Native Son: Old Friends

I visited a dear old friend in Weatherford today. I told her I’m turning 65 … she laughed and sang, “Oh to be 65 again…” She’s 88 this year, and her name is Chandor Gardens. I snapped a few pics as I strolled down Memory Lane. Care to join me?

Lo and Behold … right off the bat … what I believe to be the finest Malabar Spinach arch in Texas! I don’t know, though, as Ila Jean Carothers down near Waco has grown some beauties as well.

The long and the short of it…
Photo on the left: Kyle Hawkins, once one of my rock star pupils at Tarrant County College, as a nurseryman later sold me this ‘Troll’ Ginkgo tree when he worked at The Tree Place in Fort Worth. Planted about 12 years ago, it has grown everywhere but up … still under 5’ tall. Photo on the right: Near extinct in its native habitat, this Mexican Sugar Maple (Acer skutchii) was donated by Dr. Dave Creech down at Stephen F. Austin State University, whose horticulture program has produced hundreds (thousands?) of saplings. This 10-year-old tree now exceeds 30 feet tall.

Photo on the left: A Type A’s DREAM … the perfect symmetery of the Silver Garden (named for the original planting scheme). To me, this is proof of Douglas Chandor’s genius – when you enter the Silver Garden, it feels completely balanced, even symmetrical … but when you are mowing, you find out each quadrant of turf is completely different from the other three. Photo on the right: I remember when the Parker County Master Gardeners started collecting succulents in the greenhouse … I hope they still are. During my 13 years at Chandor, I often chanted my motto, “Chandor Gardens would be up the creek without the Parker County Master Gardeners.”

I remember back when I had no fear … when about 20 community service volunteers and I ripped this 140 foot-long curved pergola down. No one got hurt, and we used the old 4” x 12” x 20’ wood beams to build a potting shed. The next Saturday, after some weekday help from the Parks crew, me and the guys built the new pergola in a single day.

And now, the rest of the story … Of course, I had absolutely no experience with a 20 foot wide, 140 foot long, 12 foot tall pergola on pillars … but I had bravado, a strong back, and a civic duty to replace this potentially dangerous garden structure, hopefully before somebody got killed. I used the same design, so it was pretty easy to calculate how much new wood was needed.

It.was.a.lot.

So it’s CS Saturday … 8am. A group of approximately 25 men stand before me and this big ol’ pile of lumber. I optimistically ask, “Anybody a carpenter?” Not sure if it was blind luck or devine intervention, but EIGHT men stepped forward. Praise the Lord! We had a quick huddle and quickly found out that there was one guy who was THE carpenter…and he’s got a work truck full of carpentry tools. This guy was the Tom Brady of construction. It was unbelievable … he was directing, sawing, leveling, laughing and joking to keep morale up. He even prevented an accident by keeping an eye on some guys 90 feet away. Six hours later, there she stood. Of all the days for that guy to come to do his community service … I felt like we gave Santa Fe’s famous Loretto Chapel a run for its money.

The Center of the Labyrinth. Little is known about the urn in the foreground, other than it was original to the garden. Chandor named the large rock, “Stone of the Immortals,” and it is a stylized Fu Dog created from six pieces of karst, mortared together and adorned with stone sculptures of the eight Immortals from Chinese mythology and a bas relief of Kwan Yin embedded into it. Many moons ago, I had $326 left on the last day to spend money for the budget year. Went on-line and bought a set of 8 ceramic Immortal figures for $309. Thirty seconds after I hit, “Complete my order,” my phone started ringing. Credit card company. City Finance Department. Park Director. Even the Mayor’s office. I concluded that the easiest way to get introduced to all the City bigwigs in a hurry is to make an Internet purchase from China.

Fort Worth artist and sculptor Michael Pavlovsky has performed many restoration projects at Chandor Gardens, including the Dragon Fountain, The Grape Gates, and the Moon Grotto. Currently, he is working on the Moon Gate (above). He and I collaborated on several projects at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden … and by “collaborated,” I mean I was the Gopher.

Editorial Note from Neil: In case you’re unfamiliar with the work of portrait artist Douglas Chandor, you need to know that he built his original gardens almost single-handedly. His dreams and visions are still there for you at every turn.

In the meantime, here is a short video of Douglas Chandor completing his portrait of Winston Churchill – one of many people of that stature who sought him out.

Photo on the left: I remember installing the hanging baskets to fill the space between the Center Pond Path and the Wisteria frame. Someone said that I had Feng shui … I hope it’s not contagious. Photo on the right: Looking from the other end.

This sunken bowling green, 100’ long x 17’ wide, features artificial turf. As much as I try to be a horticultural purist, that stuff is nothing short of a godsend. Half-sun/half-shade makes keeping dense turf near impossible, particularly after 200 wedding people on 200 chairs stomp the smithereens out of it … twice a weekend.

Now that little weeping Japanese Maple to the left … one of my all-time favorite garden stories! I was just a-gardening away one day when a man came up to me and handed me $200 and said simply, “This is for the garden,” and he was gone. (I bit my tongue on the fact that his donation was destined to disappear into the bottomless pit of the City’s general fund.) A few hours later, I’m touring Neil Sperry around the garden. Afterward, we went to Stuart’s Nursery for a visit and I saw this tree. Zounds! I wuz in luv!!! $349 … ouch. Owner Judy Cain saw me pining away … I pulled out the $200. Puppy eyes. I took the tree to the garden and Neil went back to McKinney. While watering in my just-planted treasure, I was accosted by unduly hostile City employee who demanded to know where in the Sam Hill I got the money for the tree. (This happened just days before the end of the budget year, so all spending was frozen.) I was busted. I was guilty. I was fast …”Neil Sperry just donated this tree to the garden!” And she huffed and she puffed and she stomped away. I pulled out the cell phone and relayed the story to Neil … just in case. His only response …”Glad I could help.”

Thanks for the memories!!!

Peace & Love,
Steven

Thanks and a tip o’ the hat to Park Director Jaycob Kirkpatrick, the Parks crews, and especially Groundskeeper Cindy Crump. I remember wrangling that garden was like a perpetual Whack-A-Mole … always something poppin’ up. Y’all keep the faith!

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I can always use another road trip! Let me know if you’d like me to come out and speak to your group sometime. I’m low-maintenance, flexible, and you know I like to go just about anywhere. No city too big; no town too small. Just send me an e-mail at stevenchamblee@yahoo.com and we’ll work something out.