“Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
The summer flowers depart —
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A living root bridge in the East Khasi Hills, India.
The living root bridges of Cherrapunji, which are a marvel of sustainable architecture. The bridges are formed by the roots of the Ficus Elastica tree. The War-Khasi, a tribe in Meghalaya, saw the potential in these powerful roots, as a way to cross the area’s many rivers. Now, whenever and wherever the need arises, they simply grow their own bridges!
Some of the root bridges are more than 100 feet long and take 10-15 years to become fully functional. They’re extraordinarily strong, with some able to support the weight of 50 or more people at a time. Because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time. Some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over 500 years old.
Photo: Timothy Allen
Thomas Bros. Map: Page 1088, A-5.
Before you go: Go to the gardens’ website to download a copy of its trail map, www.altavistagardens.org/html/trail_map.html. It’s a $2 donation per person who visits the garden, payable at its entry under an honor system. Hikers and dogs on leashes are welcome. The gardens are open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Trailhead: From state Route 78, exit at Vista Village Drive and head north. Vista Village Drive turns into East Vista Way. At Vale Terrace Drive, turn right. Continue past the main entrance to Brengle Terrace Park, and turn left at the second entrance to the park on the Jim Porter Parkway. The address is 1270 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista.
Distance/difficulty: I wandered about 1.5 miles along several trails; very easy.
Tucked on a hillside overlooking Vista’s Brengle Terrace Park is Alta Vista Gardens, a 14-acre botanical garden with a couple of miles of trails.
Years in the making, the public “living museum” intends to integrate nature, education and art. Today, it boasts the largest concentration of public art in Vista, with some 20 outdoor sculptures and artworks placed among the themed garden spaces.
Among the specimen trees, shrubs and flowering plants are several that are very rare and many that are simply beautiful.
I began to hike through the garden on a Saturday morning when Bryan Morse, president of the garden’s board and “chief visionary,” was tending to chores. He amiably offered me a guided tour, pointing out several of the garden’s special residents.
“A botanical garden was in the city’s plans in the ’60s,” he said. But it took several decades for this one to emerge.
After the Brengle family donated its 39 acres to Vista for park use in about 1968, the adjacent 14-acre parcel then owned by the Paul Smitgen family was eyed for future acquisition. The city of Vista bought the Smitgen property in about 1990, but it took nearly 10 more years for a botanical garden to come to fruition.
Morse, who is a landscape contractor with his own firm, Expanding Horizons, became involved with the garden in about 2003. “I’ve personally made every trail here with my tractor,” he said. The Boston native has lived in Vista about 30 years, having graduated from UC San Diego.
He has masterminded the shape of Alta Vista Gardens today and even has visions for how it might evolve over the next 50 years. Lots of plans are in the works. But with everything donated and done by volunteers, funds are needed to implement some projects.
About 20 themed garden spaces are in existence or being planned. One of the first I encountered near the entry is the Children’s Garden with its Jeffrey Stein Children’s Music Garden. Here are several musical instruments, including an amadinda (an African xylophone), a Piano Pebble Chime that makes lovely tones when small pebbles are placed in its holes, a whale drum and a chime wall.
Also in the Children’s Garden are a “tube tunnel,” made of several huge cement pipes placed in a meandering pattern, and several colorful sculptures, “Tail Spin” by Melissa Ralston, “Miro Kite” by Mindy Rodman and Paul White, and “The Constellation Tree” by Fritzie Urquhart.
One of the garden’s most recent creations is its Medicine Wheel in the Desert Garden. With help from Native American Craig Kessinger, Morse designed and placed the rocks and plants that define the Medicine Wheel. “The whole circle is 32 feet with 4-foot trails and four quadrants,” Morse said. “Sacred geometry makes a difference, and it respects the four elements: air, water, earth and fire.” In the center is a stacked rock monolith. Each quadrant features plants in a certain color: black, white, yellow and red.
“Craig uses dousing rods to find energy fields and says there is a vortex in the right quadrant,” Morse said.
