This is your dedicated roving Savannah bonsai man chiming in. I attended the second day of the annual Savannah Garden Walking Tour today. I was disappointed that the first day of the tour was on a Friday since that is a normal working day for most, including myself! Word was there were some nice bonsai on display during the Friday leg. A majority of the gardens featured English-influenced designs with a lot of formations and borders created using boxwood. Water features were a common theme, including a gorgeous pool centerpiece in the first garden I visited on Gaston St. This garden also featured a quaint sitting/dining area. A great spot for an afternoon tea perhaps? There were also some very interesting sculptural designs using various mediums, but generally stone of some sort. As common as these sculptures are in the historic district, they are always a fascinating element of these gardens when done in good taste and accented appropriately. Did you know there’s a wiki page about the Bird Girl sculpture?
There was one garden that featured primarily Japanese maples, which I found particularly of interest. This gentleman had several dwarf varieties, including a tiny little Kotohime! My fav for bonsai culture! There was also a very unique green linearilobum cultivar that may have been Koto-no-ito, but I could not be sure. The lobes on its mature growth were very narrow, whereas the new growth tended to display typical palmatum leaves. He had several large trees growing above the Japanese maples to shade them from the afternoon sun. I left my name and number with the door attendant to share with the owner. I foresee some in-depth Acer discussion in the future!
The photo of the large, split-trunk tree is a Jerusalem Thorn (Parkinsonia aculeate)—the oldest in Savannah according to the door attendant. This was the most unique gnarled-specimen on the tour. Unfortunately, there were two different vines that were intermingled with it, so you had to really search to locate any of the tree’s actual foliage.
Check out the photos!
