My gardener, Shaun Kass guest blogs from the Woody Plant Conference

August 12, 2009

My gardener, Shaun Kass guest blogs from the Woody Plant Conference

A few weeks ago, my gardener, Shaun Kass, attended the annual Woody Plant Conference held at the lovely campus of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.Due to the success of their Perennial Plant Conference, the sponsoring institutions felt a need to educate and promote the use of woody plants and organized this event thirteen years ago. It draws nursery and garden center personnel, landscape designers, horticulturists, and avid gardeners. Shaun enjoys attending gatherings such as this one to expand his vast knowledge of horticulture. It's also a reunion of sorts, as many of his friends and former colleagues attend these events, as well. He was kind enough to take these photos and share them with all of us. Please enjoy.

: The Woody Pant Conference held at Swarthmore College. The Scott Arboretum is the campus of the college and has a world renowned collection of woody plants.

: The conference is co-sponsored by Chanticleer, Longwood Gardens, Inc, The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College and the Tyler Arboretum. All are well-known Delaware Valley insitutions.

: Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Moonlight’ Japanese hydrangea vine – a nice, silvery-foliage climbing vine

: The Scott Arboretum’s famous amphitheater where the conference attendees had lunch

: These are ancient moss-covered Liriodendron tulipifera, tulip trees.

: The amphitheater was designed by Thomas W. Sear, a landscape architect. He was in the first graduating class of Harvard in 1906 in landscape architecture and began his career working for the very famous architecture firm of the Olmstead Brothers in Brookline, Massachusetts before settling in Philadelphia to work on major projects including this one, as well as Mt. Cuba

: This is the campus observatory.

: A courtyard of one of the dorms in campus with Honey Locusts

: Beautiful detail work on the architecture

: Looking out and into the Scott Arboretum with a tall White Pine as a focal point

: A small Chinese Garden, which once had a fountain in it

: This is an extraordinary sculpture of a red oak leaf made from a soil piece of trunk of a very old dead red oak.

: Amazing detail of the veins in the leaf

: It is built to bear weight.

: Pinus wallichiana, Himalayan Pine – this tree has a bluish cast to the needles and long cones, up to 10 inches long and 2 inches wide!

: The architecture was designed to look ancient. The stones of the building are Wissahickon Schist, which is in short supply today and was often quarried on site, while digging the foundations. The roof is made of slate.

: A very corky variety of Sweet Gum.

: Longwood Gardens introduced a variety ‘Corky’ and it very similar to this one.

: A grand old specimen of Kentucky Coffee Tree, Gymnocladus dioicus

: A true cedar in the arboretum

: A nice specimen with a double leader of Japanese Umbrella Pine, Sciadopitys verticillata

: The beautiful bell tower, which can be seen from almost every direction on campus

: Cedrus deodara, the Deodar Cedar, a true cedar with its honeycomb-like cones that stand upright. We mistakenly call our Eastern Red Cedar a cedar when in fact it is a Juniper, Juniperus virginiana.

: A fun sculture with a mature Paperbark Maple in the back

: A grove of Paperbark Maple’s, Acer griseum

: Look at the exfoliating bark – this looks ornamental and beautiful year round.

: A wide expanse of lawn – it has multiple uses since it is a college campus.

: Swarthmore College’s famous White Oak allee, which leads up the main path from the train station to the college.

: The Scott Arboretum has been replacing dead trees with new Swamp White Oaks, Quercus bicolor.

: All of the attendees quiety seated in the Lang Performing Arts Center

: Looking back towards the train station – what a great entrance to a wonderful college.

: Adirondack chairs casually placed on the lawn – notice anything funny?

: Topics included Beautifying the Urban Landscape, Tapping the Plant Diversity of the Eastern US to Enhance Gardens, Titillations and Tribulations in Tree Breeding, A Promising Plants Forum with 3 Delaware Valley Horticulturists, The Influence of Plant Biodiversity on Landscape Pest Management, and a Travelogue of Searching the World for Oaks.