Press Releases

Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story Photography Exhibition at the Jay Heritage Center in Rye, NY Opens April 10 – Concurrent Outdoor Signboard Exhibition at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, NY Opens April 30


Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom, Wennerstrom Communications | T: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@wennerco.com


 Exhibitions Highlight Unique, Unusual and Irreplaceable Trees and Tree Groupings

2010 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story in Partnership with
American Photo, The Davey Tree Expert Company, Garden Design and American Forests

Washington, DC (February 22, 2011) – ұ’s (ұ) 2010 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story traveling photography exhibition featuring 26 images of 12 different locations in the US and Puerto Rico, opens April 10, 2011 at the Jay Heritage Center in Rye, NY and runs through June 15, 2011. Concurrently, an outdoor signboard exhibition based on the Landslide photography will open April 30, 2011 at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, NY and also runs through June 15, 2011. Landslide, first issued in 2003, is ұ’s annual compendium of significant at-risk parks, gardens, horticultural features, and working landscapes and each year is accompanied by a traveling exhibition of commissioned photography. The 2010 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story focuses on the irreplaceable trees and tree groupings, often associated with historically important people and events that have shaped the development of communities and cultures. Russell Hart, former executive editor at American Photo magazine, commissioned the photography. Long time supporter Garden Design magazine returns for the 2010 Landslide, The Davey Tree Expert Company joins as Presenting Sponsor, and American Forests as a Sponsor.

The traveling exhibition features sentinel and specimen trees, allées and boulevards, urban forests, formal and vernacular—things that surround us and are living reminders of our heritage. These trees and tree groupings recall our nation’s past and have the potential to bear witness to future generations. These natural and living features command the same awe and admiration that our culture bestows upon the arts, architecture, and design. The 2010 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story sites are (alphabetical by location):

Aoyama Tree - Los Angeles, CA a 60 by 70-foot Moreton Bay Fig tree (Ficus macrophylla) marks the former location of the Koyasan Daishi Mission, one of the city’s oldest and largest Buddhist temples. Photography by Robert Glenn Ketchum.

Arborland Tree Farm - Milliken, CO a 150-acre tree farm filled with a mixture of shade, ornamental, and conifer trees and inhabited by diverse wildlife, an anomaly in the plains area. Photography by Jay Dickman.

Tulip Poplar - Tudor Place, Washington, DC a tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) which stands more than 80-feet tall with a diameter of 60 inches and has been present since the founding of our nation’s capital. Photography by Amy Bedik.

Cummer Oak - Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, FL a Live Oak tree (Quercus virginiana) standing 80-feet tall with a 138-foot span that overlooks O.C. Simonds’ picturesque 1903 gardens and the formal English and Italian gardens designed by Thomas Meehan & Sons, Ellen Shipman, and the gardens’ owner, Ninah Cummer. Photography by Larry Nighswander.

Sycamore Row - Ames, IA a linear feature of almost 50 Sycamore trees (Platanus occidentalis) planted parallel to the Ames-to-Campus railway at Iowa State University in 1900 that continues to mark the historic transportation route used by countless Midwestern pioneers. Photography by David Jordano.

Olmsted Parks and Parkways - Louisville, KY consists of three flagship parks (Cherokee, Shawnee, and Iroquois) and the six parkways that connect them, all designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and his sons, and provide the city’s mature tree canopy. Photography by Bob Hower.

Commonwealth Avenue Mall - Boston, MA a premiere example of a tree-lined avenue which has linked the Boston Common and Public Garden to Boston’s famed Emerald Necklace since 1881. Photography by James Sheldon.

Boxed Pines - Weymouth Heights, Southern Pines, NC hundreds of Longleaf Pine trees (Pinus palustris), scattered throughout the subdivision, are marked with carvings made by former slaves and their descendants to collect sap for turpentine production. Photography by Frank Hunter.

Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees – Essex County Branch Brook Park, Newark, NJ the collection of Japanese Flowering Cherry trees (Prunus), established in 1928 in this Olmsted Brothers-designed park, numbers more than 4,000 today. Photography by Yong Hee Kim.

Elms Of East Hampton - East Hampton, NY American Elm trees (Ulmus americana) made famous by a Childe Hassam painting of the village in the 1920s, the specimens continue to form a high, leafy canopy over the village streets. Photography by Garie Waltzer.

Black Oak Tree - Katewood, Bratenahl, OH a Black Oak tree (Quercus velutina) that pre-dates the Country Place Era estate designed by A.D. Taylor. Photography by Barbara Bosworth.

Río Piedras Ficuses - San Juan, PR three African Cloth-Bark trees (Ficus nekbuda), approximately 50-feet tall, with a 20-foot total trunk diameter and a canopy that stretches over seven lanes of highway. Photography by Juan Pons.

“Each year’s Landslide highlights different aspects of our landscape legacy, with the collective goal of making our landscape heritage visible,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, ұ founder and President.

"These aren't just pretty pictures of old trees," says Russell Hart, former executive editor at American Photo magazine. They are important photographers' studies of unique specimens in context, from parklands to roadsides. Each of the 12 trees or groups of trees is seen through the lens of an artist's sensibility, in spectacular prints—and the images are as different as they could be."

About the Jay Heritage Center
The Jay Property () in Rye is the boyhood home of native New Yorker and Founding Father John Jay (1745-1829). Located next to a marshlands preserve with public trails, this sylvan and historic 23-acre park is all that remains of the original 400-acre Jay family estate where America’s first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court and author of The Jay Treaty grew up. Located just 35 minutes from Manhattan, the Property has an 8000-year-old scenic vista of Long Island Sound over a meadow bordered by sunken stone ha-ha walls, a European garden design feature added by Jay’s eldest son circa 1822. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993. The Jay Heritage Center is the non-profit steward of the site and holds educational programs in American History, Landscape Conservation and Environmental Stewardship there for the public.

About Longhouse Reserve
LongHouse () encompasses nearly 16 acres in the town of East Hampton. Founder and internationally-recognized textile designer, Jack Lenor Larsen, laid out an entrance drive lined with majestic cryptomerias, enhanced the property with collections of plants and sculpture, established lawns, ornamental borders, a pond, and natural amphitheater. A collection of 60 sculptures are scattered throughout the gardens and includes works of glass by Dale Chihuly, ceramics by Takaezu, and bronzes by Voulkos, Benglis, and de Kooning. Works by Ossorio, Claus Bury, Yoko Ono, Sol LeWitt, Pavel Opocensky, and Takashi Soga are also on view. The mission of LongHouse is to exemplify living with art in all forms.

About American Photo
American Photo () is the essential magazine for everyone who is passionately interested in the art, craft and culture of photography at its highest level. We provide a showcase of inspiring imagery, we tell the stories behind the photographs, and we identify the trends, people, themes, and tools that photography enthusiasts must know about now.

About The Davey Tree Expert Company
The Davey Tree Expert Company () has been offering horticultural services in North America since 1880. Currently, Davey operates throughout North America, providing tree, shrub and lawn care, utility services, landscape management and consulting services. Since 1979, Davey has been owned by its employees who take seriously their responsibility to provide horticultural expertise, industry leadership and to serve as responsible stewards of the environment. Davey’s support of ұ and American Forests demonstrates their dedication to the preservation of trees and the environment for future generations so they can enjoy the aesthetic and social benefits a healthy landscape provides.

About ұ
The 12-year old Cultural Landscape Foundation (www.tclf.org) provides people with the ability to see, understand, and value landscape architecture and its practitioners, in the way many people have learned to do with buildings and their designers. Through its Web site, lectures, outreach, and publishing, ұ broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide to help safeguard our priceless landscape heritage for future generations.