If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, you’ve probably realized that I love anything old and contorted. (No, I’m not going to make you look at any more 200-year-old boxwoods.)
So, of course, I wanted to share my photos of two lovely old Katsura trees (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) at Dumbarton Oaks at the edge of the East Lawn.
The branches of this pair of trees reach out to the lawn. Please click the photo to enlarge it and see the wonderful volume of space they enclose. Katsura trees can become multi-stemmed with age, as this one certainly has.It touches the lawn in places.Katsura trees are shallow-rooted. This one's roots have stretched out . . .. . . and broken through the walkway, which has been beautifully repaired.The long branches frame the view across the lawn. In the fall, the leaves turn yellow and apricot and are said to smell like cotton candy.
Just for fun, here’s an entertaining little video (well, I thought so) of the staff of the New York Botanical Garden moving a mature weeping Katsura tree last fall. It first appeared on the NYBG’s blog, Plant Talk.
That walkway has gone from ho hum to something I can contemplate …
The little details, like the careful way they’ve repaired the bricks around the root, are just part and parcel of the Dumbarton Oaks experience. The design is just beautiful. And Farrand worked with such respect for the trees and the natural slope of the land.
enclos*ure 
That walkway has gone from ho hum to something I can contemplate …
The little details, like the careful way they’ve repaired the bricks around the root, are just part and parcel of the Dumbarton Oaks experience. The design is just beautiful. And Farrand worked with such respect for the trees and the natural slope of the land.