...the development of natural beauty, and the adaptation of natural features to the necessities of human occupation....

The fact cannot be too strongly impressed upon the owners of real estate, that although a house may be built for temporary occupation, with the intention hereafter of erecting a more elegant and convenient mansion, no such possibility exists in landscape architecture. In all the essential features of arrangement, the village, the park, the cemetery, or the private estate must remain for all future time as they are first laid out.
We have in our hands the work of creating a nation. We spend thousands of dollars to secure the best designs for public and private buildings. Shall we deny the possibility of artistic arrangement of the sites they are to occupy, and in our blind adherence to geometric rules, destroy the features of natural beauty of which we might avail ourselves, to secure effects of beauty or convenience whose value could not be estimated by a pecuniary standard?

H.W.S. Cleveland from Landscape Gardening in the West, 1871

Coming Into My Own

Last week I received a phone call from one of my professors, asking if I would be interested in helping out with the plants studio. I was surprised by the request, but delighted to be asked. I just wasn't sure what 'helping out' entailed.

I would conduct a plants walk on Tuesday, February 2nd, then help proctor a plants exam scheduled for the 16th. I could do that, but I knew I would have to brush up on the nitty-gritty of which ever plants we would be walking to. I could do that, also. But then there was remembering everything the students needed to hear, while walking AND talking (how did the Greeks do this so well?). I also needed to nail down those Latin names and pronunciations, linking those with the common names for these plants.

I was relieved when Prof said we were hitting the evergreens. We were doing a walk of 'compare and contrast'. This was probably the hardest thing for me two years ago when I took this studio. The evergreens stumped all of us. They all looked the same! But they are not...

I felt confident that this plant walk would be perfect for my inaugural flight as Teacher. I had had 3 weeks of plants class with these students early last semester when I needed to finish up some coursework from the previous year. They were bright and eager and very accepting of a student who did not fit their demographic profile. I was older than their mom, a mother to a child their age...and a 50+ year old student whose mind was anything but a steel trap! And I carry a passion for these pines, spruces, and firs, the likes of which they have not yet experienced! I was ready to go.

I reviewed the list Prof gave me. We talked about the subtleties of each evergreen family, then I went home and studied. This would be so much fun. Prof encouraged me to talk a little about the research I had been doing on the plantings of Central Campus and the layout and design of The State Agricultural College and Experimental Station, established in the late 1850's.

I handed out a small quiz, prepared by Prof, as we stood in the lobby of Beardshear Hall. It was cold outside (low 20's), but the sun arrived over the lunch hour and it was a beautiful, crisp, winter day in Ames, IA. They had their boots, hats, mittens, and an attitude that made for a fun day.

I walked them out to the steps of this prestigious administration building for ISU and asked them to take in the view of central campus. We saw a beautiful circular lawn, carpeted with snow. It was enclosed with that curvilinear edge of trees and shrubs, some planted by our first president of the college, Dr. A.S. Welch.

He threw potatoes into the air, and where they fell he would plant a tree. Today we call this naturalizing; it made sense then, as it does now. President Welch also sent students out into the surrounding forests where they collected 500 native trees and shrubs for planting around the original campus.

He believed in beauty, 'the crowning perfection of that which is useful'. He embraced the curved line for there was 'never a straight line with Mother Nature'. Trees were planted in groups, each species by itself. He planted evergreens by the buildings and deciduous trees at a distance. His groves of trees blended color, his vistas excited, and his open spaces, carpeted with green lawn, invited both students and faculty to come out into the sunshine. He planted native vegetation so these plants would survive the harsh Midwestern winters and offer incredible displays of beauty throughout the years.

Off to the northeast as we looked out over the campus, we spotted 'a fine group' of Austrian Pines, Pinus nigra, planted by Dr. Welch. These trees are magnificent specimens growing into their splendid heights over the last hundred years. Their reptilian plates of bark pull the eye upward along massive trunks, allowing one to take in their antiquarian beauty. When I turned to remark further, I was struck by the faces of these students. They were seeing the landscape before them...maybe for the first time. Their faces reflected the possibilities open to them as budding landscape architects.

