SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 1924
Local SADNESS REIGNS IN CITY CENTER By Leon Talbot MONTFORD, IL - When one thinks of a garden, weeping is typically not part of the association. However, the besotted botanists at The Montford Botanical Society have announced this week their push to bring sadness back to its roots by introducing the addition of a new themed garden to their already vast selection of seed and bulb-based species.
"The plants themselves are not sad," Albert Higgins, lead botanist at the organization clarified. "It's not a half-dead and dying collection of leaves turned brown or roots rotting in a boring arrangement of pots, but we've instead cultivated a selection of weeping trees of varying heights to put on display."
Weeping trees are a curious phenomenon in the plant world. Where their peers' branches happily extend out and upward, they seem to be caught a somewhat mortal depression - limp limbs hang lethargically downward, as if they are resigned rather than overjoyed to bear the burden of a shining sun each day. Some to the point of severity, like the weeping sequoia whose shape is a caricature-esque resemblance of a person moping about, blanket of foliage drooping over its entire form like a leafy mourning shroud.
"There can be a certain amount of humor in it," Higgins went on to say, "Especially when you look from a distance. Stand back and scan the treeline. All these tall and proud trunks and branches standing sturdy are interrupted by a pathetic group breaking up the strength with their wallowing."
The garden is set to be planted along the north east arc of the city-center park, forming the top right frame of the central lake. With benches dotting a wealth of paths paved by naturally jagged slices of slate, shipped via train from the mines of Virginia, visitors will be able to wander all through the trees as well as rest beside and even beneath them. As for the actual content of the space itself, there is promised to be more than the standard shade cast by common conifer and willow.
The spring-budding blossoms of the fruit and flowering trees apricot and cherry blossom are also planned to be in attendance, and Montford’s sprout of the latter is said to be an offshoot from one of the original trees that were given to the States as a gift of friendship from Japan in 1912. At a final planning conference, the audience of plant folk were rapt with anticipatory whispers when the sakura, named such in its native lands, was brought up. Its flowers, soft as blush tinting the cheeks of a youthful face, are expected to be one of the biggest draws.
Back in the Society's greenhouse as he knelt in fastidious study of a young, squat specimen of weeping cypress, prostrate in commitment to its wilted nature, Higgins imparted a tip that was equal parts moony and inclined: "We certainly don't want people to come here and feel sad. But, if they are feeling a little down and want to get it out the Garden of Sadness will offer some of the most empathetic company in Montford, outside of the good Doctor Fletcher of course."
The garden, free to the public, is expected to be formally completed by the beginning of April.
