Page 50 - Demo

Pond Cypress, Taxodium ascendens
greet you along every step. Those of us who have been with him for a while say that Daniel’s motto should be ‘Go big or go home.’ Everywhere is presence and attention to detail so great you can barely believe the photos of the desolate flattened ground that was the canvas of this beautiful place. Great mounds of earth create hills, topped with varieties of maples and other trees, which nestle you along paths that seem to have been there for an age. Everywhere is stone from far off places to delight, given equal billing to the hundreds of posts planted into the ground showcasing bonsai.
There’s nothing that says museum about the garden, but many things which speak of learning and process. Sometimes trees will have a line draping to another tree to show you where an air layer, having become its own lovely bonsai, was removed and then artfully sculpted. Or the round flat cut of a stub is left precari- ously connected at the tip of a trunk to show just how much wood was sculpted away to make the elegant lines below. Even when he’s not there to shepherd peo- ple about the garden, Daniel wants guests to be able to see for themselves what is possible and be inspired.
48 | BCI | October/November/December 2014