As a gardener, when I travel, I go to my share of museums and historic sites, but I also like to see gardens and to get an understanding of what plants thrive in an area (and whether they might grow for me back home). When horticultural friends heard I was headed to Bulgaria, they warned that there would be little to see in terms of a garden culture—and I realized that perhaps this is true of many of the eastern bloc countries where the hardships of life left little room for leisurely gardening, but I was excited about the trip nevertheless.
I was curious to see the Sea Garden in Varna, a large public park that connects the city to the shore of the Black Sea. And like any landscape, it held both lessons and inspiration for me. Having lived much of my life in Chicago, waterfront parks have been a part of my life since I was a child when a trip down Lake Shore Drive or on a bike up the paths along Lake Michigan— with the shoreline running along one side and views of the city and its dazzling architecture on the other side—was always a wonderful sight that connected the natural world to the urban. I found this connection to be moving, but in Varna, the Sea Garden does something unexpected and powerful. Instead of connecting the city views with those of the sea, the park, which runs a good length of the city, is filled with trees—massive old specimens of cedars pines and chestnuts, plane trees, locusts, and oaks. The effect is that of a woodland separating the sea from the city, creating a forest wall along the edge of the city and, more importantly, along the edge of the sea, where the heavily used beaches feel not a part of the urban footprint of Varna, but rather a summer resort.
As one enters the park, one occasionally catches a glimpse of the emerald Black Sea, giving it a magical quality. An old Zen aphorism says that a beautiful thing should not be seen constantly, but reverently; perhaps this was the logic behind the development of the Sea Garden, or perhaps it just evolved, but the effect is powerful either way. As I came through the park, the beaches revealed themselves and I felt like I had been taken away from the heat and the noise of the city.
In America, the idea of blocking our view of the sea would be unthinkable—a water view adds to the value of real estate. However, by creating a park filled with allées of oaks and sycamores, the city of Varna did something more than increasing property values; it increased the value and natural beauty of the beaches which would be shared by all. Maybe socialism’s take on the collective property has something going for it after all.
Many of the old trees in this park were planted in the 19th century when the park was first created. Legend has it that farmers and locals brought saplings down to the park on donkey-driven rigs to help create the initial plantings of the park, and many of these specimens have a majesty unknown in many of our parks here. Others have a unique power, in that many trees damaged by storms or other activities were left in place, perhaps due to a lack of labor or perhaps to some Thracian logic about letting nature stay its course. Whatever the reason, they have been allowed to continue to grow not as perfectly pruned upright specimens, but as contorted forms that add a sense of the wild and natural to the park.
I walked away from this landscape with a sense of excitement about how to think about my own garden and how to allow plants to evolve and show their beauty. I am excited to see how a concolor fir that lost its central stem will take shape, how trees will continue to obscure views and allow things to be revealed more slowly as one enters the landscape, and how the landscape will take on a life of its own.
I was also reminded of my friend Marco Polo Stufano’s wise advice that a guest should comment on the mature trees in a landscape when not excited by the horticulture in the host’s garden. I thought his counsel was meant to prevent an awkward moment with a host, but perhaps it was really about seeing the bigger picture —and embracing the eternal.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