Another special place is the garden’s Labyrinth. Built around the “Broken Link” granite sculpture by Tony Imatto, the Labyrinth consists of a single path that circles the center five times, with circuits planted from the inside to outside in succulents, Mexican feather grass, sweet pea bushes, lavender and rosemary.
Labyrinths, which date to Celtic times, are said to enhance right-brain activity. You simply walk in the circles to the center and then back out again. I’ve always thought they help to illuminate the joy of the journey as well as the destination.
Just below the Labyrinth is the Cycad Garden, with its Wollemi Pine, a purchase of this rare “living fossil” tree that has lived since dinosaurs roamed the planet. This pine tree was auctioned in 2005 in Australia and brought to Vista, where its dark green, bottlebrush foliage is a treasure of the garden. The neighboring cycads, including sago palms, also date back to the Jurassic era and can each live a very long life.
Work has begun on the Japanese Garden, which Morse envisions will one day include a traditional tea house and a large pond. Today, some conifers are planted that will sit outside the pond, along with several red cherry trees and several types of bamboo.
There are two ponds in the garden, including a large one in the Ceremonial Garden with a new lotus plant, centered by Lia Strell’s “Golden Torsion” sculpture; and the Lower Pond and Patio, filled with water lilies and overlooking a fine view down into the park and across to the horizon.
“On the clearest days in December, you can even see San Clemente and Catalina islands from here,” Morse said.
He has deliberately added plants to attract butterflies, including milkweed, the host plant of the Monarch; and passionflowers, which are favored by Fritillary butterflies.
Head to the gardens anytime to walk its peaceful trails and admire its colorful collections of specimen plants and outdoor sculptures.
Priscilla Lister is a freelance writer from San Diego.
The living root bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This tree produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves.
Cherrapunji is credited with being the wettest place on earth, and The War-Khasis, a tribe in Meghalaya, long ago noticed this tree and saw in its powerful roots an opportunity to easily cross the area’s many rivers. Now, whenever and wherever the need arises, they simply grow their bridges.
In order to make a rubber tree’s roots grow in the right direction – say, over a river – the Khasis use betel nut trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create root-guidance systems.
The thin, tender roots of the rubber tree, prevented from fanning out by the betel nut trunks, grow straight out. When they reach the other side of the river, they’re allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.
Because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time – and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over five hundred years old.
“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. Nature has made a food chain; why can’t we stick to it? Who would protect these animals if we, as superior beings, start hunting them?” – Jadav Molai Payeng, who single-handedly created a 1360 acre forest.
The Villa Durazzo-Pallavicini is a villa with notable 19th century park in the English romantic style and a small botanical garden. The villa now houses the Museo di Archeologia Ligure, and is located at Via Pallavicini, 13, immediately next to the railway station in Pegli, a suburb of Genoa, Italy. The park and botanical garden are open daily.
The estate was begun in the late 17th century by Clelia Durazzo Grimaldi, who established the Giardino botanico Clelia Durazzo Grimaldi at that time. Today’s remarkable park was created by her nephew Ignazio Alessandro Pallavicini after he inherited the property.
The park was designed by Michele Canzio, set designer for the Teatro Carlo Felice, and built between 1840 and 1846. It covers some 97,000 m² of hillside behind the villa. Although recognizably in the English romantic style, the garden is highly theatric, to the point of being organized as a series of scenes forming a play with prologue and three acts (Return to Nature, Memory, Purification). Structures and statues through the garden form focal points to this libretto.
When the park opened in September 1846, on the occasion of the VIII Congresso degli Scienziati Italiani, it quickly gained national fame. In 1928 its current owner, Matilde Gustinani, donated both park and botanical garden to Genoa for use as a public park. Through the remainder of the 20th century, the garden fell into some disrepair, and indeed was threatened in 1972 by construction
of a nearby highway. Its restoration began in 1991, however, in honor of Columbus’ discovery of America. As of 2006 about half of the park is open for visitors.
