Northeast Gardening: Daily Musings, 0 by gardenmart

gardenmart wrote:
Here's a picture of one of my favorite trees at the Arnold Arboretum. It's one of their Dawn Redwoods. The trunk has all these gothic arch root formations and it's amazing for a couple of reasons. First, it's deciduous and drops all its needles every fall. Second, until some intrepid plant hunters from Harvard discovered a few of them growing out in the wilds of China back in the 30's, it was thought to be an extinct species and was only known from fossil records. All the examples of Dawn Redwoods in this country today came from plants grown from the specimens sent back from China. I have fave trees here because I have been visiting since 1983. My husband and I moved into a not-garden friendly setting {I only had a balcony to garden on} and the Arboretum was like our back yard. Kept me sane until we bought our house. It's great to see the natural sized specimens and the bonsai as well. The bulk of the Bonsai collection was a gift from a former ambassador to Japan. But the collection is kept up to date with modern specimens including the dawn redwood. They are a treasure. Every couple of years, the Arboretum brings some of them to the NE Spring Flower show. They had about 8-9 of them there this past year. It's like friends coming to visit!
Martha