![\"Glacial](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/add-1-1-of-1.jpg\")
Glacial erratics form part of the waterfall at Glen Villa.<\/p><\/div>\n
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A wolf tree standing\u00a0among younger\u00a0oaks deliberately planted speaks of days when the old cherry tree was part of a different forest.<\/p>\n
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![\"An](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/add-2-1-of-1.jpg\")
The twists and turns of the cherry tree show that it had to fight for the light in its younger days.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Signs of the past like these litter the landscape at Glen Villa. There are stone walls that once divided fields, and foundation walls of cottages long gone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Qc-lodge-wall-1-of-1.jpg\")
The stone wall in the foreground formed part of a summer cottage built around 1910 and torn down in the 1960s.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Largest and most impressive of the stone walls is the foundation of Glen Villa Inn, the large resort hotel that once stood on the property.<\/p>\n
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![\"The](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/hotel-foundation-1-of-1.jpg\")
The hotel operated between 1902-1909 and was said to have 365 rooms, one for every day of the year.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Farming left its mark at the edge of fields\u00a0that used to be fenced …<\/p>\n
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![\"The](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/barbed-wire-1-of-1.jpg\")
How many years did it take for the tree to grow around this piece of wire fencing?<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
… and in farm equipment abandoned\u00a0in the woods.<\/p>\n
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![\"Someone](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/farm-equipment-1-of-1.jpg\")
Someone more familiar with farm equipment than I am could probably name this piece. Is it a harrow?<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
People left their mark as well. Walking through the woods, I saw a tree growing on a huge moss-covered rock.\u00a0To my eyes the tree resembled\u00a0a man walking, and the image made me think of the Abenaki, the first\u00a0people who had lived on the land.\u00a0\u00a0Every time\u00a0I passed the tree, it seemed to speak, telling me to make the\u00a0Abenaki’s presence visible again.<\/p>\n
I followed its bidding. The Abenaki believe that humans were created from the ash tree so I\u00a0searched for\u00a0ash trees in the woods that forked in special ways. Inverted, the branches resembled people walking, as for millennia the Abenaki had done, moving between their summer and winter camps.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Abenaki-Walking-woods-1-of-1.jpg\")
These Abenaki walkers are moving through a recently cleared field.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
People’s\u00a0debris told another story. I discovered\u00a0pieces of china partly buried underground, and a mark on one piece confirmed what I had hoped — the burnt and broken pieces\u00a0came from Glen Villa Inn, the old resort hotel. Finding a way to tell the hotel’s story took several years but eventually the china shards became part of the China Terrace, a re-creation of the hotel as it might have been in 1909 when it burned to the ground.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/china-terrace-1-1-of-1.jpg\")
A welcome mat that incorporates pieces of broken china from the old resort hotel marks the entry to the China Terrace.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The more I explored the land, the\u00a0clearer its voice became.\u00a0In the woods, I came across a low stone wall, the remains of a\u00a0building from the 1950s where maple sap\u00a0had been transformed into maple syrup. This became Orin’s Sugarcamp, named to honour the\u00a0farmer who worked there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Surrounding](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Orins-sugarcamp-1-of-1.jpg\")
Surrounding Orin’s Sugarcamp are maple leaves made of tin, suspended from trees. They sway and tinkle in the wind, creating a magical environment.<\/p><\/div>\n
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A stone wall that stood in front of the\u00a0old hotel became the yin yang, an Asian symbol that marked the years our family lived in China, during the Cultural Revolution.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Over](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/yin-yang-1-of-1.jpg\")
Over the years I’ve used different plants to show the oppositional elements of the Yin\/Yang. The year I took this photo I used blue fescue (festuca glauca) and red brick mulch to contrast colour and material.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Deeper voices spoke of connections\u00a0with a more distant past, when the Idea cast shadows on the wall and the oracle breathed fumes from a cleft in the ground.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Columns](\"http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/The-Past-Looms-Large-1-of-1.jpg\")
Columns of corrugated tin mark a path through a field. The contemporary material connects today’s world to ancient Greece.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The land continues to speak. I know it has stories still to tell,\u00a0secrets\u00a0it\u00a0may share if I\u00a0am quiet enough to hear. Listening takes patience, not an easy virtue. But if I\u00a0 continue to listen,\u00a0who knows what I will learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Making history visible on the land is the concept\u00a0that guides\u00a0the projects I undertake at Glen Villa, my landscape and garden in Quebec. Recognizing and honouring what happened on the land before I came onto the scene is my way of\u00a0hearing the voices of the past. It’s my way of\u00a0listening to what the land has to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,24,38],"tags":[49,52,839,37,379,45,650,687,309],"class_list":["post-7224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-design","category-glen-villa","tag-abenaki-walking","tag-china-terrace","tag-farm-equipment","tag-glen-villa","tag-glen-villa-hotel","tag-history-made-visible","tag-orins-sugarcamp","tag-the-past-looms-large","tag-yin-yang","category-34","category-24","category-38","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}