I reminded my charges that today was a day for the evergreens. Our goal was to compare and contrast from a distance, then approach the trees and shrubs using all our senses to experience these different species. With the mission to 'touch it, smell it, see it, hear it!' we would use form, foliage, fruit, and flower to 'ID it'. One of the stops, suggested by a fellow graduate student in the studio, was a grove of hemlocks tucked in behind Curtis Hall. These trees were a delight to see and touch, but it was their silent beauty, tucked in out of the wind, that was deafening.

I had 30 stops on my list, many repeats for reinforcement, and lots of tromping through the snow to get up close and personal. Baby, it was cold outside. Earlier that morning after I finished my class, I started to walk the route I would take the students on that afternoon...a rehearsal, if you will. I ended up jumping on the bus and heading home to don another layer, my hiking boots, a warmer coat, hat, and mittens. I figured if I kept the group together and kept them walking, we would stay warmer than if we dawdled and straggled along. I was also warned by the Prof and the other studio instructor that there would be student leakage. "Plan on returning with fewer students than you set off with. Some just grow bored or cold and wander off to join friends, to seek warmth."

Once the Prof caught up after finishing with other commitments on campus, I left the group to catch a bus home. I counted heads as they trudged off. Eighteen stocking caps bobbing up the walk. Same as I started with!

Yesterday I was reading my horoscope for this new year and smiled when I came across a prediction that this would be the year when I would become a teacher. I like that. When my kids were little, especially with Evan, we would set off daily to explore our world. We were always jabbering about plants or animals, weather, rocks, dinosaurs...whatever caught our fancy. Ev would tell me at night when I was tucking him in, that we had had the best day yet.

Last night in the shower I had a tiny ah-ha moment. I am happy. I have finally made some decisions and followed some opportunities that have come my way. They have helped me figure out who I am and the general direction I am heading. I am not along for anyone else's ride. I am do the driving. For the first time in my life I feel confident when my emotions tell me to pay attention, to listen to that little voice inside saying this is it, this is you...

Tuesday was the best day yet.

Sweet 16! Today

And Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest!

Joyce Joan Pierce
October 10, 1930 - January 30, 2007

Mind Mapping

This is a mind map, or relationship diagram. It shows the interconnections of ecosystems along a river corridor. This was a restoration project of a riparian wetland within the floodplain in a highly urbanized area. If you google 'mind maps' you will see lots of circles and lines denoting ideas and their links. My brain works a little differently, and since I am a student of landscapes, I like to push it a little. This is what my mind's eye envisioned when I worked through the process for this assignment.

CowBoy Rules

For This New Year

I think everyone should always have an improbable quest playing at the edges of their imagination -- you know, some heroic task that provokes deep thoughts and rouses noble passions even if it also incites smoldering torment. I'm talking about an extravagant dream that's perhaps a bit farfetched but not entirely insane; a goal that constantly rouses you to stretch your possibilities and open your mind further; a wild hope whose pursuit makes you smarter and stronger even if you never fully accomplish it. The coming year would be an excellent time to keep such an adventure at the forefront of your awareness. - for Cancer, 2010

Another Cemetery... A Czech Cemetery

This is the West gate...



and this is the East gate

Sycamore Row

The Cultural Landscape Foundation recently issued a call for nominations entitled "Every Tree Tells a Story." The email caught my eye because I was preparing a graduate-level teaching project for my urban hydrology assessment class about tree canopy and tree inventories in the urban context. Researchers have found that since 1986, there is a decline of 4 trees for every 1 planted. That is an alarming statistic. Think of all those stories, cut down from our cultural landscapes and cut out of our cultural heritage.

