JEE black gum Backus Woods photo Nancy Dengler 15 May 2024 C

JEE & black gum - Backus Woods - photo Nancy Dengler 15 May 2024 (C)

A presentaiont by Professor James Eckenwalder: Trees often just constitute a background for the herbaceous and shrubby flower colours and foliage textures that make up the immediate visual fabric of our gardens. In this context, trees are generally part of the “big picture” for most of the year, their impressions deriving from their bulk shape and curtain of colour and leaf size or from their winter skeleton. A tree, of course, is much more than a homogeneous looming presence, with its solid-seeming appearance being made up of innumerable repeating flowers, fruits, leaves, twigs, and trunks combining together to make up the overall effect. To bring trees from the shadows back into the foreground, this presentation focuses on the frequently exquisite beauty or compelling interest of the individual features, drawing on seven decades of engagement with trees at all scales.