Come away, human child...

The University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is not the sort of place I'd normally be eager to take my Celtic hoard.  I like gardens, and my children  appreciate being outdoors. But, as I've said at other times, my children's appreciation of things tends to be of a physical rather than emotional or mental nature. Flowers tend not to survive such appreciation. However, the experiences of one of my friends intrigued me; and I was assured that this Arboretum could survive our visit. 

 

Oh, it was a beautiful afternoon. (Click on a photo to enlarge it.)
 

The Japanese garden was enchanting.  Cool, reserved, elegant.  Huge koi goldfish to talk to, a waterfall to admire, and gorgeously gnarled trees to wonder at. 

The variety of the rose garden was mesmerizing.  There's a stripety red/white one that is my new favorite.  We absolutely need more stripety roses in this world, and in many more colors.  I let The Boy loose with my camera in the rose garden.  He instantly turned all paparazzo on us, just indiscriminately shooting photographs everywhere.  In that one garden, in about 15 minutes, he took hundreds of shots: lots of odd angles, and badly focused snippets of indistinguishable things, but a few gems.  Hooray for digital film.

The water features spaced throughout the grounds were mostly charming.  Scum-filled ponds aren't enchanting at all  (and neither are the mosquitoes they nurture); but, the fountains, brooks, and waterfalls were full of scope for the imagination.  No water to play in ourselves, but it was glorious to watch the water itself play around the rocks, hear it chatter, and feel it on my face as the wind caught droplets. 

After viewing the formal gardens, we took the three mile drive to explore the rest of the grounds and seek out the hedge maze.  We stumbled upon a gorgeous cluster of weeping trees.  Doesn't the first weeping tree picture look like a knight on a horse (the horse is facing away)?  And, what is it about the base of willow trees that makes you want to set up house? 

Or is that just us? 

JRR Tolkien includes a brief 'old man willow' character in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. He's a little sinister, lulling the hobbits to sleep and then entrapping them among his roots. The Arboretum willows were far less sinister of purpose, but just as entrancing to all five of us. We were fortunate that they only used their powers for good.

The highlight of the weeping tree section were two gigantic willows whose branches combined to create a huge hidden cove between their bases.  It's the kind of place wherein, as a child, I'd have spent hours creating my own world and ignored the call to supper in favor of leaving my imagination turned on for just a few more moments.  Even now the call of this space was very strong and within seconds of walking through the curtain of branches I knew  just where I'd set up all my willow-cottage rooms.  I entered the cove just moments after my children and their imaginations (which usually take hours to appear) were already awake and active.

We'd been looking forward to finding the hedge maze all afternoon and it didn't disappoint. The children paired off and raced each other through the maze. Daughter #1 is just tall enough that I could see her head to track her and Daughter #2's progress. I couldn't see Daughter #3 and the Boy, but I could hear D3 thinking out loud all the way through.  The hedges were just tall enough to make you wonder what was on the other side, but not so tall that you felt trapped within the maze with no hope of escape.  Every few turns, the gardeners had placed brightly colored fabric screens.  I presume that they served to make the configuration of the maze flexible and tempt the wanderer with glimpses of other paths.  I stood on the observation tower at the end of the maze and watched the children enjoy the puzzle. 

A hedge maze and a floor-to-ceiling library were two items in my house of dreams as a child.  I have just such a library (considerably smaller in scope than I'd imagined, but it exists nonetheless); and now I have access to just such a maze.  That it's not on my own grounds is somewhat of a relief.  This way I don't have to see to its care and keeping.

We came home filthy (dusty), soggy (sweaty) and tired: all hallmarks of a successful outing.  So, I highly recommend the Arboretum; it definitely has 'scope for the imagination'.