The Morris Arboretum's wordless wonder

Eavesdrop in a garden, and what do you hear?

Not a lot of narrative. Mostly exclamations over the beauty of something and curiosity about what it is, in and around the absorbing silence.

So it is that Paul W. Meyer has "written" a new book about the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill with no text, just photographs, most taken over the last eight years. Its title is a straightforward Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania Through the Lens of Paul W. Meyer.

"It's meant to be a walk through the garden," explains Meyer, 59, a self-taught shutterbug who has worked at Morris for almost 36 years, the last 21 as director.

Of course, images speak their own language. And Morris did a book in 2010 called Always Growing that tells the arboretum's story in words.

That story began in 1886, when John Morris, a millionaire iron manufacturer, and his sister, Lydia, bought 26 acres here to build a country home. From the beginning, they envisioned that their private estate would become a public garden - and, in 1933, it did.

But most of the transformation has taken place over the last 35 years, with guidance from a master plan and, to a large extent, Meyer, who was hired as horticulture director in 1976.

Since then, the garden has evolved, in his words, "from a state of tattered elegance" to a nationally known arboretum.

Today it encompasses 166 acres, including the planted landscapes on the Philadelphia side of Northwestern Avenue and Bloomfield Farm on the Springfield Township, Montgomery County, side. The arboretum has been affiliated with Penn since 1932, and was designated Pennsylvania's official arboretum in 1988.

But that doesn't tell Morris' story as Meyer has lived it. And he has lived it, not just as a horticulturist and globetrotting plant collector or even amateur photographer. He and his wife, Debbie Rodgers, a risk manager at Aramark, actually live there, in an old farmhouse built by the Morrises on Northwestern Avenue.

This has blurred the distinction between home and office, which, as anyone who works at home knows, can be problematic. But Meyer seems to have used his director-without-borders existence to advantage.

He carries a camera everywhere, whether touring the garden's historic trees with donors, counting heads at the popular "Out on a Limb" canopy walk, or walking leisurely with his wife.