HOT SPRINGS -- Jolly Roger the Sasquatch's elephant eyes take in strange sights from 13 feet high at Garvan Woodland Gardens.
Roger is one of five plant sculptures in the gardens' summer exhibit, "Mystic Creatures," continuing through August. He shares a mile of walking trail with the rest of the show -- giant mushrooms, a gourd big enough to live in, teensy fairy houses, and a sea serpent near the blue shine of Lake Hamilton.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
Hidden in plain sight, Jolly Roger the Sasquatch stands 13 feet high amid the trees at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs. Roger is part of the gardens’ “Mystic Creatures” exhibit.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
Tufts of brown grass give Jolly Roger the Sasquatch the appearance of a furry pelt. The creature’s glassy eyes are what a taxidermist would use to make an elephant look unforgettable.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
Along the trail of “Mystic Creatures” at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Jolly Roger the Sasquatch stands out.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
Like a birdhouse attracts birds, this fairy house welcomes you-know-what to Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs. This woodsy abode is part of the gardens’ Fairy Village exhibit.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/ JOHN SYKES JR.
Roarin’ Roderic the Sea Serpent coils his way through Garvan Woodland Gardens. Roderic is 42 feet long, covered with live plants.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/ JOHN SYKES JR.
Visitors who come face-to-leafy-face with Roarin’ Roderic at Garvan Woodland Gardens will be glad to hear the creature is friendly.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
The Shroom Family of giant mushrooms is more than the average morel at Garvan Woodland Gardens. These ’shrooms are made of hundreds of smaller plants and have built-in irrigation systems.
/
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
Signs explain all the exhibits in the “Mystic Creatures” show at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs. The creatures and creations were designed and built by the gardens crew, students from the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and volunteer woodcarvers.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR.
Even the devil might admire the greenery and exhibits at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs.
The Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, stands tall on his size 26 tootsies, shaggy all the way up. The big guy is covered with toffee twist sedge, a naturally brown grass.
His coat is 3,100 clumps of grass and other plants that hide the frame beneath, and his eyes are "elephant taxidermy eyes," gardens spokesman Sherre Freeman says.
He and his fellow creatures and creations are examples of "mosaiculture," a modern offshoot from the ancient art of topiary.
Bob Byers, Garvan Woodland Gardens associate executive director, says the idea for "Mystic Creatures" grew on him during a visit to Mosaiculture International's show last year in Atlanta.
Based in Montreal, the group exhibits living sculptures around the world. They are known for such masterworks as "Earth Goddess."
Byers describes the fabled green lady as "three stories tall," 27 tons of materials, water spilling out of her hand. If she could talk, her message to the average gardener might be, "Don't try this at home." Byers had a different thought.
He bet his crew at the gardens could make something similar -- smaller, sure, to be reasonable about it. But why not? -- given what they've already accomplished. They manage 4 million
lights over 17 acres of Christmas trees, candy
canes and other displays for the annual Garvan
Woodland Gardens Holiday Lights, from Nov. 22 to Dec. 31 this year.
Lighted reindeer and plant creatures, Byers reasoned, start with much the same framework. The plant creatures turned out to be more work than he expected, "but it always is."
The payoff has been one of Garvan's most successful summer exhibits, Byers says: more than 8,000 visitors in June, when "Mystic Creatures" opened, toward an annual attendance of more than 140,000 a year.
Something in the bushes
Topiary means sculpting trees -- evergreens mostly, yews in particular. The Romans trimmed and shaped their trees to look like cubes and cones, and pigs and giraffes.
But their way isn't practical for a temporary exhibit, Byers says. "Good topiary takes years."
Green horses pranced, and Greek heroes and green goddesses held court centuries ago in the topiary gardens of Europe. The possibilities became more elaborate with ivies and other foliage mixed in.
The English poet and satirist Alexander Pope uprooted the notion with a snippish rant, "Verdant Sculpture," in 1713. Pope was the devastating wit, the Stephen Colbert, of his time.
"Adam and Eve in yew," he wrote, scoffing his way through an imaginary tour of a topiary garden gone wrong. St. George "will be in condition to stick the dragon next April," he observed. But the pig, in need of a trimming, looks like a porcupine.
Walt Disney countered with topiary mice and ducks for the opening of Disneyland in 1955. Disney gardeners made verdant sculpture new and fun again, and Disney shrubbery has put on a show ever since.
"Mosaiculture" is the latest way of sculpting with plants: assembling mosaiclike combinations of leafy varieties on a frame.
Garvan's "Mystic Creatures" are mosaiculture creations made of 20,000 plants in all. Each is a metal frame with peat moss on the inside, covered with swaths of different colors and textures.
The plants are common to Arkansas gardeners and groundskeepers -- ornamental sedge for one, and red and yellow Joseph's coat, blue and purple echeveria (hen and chicks).
In these uncommon exhibits, such ordinary plants act the parts of bumps on giant mushrooms, pointy serpent scales and parts of other impossibilities.
Five "Mystic Creatures" inhabit the exhibit:
• Jolly Roger the Sasquatch hides in the woods. A century ago, he would have been hiding from the woodcutters.
Garvan Woodland Gardens is a comeback story as unlikely as any tale of encountering Bigfoot. Arthur Cook bought this land to cut for timber in the early 1900s. His daughter, the late Verna Cook Garvan, developed the gardens, restoring the woods.
Garvan Woodland Gardens operates through the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and students in the university's Fay Jones School of Architecture helped design the creatures.
• The Shroom Family. Mother, father and "Aunt Amanda Amantia" Mushroom and three children stand in a grouping. Like all families, they hold a secret: in their case, built-in irrigation.
• The Fairy Gourdmother House. The door is the gourdmother's mouth, big enough to step inside for a look out the windows that appear to have been carved like a jack-o'-lantern.
• Fairy Village. Not so much a planting as a carving by volunteer woodworkers, the village has all that a sprite needs to live (in a tree trunk), work, play and even attend services. Fairy Chapel playfully emulates the look of the gardens' Anthony Chapel.
• Roarin' Roderic the Sea Serpent. Forty-two feet long in three sections, Roderick is tamed down from the original design that made him look ferocious.
"We didn't want him to frighten children," Freeman says. Doubling as artist, she contributed a drawing of the monster to the sign in front of him, emphasizing the creature's soft eyes and child-friendly, Puff the Magic Dragon-like smile.
"This is something we're hoping to build on," Freeman says. She imagines the show continuing summer after summer, each year with "lots more 'Mystic Creatures.'"
"There has been a lot of talk about a troll under the bridge," she says.
A troll would have a choice of four such trip-trop accommodations at Garvan Woodland Gardens, none more mystically named than Bridge of the Full Moon.
"I'm hoping for a troll," Freeman says, "and Three Billy Goats Gruff."
Garvan Woodland Gardens is at 550 Arkridge Road, Hot Springs. Hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily; "Mystic Creatures" exhibit continues through August. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children. More information is available at garvangardens.org or by calling (501) 262-9300.
Style on 08/05/2014