Morris Arboretum

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.

When you think of a swan song, "Happy Birthday" doesn't generally come to mind. But next weekend, the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill will sing happy birthday to three adorable baby cygnets. The latest additions to the resident Royal Swan family were born May 17. The two-day celebration will include guided tours of the arboretum - whose roses should be at peak bloom then - refreshments, and, for children, tales and myths about swans and a related craft program. Festivities will run from 1 to 4 p.m. June 15 and 16. The arboretum will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.

The sky was clear and there was barely a breath of wind when Paul Meyer and his wife, Debbie, said goodbye to the friends in Delaware they had visited for supper one evening last summer. But as they returned to Philadelphia, and approached the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania where Paul Meyer is director, they became alarmed. The streets were strewn with debris, large trees were piled in their path and the buzz of chainsaws was audible. Over a period of six minutes on Aug. 3, a tornado ripped through the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, causing millions of dollars worth of damage.

In the years before World War II, F. Otto Haas, son of the founder of the Rohm & Haas Co., courted his wife, Dorothy, at the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill. "We'd sit under the trees and read Saturday Evening Post stories," he recalled the other day. "Those were simpler times. " The arboretum didn't really amount to much then. It was administered by the University of Pennsylvania, which had no money to spend on the place and plenty of problems of its own. Penn couldn't maintain Compton, the fine old Victorian home of Lydia Morris and her bachelor brother, John, a millionaire ironmaker.

For the second extended sculptural presentation in its Butcher Sculpture Garden, the Morris Arboretum has chosen a three-part installation by Scott Sherk, who teaches at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. The piece is based on the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne. Rejecting the proposal of the sun god, who pursues her, the nymph Daphne calls for help to her father, the river god, who changes her into a laurel tree. Each of the three sculptural groups is supposed to be animated by the passage of the sun across the sky. To observe these effects, assuming they exist to any meaningful degree, one would have to spend several hours with this installation, which the average visitor seems unlikely to do. Therefore, one receives his or her principal impression from the forms themselves, which are arranged in different areas of the garden.

William M. Klein, the ebullient director of the Morris Arboretum who is credited with transforming its rundown grounds into one of the leading arboretums in the country, has announced his resignation. Klein, 57, said he planned to become director of the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami in March. He also will join the faculties of the University of Miami and Florida International University. He announced his decision last week to the arboretum board and staff. His resignation was announced officially yesterday by the University of Pennsylvania, overseer of the arboretum in Chestnut Hill.

Perhaps as a measure of the economy's stranglehold on new construction, this year's winner of Philadelphia's top architecture award went not to a building, but to an open-air children's attraction at the Morris Arboretum, the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects announced Wednesday at its annual meeting. Metcalfe Architecture & Design received the gold medal for Out on a Limb, a delightful elevated walkway that twists its way through the canopy of the arboretum's oldest trees.

In 2001, Paul W. Meyer, director of the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill, summoned his board of directors to the garage at Bloomfield Farm, across East Northwestern Avenue from the arboretum's public gardens. "I wanted the board to see what our horticulture staff was living with," Meyer recalls of the tiny, cluttered space where, for years, his employees held their morning meetings and ate lunch. His strategy worked. After years of authorizing projects to make the 92-acre garden visitor-friendly, the board agreed it was time to tend to the needs of staff.

The sight of Gale Nurseries' rose garden at the Philadelphia Flower Show this week will surely stir rose lovers and rose growers from hibernation. But Judy McKeon, rosarian for the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, advises enthusiasts to start slowly. "Clean and oil your pruners first," she says, "but don't be tempted to use them on the rose bushes until the first week of April. " In the Chestnut Hill arboretum's Rose Garden, the first order of spring is to remove the 12-inch-thick layer of shredded hardwood bark mulch that McKeon and the crews spread over the beds just before Christmas.

In a bit of puckish humor, Morris Arboretum director William M. Klein wrote the Philadelphia Zoo last fall proposing to use lion urine to deter deer from damaging the Chestnut Hill arboretum's flora. (This idea had been suggested to him.) The zoo could catheterize its lions, he wrote, and "lay a pipeline between the zoo and the arboretum. " Well, nothing came of the idea, and nothing ever will, in part because Bill Klein's heading south to run the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami.

