The rich history of several species of trees was revealed last Saturday, Jan 31, during the Bayard Cutting Arboretum’s “Secret Stories of Trees” presentation. Director of the Arboretum, Kevin Wiecks, along with Joy Arden, the landscape curator, not only dipped into their well of knowledge on the vast variety of trees found on the property, but also highlighted their deep connection to Long Island’s residents.
Wiecks’s own childhood was shaped by the nature he grew up around on the island.
“I remember my grandparents were year-rounders in Southampton, and the street was lined with sweetgums. And my brothers and I would run around barefooted till our feet bled. But I do remember when my mother explained to me, like, what this was and what it did, and why it had spikes on it.”
Sweetgums are a native tree to the Northeast, and their fruits are notorious for littering the ground. Sticking to animals with their spikes, they disperse their seeds. Wiecks demonstrated how the nature that surrounds you, even when you’re not thinking about it, is always interacting with you in one form or another.
Other seeds and fruits were later shared with attendees to give them a sense of scale of several different trees’ bearings.
“It’s exciting, it’s artistic, it’s beautiful, but it also makes sense botanically,” Wiecks continued.
Many others in the Arboretum’s history were taken away by the beauty of these trees, including key designer of the Arboretum, famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. While working on one of the sections of the property circa 1886, he envisioned something greater, thanks to the local trees.
“He saw a mass of oaks. It was pretty much a wooded forest, and he envisioned what he saw in Europe—the Victorian parks, with large oaks—so it had to grow the biggest they possibly could. And Oak Park was created at that point,” Wiecks described.
Many of these black oaks that Olmsted planted can be found at the Arboretum today.
Over the years, other workers and volunteers have even met their loved ones with the help of the trees. The sanctuary became not only the home of many trees, but also the precious personal stories attached to them across generations.
Source: - Latest Stories
