It's curious that the tragic story of the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) is relatively unknown to people today. It's almost as if we'd rather forget.

At one time the American chestnut was a dominant tree species in Eastern North America, and especially in the mountains of Appalachia. It was dominant not only in its commonality but also in its sheer physical size. It was capable of attaining heights over one hundred-feet, with trunks as big as thirteen feet in circumference. The chestnut grew fast, yet yielded the most useful lumber. Chestnut wood is straight-grained, strong, easy to work, beautiful in appearance and naturally resistant to rot. Settlers in the mountains preferred it as building material for homes and barns. The fruit of the tree, the chestnut itself, was large, nutritious, good tasting, and produced reliably in great abundance every year. Humans and a wide variety of wildlife consumed chestnuts as a food staple in their wild diet. Many smaller creatures, such as birds, moths and a host of other bugs and insects, right down to countless microorganisms, fed on various parts of the giant plants. American chestnut was a most solid and upright citizen in the forest community of Eastern North America.

American Chestnut, Mitchel County, NC, 1914

Then in the late nineteenth century, a virulent airborne pathogen, lethal to the American chestnut, was unknowingly introduced to the Northeastern United States. This fungal disease spread unchecked through the native range of the chestnut, wiping out the population as it went. It is estimated that the blight destroyed between three and four billion American chestnut trees in the first half of the twentieth century. The blight was carried on foreign chestnut species brought to this country by humans engaging in horticultural activities. There was no bad intent, only ignorance. The result was a profound ecological disaster.

When volunteer Jerry King suggested that a planter box made of American chestnut would enhance the identity of the Appalachian Cove tray landscape, I had two reactions simultaneously: What a great idea!!! Where are you going to get the wood???

Jerry was in his later seventies at this time. His mind was sharp, however, and still eager to engage with new things. When home computers came along, Jerry jumped right in, treating the Internet like it was a big library that housed information about absolutely everything. It was no problem for him to do a web search for salvaged American chestnut lumber. He found just what he was looking for, too — a section of beam from an old barn. Then Jerry jumped in his pickup truck and drove to New Jersey, transacted for the sturdy old chunk of tree, brought it home and took it to a local sawmill. He had the piece of beam sawn into boards. From the boards he built the new container for the Appalachian Cove planting, basing it on the previous one he had made out of redwood. This new version included some improvements, because improving things is just what engineers do. The previous container had a plexiglass bottom, so this time Jerry also lined the four interior sides of the box with plexiglass, then caulked it tight all around with silicone sealant. Another Internet search led to the purchase of some genuine antique ironmongery in the form of a few large, flat nails with square heads. Jerry cut them and then used the heads, the wide part that was struck by the hammer, to fill in the holes at the ends of the boards where they were fastened to each other. The boards were fastened with decking screws, but the screws were countersunk, leaving holes that the heads of the old nails filled in. The boards were also glued with high-tech wood adhesive, because when you do a job you do it right.

Jerry did all this in secret. When he told me his idea for a box made of American chestnut and I agreed to it but questioned where he'd get the wood, he replied, "I'll look into it and see what I find." Then he went and did all of what I just described. When I saw the completed container, that surprise came with a cherry on top. The piece of old chestnut beam Jerry purchased had long ago been worked into shape with an adz. An adz is an old-fashioned tool used to square-off large pieces of lumber by hand. It looks somewhat like a cross between an ax and a garden hoe. A person would stand on a log, bend over it and chop-chop-chop with the adz to create a flat face on one side of the wood. That had been done with the old chestnut beam and it left a tell-tale pattern of chop marks on the surface of the wood. Jerry knew what it was when he saw it. "I didn't plane the edges of the boards on the sides facing up because I thought you might like that look," he said when he unveiled his work. "It gives the box a more rustic look and I figured you might like that."

Arboretum volunteer Jerry King, delivering the American chestnut container, February, 2011. When I learned how Jerry found the chestnut beam, traveled to New Jersey and purchased it, I asked him to present us with an invoice for all expenses incurred and the Arboretum would reimburse him. He said he’d do that. It was the only time I can recall when Jerry failed to do something he said he would.

Appalachian Cove was transplanted into the new American chestnut container in the spring of 2011. After that, I never showed it to a tour group without telling the sad story of the American chestnut and pointing out the adz marks on the edges of the boards. The box Jerry built gave that tray landscape even more presence, making it a more authentic representation of the human experience of nature in the Southern Appalachians.

Without missing a beat, Appalachian Cove in its new container continued to be a constant presence in the bonsai garden, year after year.