A cultural landscape provides a sense of place and identity. They map our relationship with the land over time; and they are part of our heritage - TCLF. Every tree has a story, its story, to tell. There are close to 50 Sycamores in a row that follow a path from the Iowa State Campus to the City of Ames, IA. Here is their story.


A work crew has been putting up some mega-power poles between campus and the city of Ames. They have cut a wide swath through a wooded area to the river's edge. What caught my attention was the fact that they were working fairly close to a row of Sycamore trees, Platanus occidentalis, that lined an old rail bed for the historic campus-to-town railway affectionately known as the Dinkey. When I walked the path several weeks ago, I could see they had kept their distance, none of the trees had been lost. On my walk back home, I had one of those revelations we all live for...that AHA! moment when something ignites the synapses of the brain and an idea is born.

This row of Sycamore trees have a story and I will tell you what I know. I had a hunch that with a little research in both the campus and city's archives, I could patch together enough history to nominate Sycamore Row for TCLF's Landslide 2010 "Every Tree Tells A Story" award which calls attention to the places that embody our shared landscape heritage.

Yesterday, Ev and I walked to the Hub, the spot where the Dinkey originated on the Iowa State campus.. We found one Sycamore due north of the old station. We followed the walkway, once the old railroad bed heading east. We walked until we came upon the old Landscape Architecture Studio Building. This building was the original horse barn on campus until 1929-30 when it was remodeled for sole occupancy by the Landscape Architecture program. Our department is now housed in the College of Design, built in 1979. These trees and their history is woven into the fabric of our campus. These trees are very much a part of this cultural landscape.

With a little digging, I discovered this foto in the old Landscape Architecture Departmental quarterly publication Horizons, dated Summer-Fall, 1930. It shows The Studio and, out front between the path and the Dinkey line, two of these skinny sycamores about 20 feet tall with a girth about the size of a man's fist.

I also found a passage in this same issue relating the contributions of one Prof. A.T. Erwin. "He once had charge of the planting of the campus, and is directly responsible for the planting of a row of Sycamores between the college and Ames along the cinder path. During the early days, this was a straight path without cinders and when the so-call 'Dinkey' came to the campus, a cinder path was provided, and to make a more attractive path these trees were planted."(p.35) When I read this passage, I knew I had unearthed a jewel in the history of these trees.

I became obsessed with this story (mind you, it was now dead week and finals week that this hunt was on!) With further sleuthing, I found this aerial foto from 1974 which shows one lanky Sycamore in the background(due east of the house's double chimney on the right of the foto). It appears to be about 55-60 feet tall with a girth about the size of a person's head.

That afternoon as Ev and I continued on this easterly trek, I snapped more current fotos. This one below is looking down the old Dinkey line toward town. Note the Old LA Studio on the left and that once-lanky Sycamore on the right.

This is the first stretch of these big guys running along the south side of the walkway in front of the LA Studio. Included in that row of trees are a few smaller replacements among the other larger specimens. They are of similar size to those two in the 1970's foto above.

The foto below shows the second stretch of Sycamore Row adjacent to the path running along the south side of Cy-Ride, our current campus transportation link with the city. When I was an undergrad in the 1980's, this path's surface was still covered with cinders and was aptly named the Cinder Path. It sounded a loud crunch with each step. It is now asphalt pavement.



This last foto shows the remainder of Prof. Erwin's plantings that line the old elevated Dinkey rail bed. They grow in the floodplain of Squaw Creek and are spaced about 30 feet apart. I fondly call this entire stretch of the most beautiful Sycamores 'Gown-to-Town on the Ground'.


I will submit this nomination in the next few days, after contacting the city to verify ownership of the land and a university landscape architect and campus planner. I want to give a 'heads-up' that I am about to nominate these trees to call attention to this historical place, this cultural landscape, along the old Dinkey line that runs from our campus to our town. Sycamore Row has a story to tell that embodies our shared landscape heritage and we all need to hear this story.