The Ghost Forest
The Ghost Forest
Installation at the Philadelphia Flower Show, 2026
2026 Theme: Origins of American Gardening
Philadelphia, PA
A void represents where the American Chestnut, the eastern woods’ most abundant tree, once grew.
A keystone species for the eastern temperate forest, the American Chestnut was interconnected with, and sustaining of human life. An important food source for both people and wildlife, a valuable timber tree, and source of other forest products, the Chestnut went extinct due to the 20th-century human-caused introduction of a fungal blight.
In the Chestnut’s absence, we contemplate textures, forms, scents—and ultimately—the promise of multitudes of new specimens filling the forest floor.
Our Studio actively engaged in this installation through work on-the-ground in Baltimore, including the close observation of our urban Piedmont forests and rural woodlands. Rather than just looking up, our team’s collective gathering of acorns, chestnuts, locust pods, hickory nuts, and magnolia cones over the course of months provided an intimate, hands-on exploration of the ground, yielding time to contemplate the questions guiding this installation:
“How do we fill the vast ecological niche of the American Chestnut while staying true to the native plant community of the eastern seaboard? Can we?
How do we preserve the cultural meaning of the Chestnut without losing hope of its return? Is this a productive form of nostalgia?
Is something better than nothing? Does a simple act of small-scale gardening make up for ecological and cultural loss?”
American Gardening also looks forward. Like most artforms, gardening is a mash-up, that most American kind of cultural conversation. As with the founding of this country, the American Garden is a result of migration of populations and a chain of cultural knowledge, hybridized, rejected, celebrated, and misinterpreted. Passive ecological regeneration is impossible; restoring the woodland and tending the forest floor will take stewardship by the gardener, in the smallest and broadest sense.
Considering death and rebirth, The Ghost Forest asks us to consider an active and open-minded approach to gardening in North America. These seedlings are survivors and they are rescues--entirely American Chestnuts from two mother trees in Cumberland County, PA. That they live at all is the result of the persistence of people and protection of their roots.
Immense gratitude to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society for the invitation to participate, to The American Chestnut Foundation for seedlings, guidance, and knowledge, to Apiary Studio for sound advice, to Williamson College for the skilled extra hands, to Cylburn Arboretum for the timely prunings, to the Station North Tool Library for tools, and to our moms, families, and neighbors in Baltimore for the nut forage.
Project timeline: 2025-2026
Client: The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Scope: Temporary Installation – Design, Fabrication and Install
Size: 800 SF
Project Type: Culture | Conservation | Garden
Partners:
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Williamson College
The American Chestnut Foundation
Cylburn Arboretum
Station North Tool Library
Awards & Recognition:
Philadelphia Flower Show Silver Medal
Philadelphia Flower Show Governor’s Trophy
