what happens in spring when all those buds break, and also want to see what happens when I root a plant from one of these stems. I’ll keep you posted.

Update: I saw a picture on another blog. Forget the environmental cause. It’s Japanese fantail willow (Salix sachalinensis).

Willow and Solidago stem arrangement.
Willow and Solidago stem arrangement.

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