{"id":9334,"date":"2021-02-01T17:16:14","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T17:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=9334"},"modified":"2021-02-01T17:16:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T17:16:14","slug":"the-past-as-prelude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/the-past-as-prelude\/","title":{"rendered":"The Past as Prelude"},"content":{"rendered":"

The great English landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe got it right. What’s past is past.\u00a0But while it is over and done with, the past can’t be ignored. Instead, Jellicoe said, we should \u00ab\u00a0ponder\u00a0on the past not as the past but as a pointer to the future.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

In troubled political times, this\u00a0sounds like good advice.\u00a0 It’s equally good advice\u00a0when applied to the land.<\/p>\n

When I began to work on the\u00a0garden at Glen Villa some twenty years ago, history was the principle that guided me and it continues to be a\u00a0powerful element, generating ideas and actions. If looking back\u00a0were my only motivation, though, I doubt I’d be satisfied. Looking forward matters. And the question I’ve been asking myself more and more often in recent days is this:\u00a0 how has the past shaped the present landscape at Glen Villa — and perhaps more sigificantly — \u00a0how do my actions today shape\u00a0its future?<\/p>\n

<\/del>Several decades ago, my sister-in-law arranged through\u00a0a\u00a0 government program to have trees planted on land that once had been farmed. Remnants of that farming history remained then, and still remain today. Most prominent is the foundation of a building, tilting earthwards more and more each year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"untitled<\/p>\n

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I remember only vaguely the\u00a0barn it was part of. I don’t remember at all the other sign of the farm-that-was,\u00a0a moss-covered stone wall, now collapsing\u00a0and overgrown with trees, that once divided two plowed fields.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Once

Once I dreamed of exposing the length of this wall and planting sunny spots with lilac bushes. I doubt this will ever happen. but wouldn’t it be beautiful?<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometime in the 1980s, the fields were harrowed and prepared for trees to be planted. Spruce and pine seedlings were mechanically added in\u00a0tidy rows in one area, and oaks and a few black walnut trees in another. Over the years the hardwoods have grown tall and thin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"hardwoods

The oaks look like they’ve been iced with snow. Scenes like this are typical of Quebec’s Eastern Townships in the winter.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The softwoods have branched out. Now they are a forest, beautifully atmospheric in some lights …<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Believe

Believe it or not, this photo was not taken in winter but in mid summer.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

… and simply dark in others, even when\u00a0shafts of light struggle to break through.<\/p>\n

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\"untitled

Branches that scratch and catch on clothes make it difficult to walk through the spruce trees except on the path we cut.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Over the years I’ve walked this land hundreds of times, by myself and with others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This

This photo of my husband and our oldest grandchild was taken 11 years ago. I love remembering that particular day and the people we were then.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The trees were planted to be cut and this year, for the first time, we began to do that. We aren’t clear-cutting the area but removing selectively, taking down dead trees along with the largest of the living. Jacques Gosselin and Ken Kelso, the two men who I consider my right and left hands,\u00a0choose which trees to cut, limbing them up and burning small side branches as they go.<\/p>\n

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\"Jacques\"

Once Jacques and Ken remove the side branches, they cut the trunk into the 8 or 12 foot lengths that sawmills are looking for.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The fire is a nice source of warmth on cold days …<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The

The fire never gets out of control and the surrounding woods are not threatened.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

… and the smoke it produces streaks the air.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Smoke

Smoke lit by the sun transforms darkness into romance.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cutting these trees is not a money-making project. By the time salaries are paid and the cost of equipment and transport to the sawmill are taken into account, we barely\u00a0break even. But making money isn’t the purpose. Making the forest a more beautiful and more usable\u00a0space is.<\/p>\n

The rows that were planted 30 or 40 years ago are still visible in most areas, and loosening that straitjacket is one of my aims.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Another

Straight rows are unnatural in a forest.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Removing even a few large trees lets in more light\u00a0which means that smaller trees will\u00a0grow more quickly.\u00a0And because the light is uneven, some will grow more quickly than others, beginning the process of letting the woods find their own way forward.<\/p>\n

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\"More

More trees have been cut in this section than in most but even here, trees will begin to fill in the gaps in a year or two.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jacques and Ken drag the\u00a0bare tree trunks out of the woods and\u00a0divide them into piles by length, 8 or 12 feet long. In a week or two\u00a0the wood\u00a0will be at the sawmill where\u00a0it will be sawed into boards.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Snow

Snow caps the piled up tree trunks.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seeing the tidy stacks, I ask myself a variation of the question I started with.\u00a0 What effect do my actions have on the future? Am I making the land more usable\u00a0by cutting these trees? \u00a0Am I making the forest more beautiful? Biologists say that the forest knows how to take care of itself, but this isn’t a natural forest, it is an artificial construct.\u00a0 So I hope the effects of my actions will be positive. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The great English landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe got it right. What’s past is past.\u00a0But while it is over and done with, the past can’t be ignored. Instead, Jellicoe said, we should \u00ab\u00a0ponder\u00a0on the past not as the past but as a pointer to the future.\u00a0\u00bb In troubled political times, this\u00a0sounds like good advice.\u00a0 It’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,21,346],"tags":[254,37,954,63,955],"class_list":["post-9334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glen-villa","category-plants","category-quotations","tag-changes-at-glen-villa","tag-glen-villa","tag-plantation-land","tag-sir-geoffrey-jellicoe","tag-tree-cutting","category-38","category-21","category-346","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334","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=9334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}