Celebrating Slowly Rotting Stumps
In suburban landscapes, landscapers come along and keep everything fresh, sweeping away, well of course they don’t sweep; don’t let me go astray on those horrible, polluting blowers, so sweeping away the detritus of plant life. Every fallen leaf, nut and flake of bark goes into a landfill. We pretend that nothing dies. It’s not just bland landscapers though, in gardens, too often we pretend too — keeping every blade of grass green and every hole, where the larkspur, daffodils or dahlia used to be filled.
Gardens need to recognize the cycles. Decay Happens. Sticks fall, Amorophallus rot, larvae, newts and beautiful black sludge made of old pecan leaves and blowing silt accumulate at the bottom of the pond.
Tom, Momma and I visited a friend who has not one, but two stumperies. A stumpery is a garden made around a collection of beautiful old stumps. Often populated with moss and ferns, stumperies, they celebrate the cycles, the spirits, the decay that’s too often
A stumpery we designed for a children’s garden.
Fallen leaves of China Fir.
I saw you have Crinum Lilies. Are you interested in free stock that’s 100-150 years old? My parents have 2 huge ones on their 200-250 year-old-farm that need to be divided, but the clumps are so big that we are concerned about damaging them. The flowers were planted by either my great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother. My grandfather passed away on the farm at age 93 in 8-16. We also have a bed of Cana Lilies and several Gardenia Bushes with a similar history– All untouched. The farm is near Greenville, NC. CONTACT ME FOR PHOTOS OR IF YOU NEED MORE INFO. –Sherry