the arrival of the evangels

What is it? It's kind of gnarly looking. . . .

The story goes that at the king's last house, the landscape designer placed pathetic looking sticks of trees on either side of the entrance to the drive.

"What are those?!"

"You're going to love them."

"No I don't; I hate them. Make them go away."

"You've got to trust me on this. You're going to love them. If you don't love them, I'll come get them myself and plant them at my house. And I'll plant whatever you want here, instead. . . . But you're going to love them."

He loved them.

Here's what they looked like many years later, on our wedding day. Yes, it's the amazing green wall of leaves in the top left half of the photo, behind the string quartet. Towering over the man in uniform, son Antonio.

What is it? It's fagus sylvatica 'pendula' - a Weeping European Beech tree.

There were four of them, two at each entrance of the drive. I promptly dubbed them the evangels. They were impressive! A real presence, with or without leaves.

We have only two at the greenwood, so I guess we really can't call them the 4 evangels, but I still think of them that way. They finally went in yesterday (they're not exactly easy to find), and we discussed which two of the four we thought they might be the namesakes of.

"These guys look more like St. George and the Dragon." the king commented.

"You're right!"

The battle is on. Here's St. George. The dragon was the first one pictured.

Give them 15 or 20 years. You're going to love them!