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I kept strolling the gardens of Blithewold by myself…

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Giving my husband time to exhaust the unsuspecting strangers who’d begun chatting with him.

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I strolled.

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And strolled.

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And was tempted to check out the bamboo forest…

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But turned around and realized he would go on all day without an intervention.

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Working my way around the greenhouse…

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I flanked the group, whose women were looking around, shuffling their feet and trying to politely escape.

As I joined them, the man was telling my husband about the line of trees that was pruned like shrubs in the background of this picture.

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He said the tree was native to the Chinese mountains and had been extinct for a thousand years until a horticulturist retrieved some seeds from a fossilized specimen and brought it back to life. The man told us he had just collected some of its cones and intended to plant them on his property, suggesting we do the same.

Which my husband did.

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Steering my spouse away, we continued exploring.

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Blithewold is known for its fabulous old growth trees.

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And some of them are hella impressive.

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Sequoiadendron giganteum,

The Giant Sequoia.

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This is the tallest one on the east coast.

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But I loved these big beauties.

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Weeping European beech.

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Even the roots were awesome.

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And this next tree?

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A Dawn Redwood.

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Whose surrounding ground was littered with little cones just like the ones my husband collected.

Thousand year old extinct tree my ass.

😒

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Turns out this was the rare specimen.

A Franklin tree.

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Extinct in the wild but cultivated and grown by gardeners.

Next up…

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The house.

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