2022 Year of the Trees: ARBORETUM of San Vicente Botanical Garden

Trees for Peace

ARBORETUM of San Vicente Botanical Garden*

Dr Abe V Rotor

  

   

Tame the glare of the sun,

under the boughs of trees;

capture the halo of the moon  

and the world at peace.

To plant trees is to give body and life to one's dreams of a better world. 

- Russell Page

 

A Grove of Mango Trees

Litter of its own leaves over the ground

makes a mulch else the soil is bare; 

layer after layer, year after year,

sharing with all life under its care.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome 

than the most luxurious Persian rug. —Helen Keller

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade 

you do not expect to sit. - Nelson Henderson

   

Juvenile Trees

Breadfruit (Artocarpus communis), Areca palm (Areca catechu), 

and mahogany (Swietenia macrophyla)

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. - William Shakespeare

 

Twin Native Mango Trees

Heritage trees for four generations

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing 

bird will come. - Chinese proverb

 

Natural windbreak, dust filter and shade 

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. 

— Albert Einstein

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. —Henry David Thoreau

 

Macopa (Eugenia jambolana) 

Now a rare tree in the backyard and in the wild

 

He that plants trees, loves others besides himself. - Thomas Fuller

 

 

Lease for life

Stumps of towering Gmelina trees, felled by typhoon, 

cling to life; bird's nest fern wraps around an Areca palm.

 I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength 

from my deepest roots. - Andrea Koehle Jones

 

     Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer was born on Dec. 6, 1886, in New Brunswick, N.J., to parents Annie and Frederick Kilmer.  He was named Alfred Joyce Kilmer. killed by a German sniper’s bullet 100 years ago in the summer, on July 30, 1918, during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. The celebrated writer is best known for his 1913 poem “Trees.”

Literary critics, from Kilmer’s time to the present, fault the poem as being overly sentimental and romantic. Yet many readers, then and now, find the poem charming and see nothing wrong with being sentimental. There is, however, much more to Joyce Kilmer’s story than this one well-known poem. (His father was the inventor of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder.) Internet ~

"We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." — Native American proverb

* The one-hectare San Vicente Botanical Garden is an integral part of Living with Nature center, owned and managed by Dr Rotor and family, located in San Vicente, Ilocos Sur,  two kilometers west of the UNESCO Heritage City of Vigan.