Dawes Arboretum

 

A month and a week ago, on October 1st, I and my husband were visiting Dawes Arboretum.  This fascinating place is just north of I-70, about thirty miles east of Columbus, OH.  This was our third time at a site that has quickly become a family favorite.  I don't know when we made it policy that vast public gardens were the perfect spots to spin down from long family trips with;  but that policy has given us some very happy endings.  This time it gave us a very happy beginning.

 Of course, being me, I had a horse along.  Five, actually, but only one got into the pictures.  This is my new mare Sabina, herself named along the way -- a town in Ohio I believe.   I'd better mention that the saddle is by Kathleen Bond and the hackamore is by the most prolific and famous tackmaker of us all (no it's not me).  Anonymous has made more tack than anyone...  The real story here is that the tack pieces taken on trips must be play-worthy and can stand both the gaff of hard use and the risk of loss.

And what better place to carry a workin' horse than the beautiful trails of Dawes. 

Dawes Arboretum will charge you about ten bucks to enter a place where you could easily spend several days just doing the trails.  There's a visitor center, specialty gardens, auto tours and many many acres of the most amazing trees ever created.  I suppose being out in the wild for so long breeds great respect and need for a controlled wild:  for a place that blends gracefully with the hand of man, and benefits from it, yielding peace.  Being a birdwatcher for 35+ years has given me an increasing interest in the trees themselves.  Yet here I only know how wonderful it feels to wander around in a truly lovely landscape laid out to foster tree species.

 Here the oaks, there the holly, over there some birches, yonder the evergreens, cypresses and Oriental maples.  There's a Japanese garden and lake.  Strange trees everywhere.  Dawes is nearly 2,000 acres.  The weather was perfect.  

Did I mention the cypresses?  One of our favorite activities, canoeing, has taken us deep into Southern cypress and tupelo swamps for years.  Image how delighted we were to find that Dawes has not one, not two, but three cypress groves.  One is a swamp (as you would expect), and one is a formal Dawn Redwood collection, in rows.  There is a third one that, given the scale of Dawes, is so small it doesn't figure on the map!  It's north of the Japanese garden and stands at the foot of the trail marked in red.  (I've included a map further down.)  That third one is where we were going next.

 But first:  a very Halloween-y tree, a weeping Arbor Vitae type.  Dawes is full of little surprises like this.  You just want to stop and be reminded of [the book's description of] Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings.  Not that this is Treebeard,.. it looks rather wizard-y to me...

Turning ever more to the left, the third grove comes into sight.  It's not that small, being about 8 trees deep and twenty or so trees wide.  There is something about a regular grove that moves my heart.  Having lived and moved in the wild open plains as a horse-lover for so long, the presence of orchards and groves makes me pause, and feel how sacred a cathedral-like outdoor space can be.  Wood Between the Worlds, from Narnia,...

Photos can't do them justice.  The trail through these younger trees leads to the greatest grove in the place,.. at least in my estimation.  This section is more like a warm-up, a preparation for the later, larger, older one. 

 

 

Below is my husband George in the third grove.  Dawes does not pass up the opportunity to teach the public, but it is not overbearing, distracting or pedantic, like some parks.

 

 

Before I get to the last picture of the last grove, I want to give a better idea of this place.  You can't see it all in one visit.  Take in just a few sections each time.  On the map, the grey is pavement for cars, the colors are trails.  On this visit we were following the red trail seen at the upper left.  A better version of this map can be found at their website:  Dawes Arboretum.

  

The map shows its name at the bottom.  What you can't tell from there is that these letters are actually formed from giant hedges planted in shapes.  The name can be seen from the air.  I know this Google Maps capture doesn't show them clearly, but look carefully just below the lake:

It really is a mass of hedge, higher than my head and nearly half a mile long.  I have been there.  I don't envy the trimmers!

This last shot, once more, doesn't really do the place justice.  What's more rows of trees, after so many?  But Geo and I love cypresses, and these are all mature old Dawn Redwoods planted when we were infants.  The view is crosswise, with the length of the grove extending down to the left.  It's the largest and best grove in the place, the most remote, and yes, my favorite.

 Other large public gardens we have found on our travels include Washington Oaks in Florida and Palmer Gardens in Kansas.  There's also Luce Rose Garden in Kansas City and Longview Gardens right here in central Pennsylvania.  I have Geo to thank for being the flower person in the family, and his mother before him.  These places grow on you... yes, that was on purpose.

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 Other news:  Having completed the portrait bridle and breastcollar, I want to start on a pair of silver Parade saddles;  yet the lure of braidwork is strong.  I may try to squeeze out a single bridle and sell it online.