[notes from an underground world]

Recent thesis explorations of soil as a cultural and sensory landscape (more to come) led me to these recently-discovered subterranean worlds. The first is a laser survey of the 450+ Nottingham Caves in the UK that perforate the sandstone cliffs that support the castle facade. Dubbed appropriately by National Geographic as "business in front, party in back" the Vikings who constructed these caves around 800AD intimately knew the economy and extravagance of space-making. 

http://youtu.be/i6DJU09yKKg?hd=1


Images courtesy of Nottingham Caves Survey. 




The second underground landscape is the largest fossilized tree forest found to-date from the Pennsylvanian geologic period (of the Carboniferous era) buried under 300 million years of sedimentation: the histories of plants, animals, and people. Today the cornfields of Illinois cover this window into an ancient ecology and a similar period of global warming. Read more on the New York Times or in Smithsonian. Renderings of these forests below with photographs of fragments of trunks, leaves, and roots.

Images courtesy of the Illinois State Geologic Survey.

[notes from the fog]

A foggy day in Providence. Temperatures are unseasonably warm. Two images from my walk to studio this morning. 

[notes on a ginkgo biloba carpet, fall]

This is the 3rd year that I've obsessively stalked a tree. Check out the darling of my attention this season--an ancient Ginkgo Biloba or Maidenhair tree--and you may also seek out a love interest in your neighborhood. Here in the RISD Museum's central courtyard, an ancient Ginkgo Biloba drops perhaps millions of florescent fan-shaped leaves in a couple of days, creating an ephemeral glowing carpet. How about that for phenomenological? Must hurry: leaves quickly brown if they're not swept off to dumps by maintenance crews first. Stalking a Ginkgo carpet is therefore necessary and very arguably worth it.

No one else seems to know about this tree, probably because it's mostly invisible from the street. Don't forget to look up. Our tree in October vs. November:

Why stalking is necessary: three days difference: 

Through a Japanese Maple to the courtyard a few days before the Ginkgo leaves fall:

A few of my studies of a Ginkgo over a year: 

Ginkgo Biloba trees are remarkable. They're considered living fossils with records dating back 270 million years. They have no living relatives. Clearly highly adaptable, they're also resistant to urban pollution which is unusual and makes them valuable in cities as a form of landscape infrastructure. Peter del Tredici, a great urban tree specialist, landscape architect, and ecologist, has written extensively on them. Check out the Harvard Magazine for more. Here's one of his images from a recent trip to discover naturally-occurring  Ginkgo Biloba species in China:

I've been reading recently that they're at risk of not being planted as widely in cities because of the smell of the fruit the female tree produces. How quickly people forget that our world is more than just a visually-occurring place. It would be an ecological and experiential loss to our world to stop planting this great tree.

[notes from fig season, italy]

In Italian, Fico means both fig and cool. Just back from two-weeks in this other world where something rad is described by a sultry fruit. I melted into Carol and Sol Lewitt’s lovely place in Praiano on the Amalfi Coast, a town where people plant and harvest by lunar cycles, eat only what their grandmothers cooked (with veggies from the front yard),where fishermen catch red calamari by moonlight in rowboats, and where figs come into season Aug/Sept. Black, green, slightly yellow ones too...

An early morning  sketch by the author

The author at work next to one of Sol Lewitt's wall paitings

Any resident of a climate that supports fig cultivation is lucky: Ficus carica L. has the branching pattern of modern dancers, provides lush shade, works as a good border tree, and seems to hold you from underneath with its large paw-shaped leaves. 

Chess players in Rome under a fig tree at hip Bar del Fico, ink wash by the author

On my last night, up 600 stone steps into the Lattari mountains along the Sentiero dei Dei--the Path of the Gods--lying on a carpet with friends in the middle of the square at the San Domenico Monastery, I watched the full moon slide between fig leaves to the sound of classical guitars. Che fico.

Convento di San Domenico, Photo Gaetano Astarita

The week before Praiano, I came across an antique/heirloom fruit tree seller at Florence's Piazza della Santissima Annunziata Sunday market. Imagine your own fruit orchard with just heirloom varieties that can never be found at any grocery (to be eaten with a set of hand-hammered silver flatware found at the same market by Pennabilli). Check out the finds:

[notes from a date palm grove, oman]

This is the kind of magical place that dates come from. That fruit that has sustained Bedouin and other nomadic desert tribes for millennia. In the midst of the deserts west of Muscat, Oman, I stumbled across this surreal forest, and found relief from the heat and fodder for my imagination. Everyone should dream in a date palm grove one day. Or plant a stand of Phoenix dactylifera in their own California garden. 

[note the stone structures around the base of some trees and the irrigation system]

[notes from an urban wild]

I'm obsessed with urban wilds, and have been for as long as I can remember. I visited one today--the first I ever knew and that which continues to be my favorite--my grandparents' front yard in the heart of Denver. Even on this 100-degree scorcher, we stayed cool.
When we were little, my sister and I would pull Chokecherry and Serviceberry branches aside to discover tree forts within these woods, playing for hours. Only occasionally would the adults be invited into our imaginary world for tea parties. 
A few years ago a lovely Persian driver picked me up from the house, and as I came down the walk I saw him entranced, gazing into the canopy of Black Oak, Red Maple, and Ohio Buckeye trees. It took him a few seconds to regain his wits, clearly lost in memories of the gardens of his past. In the car he told me, as if breathing for the first time, that this was the most beautiful garden he had seen in all of Denver.

[design tips]

There are important yet subtle differences between a welcoming urban wild and one that's uninviting, or unkempt. This garden is successful for several reasons including its: 

1. Edge condition: densely planted with a range of vertical sizes; ground cover and mid-size shrubs to large trees which provide privacy and screening from the street.

2. Interior condition: more porous/airy with only a few trees, giving a sense of space and lightness from within. Shade-tolerant evergreen ground cover gives a well-kempt look.

3. Path: a critical component to any urban wild; this one winds and is of rough-cut stone.

4. Interior fence: 8' away from the house, this provides another layer of screening from the road, separates house from forest, and introduces the house with the same material.

5. Lighting: simple, discreet lights line the path for a greater sense of security at night.

[good for the environment]

1. Habitat: mixed-layer vegetation (ground cover, shrubs, and trees) for animals and birds.

2. Clean air: trees serve a vital role in purifying the polluted air of urban environments.

3. Temperature: trees are critical to cooling our cities and reducing our houses' cooling bills. In cold winter climates, use deciduous trees that allow winter sunlight.

4. Storm water management: plants and non-compacted soil absorb rainwater, reducing the volume in street drains and rivers that increase flooding and water pollution.

5. Nice places to live: Studies consistently show that people are happier and healthier with more trees around their homes. Plus they're good for property values.