Click on any image in the following gallery for full view:

November, 2012

Early May, 2013

Late May, 2013

Early November, 2013

Late November, 2013

May, 2014

August, 2015

October, 2015

November, 2016

June, 2017

October 2017

May, 2019

July, 2019

November, 2019

The passing of a decade saw growth and refinement in the maples, St. John's-worts and spiraeas. Somewhere along the way the lone Carolina rhododendron dwindled and died, but the rest of the landscape carried on well enough without it. The American hornbeam matured nicely into its character of an old giant of a tree, battered by life but resolutely soldiering on. I worked on the dead part of the hornbeam to make it ever more believable, even as die-back eventually overtook most of the front of the trunk. The tree looked more convincingly decrepit but still grew strongly in its branching and foliage. The container made of chestnut wood also became more picturesquely weathered as it aged. For a few years everything was right about this planting and it attained that golden stage of development when the illusion of timelessness seemed permanent. Then the bubble burst.

In 2020 the American chestnut box began to look a little dingy in places, a little tired overall. It likely began declining a few years before that, but in 2020 I started to notice it every time I looked at Appalachian Cove, until the general dinginess of the container began to undo the magic of the piece. Meanwhile, the landscape hadn't been repotted in ten years. All the plants were growing robustly, yet even in that roomy box it was inevitable they would need root pruning after all that time. In spring of 2021 the big job was undertaken. The tightly packed plant material was successfully extracted and the subsequent root maintenance work went well, but with the box empty it was easier to see how badly the chestnut wood was in decay. The container was in far worse condition than I had realized. Repairs were affected but I knew they could be nothing more than a delaying action. We would have a few more years of service from the chestnut container but there was no avoiding the fact that it would need to be replaced before long. Jerry King wouldn't be able to help this time, because he passed away in 2019.

I have to admit I was surprised by the way the chestnut wood had decayed because that wood is known for being rot resistant. To be resistant is not the same as being impervious, however. Exposure to the elements plus the regular watering necessary to sustain the plants living within the container had accelerated the inevitable. (Spoiler alert!) Entropy wins in the end.

In 2021, when Appalachian Cove was once more on display in the garden, the big chestnut wood container did look better for the renovation work it received. But now a new and even more troubling concern reared its head. For the first time ever the American hornbeam began to show weakness. It wasn't apparent to anyone else, but I noticed its growth was not as robust as it always had been. My thoughts went immediately to the repotting work done that spring. Appropriate care had been taken in handling all the plant material, especially the old hornbeam. Still, bonsai are most vulnerable when they are disturbed from their containers and a portion of their root system removed, and ten years is a long time to go between repottings.

In 2022 I kept a close eye on the situation. Now it was more obvious the hornbeam was in decline because not only did it grow weakly, but its foliage color was poor. The leaves appeared chlorotic while all the other plant material in the landscape looked strong and healthy. As summer turned to autumn there was no longer any doubt — it was to be the last growing season for that American hornbeam.

2023 was the first year since the Bonsai Exhibition Garden opened that Appalachian Cove was not one of the bonsai on display. The planting remained intact, residing quietly out of view in the hoop house all year. All the plant material in the landscape went about the usual business of growing abundantly, except for the hornbeam, which was now plainly no longer among the living. I thought of putting Appalachian Cove out on display anyway, with a dead tree at the heart of it. What would have been the use of that, though? The story told by Appalachian Cove was meant to be one of survival and the will to live. The inevitability of death, although true as any fact we know, isn't a storyline most of us want to dwell upon.

This spring Appalachian Cove was dismantled, its living components planted once more in individual containers. The American hornbeam was thoroughly rotten and falling apart, so it went to the compost pile. The American chestnut container was likewise compromised with no hope for salvage of any of its parts. It went to the landfill. Such is life.

That's depressing, isn't it? It is if you end the story there. If we learn anything from the world around us it should be that the prevailing mode of operation is circular, not linear. Death, for all its seeming finality, is a point on a continuum. The end of the old heralds the beginning of the new. Those plants that comprised the greater part of Appalachian Cove and are still alive will be used in some new arrangement, or several new arrangements. Maybe some of them will be potted individually and become single-tree bonsai. The American chestnut container isn't likely to be recreated because the way it came about was circumstantial, and those circumstances aren't likely to occur again. That's alright. Circumstances evolve and other possibilities will present themselves. Folks who never saw Appalachian Cove in person never will, but they will see other things. Those of us who knew and appreciated Appalachian Cove during the eighteen years of its existence will remember it fondly. It made for a great illusion while it lasted!

Life and Death - Part 3, End of the Illusion