BETTE FORD STARR, a professional astrologer whose descriptions of the planetary influences on people were heard on local radio, died March 13 after a battle with cancer. She was 71 and lived in Lafayette Hill. Bette and fellow psychic Ray Ford (no relation) had a Saturday-night show on WWDB for years, and she appeared on a weekly call-in show on WFLN with host Frank Ford (also no relation). She also contributed to, and helped edit, the astrology book Planetary Powers: The Morin Method by Patti Tobin Brittain.

This mild winter evidently is something to sneeze at. Seduced by three months of gentle weather, trees throughout the Philadelphia area have begun emitting their pollen well ahead of schedule as they begin their annual reproductive frenzy. It is all happening so quickly that Donald Dvorin, an allergist who is the region's official pollen tracker, will start posting his daily counts next week, about 10 days earlier than usual. Dvorin said his decision was prompted by his patients - allergy-sufferers ambushed by the microscopic grains.

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.

Margaret Wright Schneidman Tilghman, 85, a former fashion model and volunteer with cultural and horticultural organizations, died of heart failure Sunday, Dec. 4, at Beaumont, a retirement community in Bryn Mawr. Mrs. Tilghman was a member of the Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for more than 40 years and was a volunteer guide at the museum for several years. In 1977, she cofounded the Philadelphia Museum Craft Show. Now in its 35th year, the annual show features expert craftsmen selected through a competitive jury process.

Maggie Knapp is about as lean and fit as a 50-year-old woman can be. And no wonder: She's spent literally half her life working outdoors at Jenkins Arboretum in Devon, where she's the head gardener. "Working outdoors" sounds as if she's leisurely raking leaves. Knapp does that, yes, but she also splits wood, chases trespassing deer, mans the snow plow and wields a steady chain saw. She prunes, plants, propagates, and weeds - and hauls a yeoman's load of mulch. You can't miss her. Spend even an hour at this 46-acre public garden, and she'll whiz by you in a golf cart, troubleshooting and problem-solving along 1.2 miles of paved walkways.

Charles Holman, 83, formerly of Rittenhouse Square, a retired lumber company executive and horticulturist, died of cancer Monday, Dec. 12, at Northeast Regional Hospice in Scranton. Mr. Holman volunteered and donated trees for the colonial garden maintained by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in Society Hill. He was a volunteer at the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Fairmount Park, and a volunteer at Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill. "Charlie has been a friend, a hardworking horticulture volunteer, and supporter for over 30 years," said Paul W. Meyer, director of the Morris Arboretum.

"Nature-Inspired Note Cards" with Pam Morris Olshefski, curatorial assistant at Morris Arboretum, is Nov. 19 from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the arboretum, 100 E. Northwestern Ave. The class will use objects found in or inspired by nature to create fall- and winter-themed note cards, greeting cards, or place cards. All materials provided. Cost: $24 members, $28 nonmembers. Registration is required; go to www.morrisarboretum.org or call 215-247-5777.

Most families have a kid who loves to draw. In the Morris family in rural Pottstown, that was Pam. When she wasn't "playing in the dirt and streams," she was making little thank-you notes, hand-lettered place cards for holiday dinners, party invitations, and birthday greetings. At 36, she's Pam Olshefski now, Brian's wife, and the mother of three girls, 8, 6, and 4. You might argue that as part-time curatorial assistant at Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill (no relation to that Morris)

FAMILY FUN IF ANY PART of our fair city feels vaguely Hogsmeade-ish, it's gotta be tree-lined, historic, cobblestoned and kinda spooky Chestnut Hill. This weekend, a bunch of Muggles are making the village feel even more like Harry Potter's home base, with bars, bakeries, toy shops and even the college collaborating on their best impersonation of J.K. Rowling's magical village. Events you oughta see: Tonight's butterbeer-fueled pub-crawl from 7 to 9 p.m. on Germantown Avenue, where the patron who finds a hidden Harry gets a $150 neighborhood gift certificate; tomorrow's all-afternoon collegiate "Brother Love Cup Quidditch Tournament" at Chestnut Hill College from noon to 4 p.m.; Sunday's scavenger hunt for kids from noon to 4 p. m.; and a weekend-long scarecrow contest at Morris Arboretum.

Doug Croft grew up in rural Virginia, a hobby gardener who studied finance at Virginia Tech and later took a job budgeting and forecasting for defense contractors. He had all the trappings of success. Then one day - epiphany. He was outside his Alexandria, Va., home, "correcting the mistakes of a landscaping company hired by the condo association, when it suddenly dawned on me that this could be a career. I could get paid to do this," recalls Croft, who decided to return to Virginia Tech to study horticulture.