Cummer Oak, Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, FL. Photo © Larry Nighswander, courtesy of the Cultural Landscape Foundation.
This year The Cummer Oak is featured in the Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story traveling photography exhibition. In the 1890s, when the Cummer family settled along the St. Johns River, this live oak tree was already majestic. It has since grown to 80-feet tall with a 138-foot span and has witnessed the gardens evolution from O.C. Simonds’ picturesque 1903 design to the formal English and Italian gardens designed by Thomas Meehan & Sons, Ellen Shipman, and the garden’s owner, Ninah Cummer.
Landslide is The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s annual compendium of significant at-risk parks, gardens, horticultural features, and working landscapes and each year is accompanied by a traveling exhibition of commissioned photography. The 2010 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story exhibit focuses on the irreplaceable trees and tree groupings, often associated with historically important people and events that have shaped the development of communities and cultures.
You can purchase a copy of the 2011 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story calendar for yourself or loved ones at The Cummer Store, located at 829 Riverside Avenue, Jacksonville FL, 32204.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation provides people with the ability to see, understand, and value landscape architecture and its practitioners in the way many people have learned to do with buildings and their designers.