The park contains two ponds, a dozen notable structures, various statues, and an extensive grotto. The grotto represents a Dantesque Inferno, with walkways and subterranean lake through which the visitor may ascend to Paradise. In former years, visitors could explore the grotto by boat. Structures include a Coffee House in the shape of triumphal arch, Rustic House, Madonna’s Chapel, Mausoleum of the Captain, Temple of Diana, Flower House, Turkish Temple, Obelisk, and Chinese Pagoda.
The park also contains a number of plantings of botanical interest, including mature specimens of Araucaria bidwilli, Cedrus libani, Cinnamomum camphora’, Jubaea chilensis, Notelaea excelsa, Firmiana simplex, Quercus suber,Podocarpus macrophillus, lots of extotic palms and a wonderful stand of some 160 Camellia japonica.
Every little boy or girl loves to play with toys, however there comes a point in time when life takes over and all those much loved toys get lost in the attic. The Poseidon Undersea Resort from Fiji is the world’s first seafloor resort and the only place where you can spend a couple of days 40 feet under water in a luxurious environment. The resort is located in the crystal clear water of a 5,000 acre Fiji lagoon
Guests gain access to their underwater suites through an elevator that transports them 40 feet undersea. Approximately 70 percent of each room is encased with a 4-inch thick clear acrylic that allows vacationers to look out at the coral gardens that surround their room. They can even interact with the marine life in the proximate environment. At the push of a button from their “control console,” guests can feed the fish around their suite.
In addition to the unique living quarters, the resort boasts a number of amenities that includes a full-service spa, fitness center, and library. Sounds tempting? The price is cheap for this type of adventure: A week at the Poseidon Undersea Resort from Fiji costs $30,000 per coupe and it includes transportation from the International Airport of Fiji, four nights in a luxury beachfront or over water villa, two nights in a luxury underwater suite, diving on board a luxury expedition submarine outside the lagoon and many more attractions.
The beauty and mystery of renaissance gardens seems only to grow once given over to centuries of abandonment. Such is the case of Villa Demidoff.
Commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici in the 16th century Villa Demidoff and the nearby Villa di Pratolino took over 12 years to complete. The end result was a stunning near-labyrinth of natural caves, lakes and massive sculptures. Of the statuary, the 16th century “Appennine Colossus,” is the main focal point of the landscape. He sits atop a grotto in apparent anguish at his fate.
Although most of the park and villa was completed in the 16th century, it was all but abandoned in the early 1800s, and some of its delicate statues were actually removed and taken to another Italian garden. Slowly being consumed by nature, the gardens were finally rescued by Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was so struck by their natural beauty of the place, that he decided to destroy the ruins of the villa and focus completely on the gardens themselves.
After changing hands a few more times, the wild grounds eventually fell into the hands of the government of Florence, who operated the area as a public park during the spring and summer months.
Singapore’s latest development finally blossomed last month, with an imposing canopy of artificial trees up to 50 meters high towering over a vast urban oasis.
The colossal solar-powered supertrees are found in the Bay South garden, which opened to the public on June 29. It is part of a 250-acre landscaping project — Gardens by the Bay — that is an initiative from Singapore’s National Parks Board that will see the cultivation of flora and fauna from foreign lands.
The man-made mechanical forest consists of 18 supertrees that act as vertical gardens, generating solar power, acting as air venting ducts for nearby conservatories, and collecting rainwater. To generate electricity, 11 of the supertrees are fitted with solar photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into energy, which provides lighting and aids water technology within the conservatories below.
Varying in height between 25 and 50 meters, each supertree features tropical flowers and various ferns climbing across its steel framework. The large canopies also operate as temperature moderators, absorbing and dispersing heat, as well as providing shelter from the hot temperatures of Singapore’s climate to visitors walking beneath.
The project is part of a redevelopment scheme to create a new downtown district in the Marina Bay area, on Singapore’s south side. Project organizers hope the completed Gardens by the Bay will become an eco-tourist destination showcasing sustainable practices and plants from across the globe.
Bryan Morse's Blog 
