In Russia they have forests of white birch trees, which I either watched from the train when I was there as a teenager or possibly imagined or dreamed about (or saw in a movie). There’s nothing more graceful than a white birch in winter.
In the Washington Heights garden, we have a single white birch. (It’s now winter, at least in spirit.)
All great cities (like great gardens) offer glimpses of other parts of the world, to make something on the whole far more beautiful than the sum of its parts.
