I’m Stumped

In late July, I took a six-day trip to the Pacific Northwest, to the 2024 Garden Fling (it used to be the Garden Bloggers Fling, but some of us are using Instagram and even TikTok, and so we have a new name).

And then I got Covid (for the first time!) and was totally out of it for awhile — nothing alarming, just sick and then very tired.

All of which explains my very slow responses to comments on the last post! Sorry!

Now that I am finally recovering, I really want to tell you all about Stumperies.

I’ll come back later in the fall and winter and tell you more methodically about the various marvelous gardens we saw in three days of wide ranging tours based out of Tacoma. But my heart was stolen by a bunch of tree stumps, and it’s really all I want to think about right now, and share with you.

I’m smitten, so I will get straight to the point: look how magnificent these old stumps are in the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden!

It may be that in order to fully appreciate this stumpery you have to be standing in the woods with trees towering over you. (Have you been to the Pacific Northwest? The trees SOAR!) Not to mention the scent of the woods and moss and forest floor compost in your nose. Our eyes are truly wondrous because we can adjust and pick out the details in both shadow and light in ways that photography struggles to duplicate. And stumperies are all about shadow and light and atmosphere.

Let me back up and tell you a bit about stumperies. First of all, they are obscure enough that WordPress is quite annoyed with me and keeps trying to autocorrect to Stumper or Stumped, for my own good, I am sure. The Missouri Botanical Garden says that “A stumpery is a garden that re-purposes logs, driftwood and the root wads of dead trees to create a unique garden display.” Roots wads?? If they say so. “These wood elements also provide a structural counterpoint to ferns, mosses and other woodland plants which are planted on, in and around the stumps and logs to ‘soften’ them.”

A little dry and technical, if you ask me, but okay as far as it goes.

I was slightly horrified to learn that stumperies first arose in Victorian England (not the time or place that much of Garden in a City is patterned around). But I can’t honestly say I’m surprised. The first one, apparently, was established in the 1850s. I am just relieved that they are not, apparently, related to the vogue earlier in that century for cemetery gardens.

One of the most famous stumperies was created by then Prince Charles at Highgate in England. The website calls it “tranquil” and “other-worldly” and notes that Victorians liked to grow ferns in tree stumps. Not everyone agreed with the Prince’s taste, apparently, because the Gardens Trust blog notes that Prince Charles’ father, upon seeing the stumpery at Highgate for the first time, asked his son, “When are you going to set fire to this lot?” I do like the idea that perhaps Prince Charles installed the whole thing to annoy his father; much more interesting than a Victorian restoration project. (Yes, I know he’s the King now, but he was the Prince when all this happened.)

The stumpery where I took these photos, a part of the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden, is the largest public stumpery in the world, according to their website. The stumpery is one small part of a much larger Pacific Northwest woods. We were, of course, there at entirely the wrong time to see any rhododendrons blooming (there might have been a few), but it was quite a fine woods, particularly for a Midwesterner unaccustomed to trees of such height.

Also on the same grounds is the Pacific Bonsai Garden, which I only got a chance to look at briefly. I’m not quite sure how these areas came together. But flingers who did manage to look at the bonsais were very impressed.

I’m going to make this into a two-part post on Stumperies, because amazingly enough, there was another stumpery the next day! Splitting the post will give me space to show you more photos — and the second stumpery was quite different. It is called the Renaissance Garden, and is a stumpery with a story and a purpose.

Also, as an added incentive to read the next post: I’ve been daydreaming about adding a stumpery to Garden in a City, and I’ll tell you all about that, too. You can help me decide if it is just post-Covid fever dreams.

So: Have you been to a stumpery? Are you with me in admiring them, or with Prince Philip, ready to burn it all down?