The Children's Garden at Stephen F. Austin University in Historic Nacogdoches
The Children's Garden is one of several theme gardens at Stephen F. Austin University's Mast Arboretum, a 19 acre horticultural complex located in the eastern university district between Wilson and University Drives on the banks of La Nana Creek. Mast Arboretum, the 8 acre specialized Ruby Mize Azalea Garden, and the 40-acre Piney Woods Native Plant Center are ongoing horticultural projects of the Departments of Forestry and Agriculture at Stephen F. Austin State University. The purpose of these projects is to acquire, develop, study, conserve and promote native, ornamental, rare, and hybrid plants and woody species of the southern forests; to study the flora, fauna and ecosystems of East Texas; to provide an educational and aesthetic environment for students, visitors, and local citizens; and to showcase demonstration gardens that are models of horticultural practice and garden aesthetics and design.
The Children's Garden at the north end of Mast Arboretum is recognized for its timber framed Pavilion, a 28 square foot solid-wood post and lintel structure that won the Excellence in Wood Design Award sponsored by the Texas Forestry Association when it was erected in 1998. The Pavilion serves as an outdoor classroom and link between local school districts and the university to promote awareness of the environment and horticultural practices. Surrounding the Pavilion are gardens containing 75 cultivars of herbaceous perennials and woody plants including Abelia and Vitrex trials and a Fruit Collection
The Bronze Sculpture of 3 Children fishing from a log over the rock water garden contributes to the aesthetic design of the Children's Garden. On a smaller scale the sculpture repeats the triangular rhythms of the pavilion and converts its geometric abstraction into a diminutive personification. A flying or aerodynamic triangle with an upward curving lower line is formed by the convex log of the sculpture, the horizontal main beams of the Pavilion, and the horizon of the sky, with a sequenced set of enclosures from smaller to greater being: (1) sculpture, pavilion, horizon; (2) water, earth, sky; and (3) human, abstract, ethereal. The sculpture of the children playing implies, in the imagination of the visitor, the carefree, original first garden of the past. Walking over That Water by the small bridge we enter into the second garden, that of the Pavilion representing this moment of time. The Pavilion, as the middle garden, yokes the unattainable imagined garden of the ethereal future with the imagined carefree perfect garden of the past. Only in the art of the Pavilion can the other two gardens be known: Where those unrealizable states of perfect past and future gardens are transformed into the work of art in this moment of time, and where art, at any given time, though always imperfect, represents the highest level of perfection that can ever be known.