A Few Lines About Leaning Pine
In San Francisco, it is described as an urban oasis of extraordinary beauty. In Nebraska, its mission is to enrich lives through the splendor of plants. And in Maryland, it contains more than four miles of paths along streams, through meadows and native plant gardens, all under the shade of a rich bottomland forest. All are examples of some of the nation’s most attractive arboretums. Until a few days ago I was not aware that a garden equally as beautiful lies within a short walking distance of my new residence. Cal Poly’s Leaning Pine Arboretum is a stunning home to a variety of plants and animals, all of which I was excited to see during my first visit.
Upon entering the arboretum, I turned to see an intricate maze surrounding a spurting fountain to my left. I began to explore, but was soon pulled away for my interview with Mr. Chris Wassenberg. I learned that he first became involved with the arboretum in autumn of 1996, when his major of environmental horticulture required him to complete ten hours of volunteer work. He put in weekly labor for two quarters, enjoyed it thoroughly, and was hired in the springtime. Chris is now a manager at Leaning Pine. He performs many tasks daily, such as tree trimming, weeding, and watering. In addition, he oversees six student workers, and meets with them once a week to plan and complete projects. Chris says the most difficult part about his job is working with the students’ schedules. But the best part is when he spends time at the arboretum just fifteen minutes before sunset, because the animals are scurrying and the emptiness brings a serene silence. After I learned a bit about Chris, he filled my head with information about th...
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...ed from every direction, some loud, some soft, some high pitched, and some low. Rabbits are the most prominent creature, but also the most troublesome, as they are constantly munching on plants. I viewed a gray one scurrying between two bushes, and was amazed at how tiny it was. Rodents, snakes, and tarantulas also roam the grounds of the arboretum, though, I was not able to view them.
I only knew to visit the arboretum due to the enthusiasm of my nature-obsessed teacher. However, most other people would never have a clue about this secret garden. But my first visit was not sufficient, for it wasn’t until Chris educated my group about the many wonders of the arboretum that I became thoroughly interested. Each of the garden collections is unique. It is a small sphere of life within the university, a microcosm of the varying environments of the world.
Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.
In The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge by Joe Starita, Starita focuses on five generations of the Dull Knife family which goes from the 1870s until the present. He starts by asking the reader to visualize the history of the Dull Knife family and how they had to adapt and were able to survive after the Northern Cheyenne were forcefully removed from the northern plains to Oklahoma Indian Territory and 3 back to the northern plains again. The story started with Guy Dull Knife Sr. living in a convalescent home in Colorado and would start to trace his ancestry back to the original Chief Dull Knife. George Dull Knife, his son, was born in 1875, most likely came north to the Pine Ridge reservation many years after and found his identity with the Lakota rather than the Northern Cheyenne. George
On the other hand, the garden itself within The Secret Garden can be classified as a cultivated natural therapeutic landscape. What makes the garden truly remarkable as a therapeutic is its role in Mary’s coming of age, considering that prior to Mary’s exposure to the garden she was raised without an appropriate adult role models but nonetheless reached emotional maturity. In addition, the garden is considered a true therapeutic landscape due to its role in healing not only Mary, but also Colin and Archibald
Pinus lambertiana, commonly known as the sugar pine, is found on the west coast in the mountains of Nevada, California, Oregon and Mexico. The sugar pine is the tallest of all pines and has the longest cones of any conifer. It is very important in these regions for both economical purposes and the environment. (Habeck)
Walker, Alice. (1974). “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Ways of Reading. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, pp. 694-701.
The first images of the garden are seen through the exaggerated imagination of a young child. “” are as “ as flowers on Mars,” and cockscombs “ the deep red fringe of theater curtains.” Fr...
Muir’s wilderness is rooted in the idea of an aesthetically pleasing natural scape given they fit into certain criteria such as, “ none of Nature’s landscape’s are ugly so long as they are wild” (Muir). The attachment of this emphasis on an aesthetically pleasing landscape was partial truth, which drove people out the national parks. While these places where indeed wild and beautiful, Muir sold the masses on this idea of all nature being pristine and pure, when in reality that was not the
Tastefully laid out in grass intersected by broad gravel walks, and planted with a great variety of trees, shrubs and flowers, botanically arranged. The Arboretum, as these gardens are designated, is much frequented, and has already produced a perceptible effect in improving the appearance and demeanour of the working class.
..., J. (n.d.). "Gardens of Desire: Toward a Unified Vision of Garden District"--Joe Falocco. "Gardens of Desire: Toward a Unified Vision of Garden District"--Joe Falocco. Retrieved April 26, 2014, from http://www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/archives/2005/05falocco.htm
¡@¡@The value of landscape education is not in its accumulation of knowledge, but rather in its methods for solving real-life problems. I believe that one must learn more than plain theory, and so in the summers after my freshman through junior years, I took part in internships in related fields, mainly in urban design. I was involved in planning, design, and implementation of landscaping projects, combining theory with practice. After graduation, I worked at XYZ Landscape Consultants as a designer.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983. Bring, Mitchell, and Wayembergh, Josse. Japanese Gardens—Design and Meaning. McGraw-Hill series in Landscape and Landscape Architecture. McGraw-Hill, a.k.a.
Lessing, Doris. “Group Minds.“ Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Behrens Laurence and Leonard J Rosen. Boston: Pearson. 2013. 652. Print.
There are two settings for this story. The first and main setting is an eye appealing garden next to Giovanni Guasconti’s room which is located in Padua, Italy. This garden is used in this story as a symbol for the Garden of Eden. The garden is described by Hawthorne in such a way that the reader can almost picture a garden that is alive with vibrant colors and an array of flowering plants and shrubs. There are a variety of types of plants and herbs growing in the garden. Some of the plants are vines, some are growing in decorative urns, and some have grown wild until they were wrapped around statues (2217). The entire garden was “veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage” (2217). The plants in the garden “seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural” to Giovanni (2225). Some of the plants in the garden “crept serpent-like along
Gardeners often find deep satisfaction in their gardens because they are rewarded by their patience and
During my trip to the Arboretum I thought a lot about the importance of the desert. I thought about how complex and beautiful it is. It is a landscape that I do not think many people view as beautiful. I know that when I first came to visit Phoenix I thought the desert was quite ugly. It wasn’t until I made an effort to find its exquisiteness that I did. Participating in activities like visiting the arboretum and taking day trips to Sedona and Tuscon have helped me to see the magnificence of a cactus existing in the sand with no water for weeks at a time. This one thing amazes me so much. The blooming flowers on a cactus are breathtaking to me. I think the contrast of cactus flowers and the vastness of the sand in the desert is what makes it so striking.