Why do schools have fences? To keep children in or to keep intruders out? When I started primary school, the school yard was open to the street. There was also a big ditch that we would run down towards the street. Later on, they filled in the ditch and put a fence there - separating the playground area from the road. I thought it was for child safety to stay off the street.
School yard fences are chain-link. The process was developed in England in 1844. It is a staple of fence building around the world, and comes with many names: wire netting, wire-mesh fence, chain-wire fence, cyclone fence, hurricane fence, or diamond-mesh fence.
Fences have been with us since prehistoric times. What are the famous fences around the world?
1. The Great Wall of China is not technically a fence...but it seems to be number 1 on the list - it is 13,000 miles long.
2. The Dingo Fence of Australia is next - 3,400 miles long. The Guinness Book of Records considers this the longest fence in the world.
3. The Fence at Buckingham Palace - beauty is its distinction rather than length.
4. Aquarium Fence in Turkey - another art fence with sea creatures.
5. Lock Fence in Pari's Pont des Arts - the weight of the thousands of locks on a 6.5-foot section of the bridge's fencing collapsed.
6. Bra Fence in New Zealand - hundred of brassieres mysteriously appeared on a stretch of wire farm fencing in 1999 becoming a tourist attraction
7. The Fence of Carnegie Mellon University is considered "the most painted object in the world" by the Guinness Book of World Records. The article on this fence is HERE. A wooden fence it seems to have a history of being painted for more than 70 years. It had 609 coats of paint between 1993 and 2007. It collapsed under the weight of the paint so was rebuilt in concrete. Painting continues.
There is one repeatable joke about fences - I have given it the /e to indicate both genders on this blond/e joke:
Why did the blond/e climb the chain-link fence? To see what was on the other side.
Today's purple flower is the Paulownia Tree. It is an invasive tree further south in the U.S. , but here it isn't very hardy, so is considered special. There's a large one at Vineland Research Station at the Foreign Affair Winery. Let's see if it blooms this year.
Here we are on the great Longwood Allee of Paulownias - or Princess Trees. This is Longwood's second planting of this majestic tree - I think it was just over 10 years ago that the first planting of mature trees died from old age or rot.
We're at the end of the 'spring bloom' and this tree seems a symbol of this: I saw a pair of these yesterday on a front lawn on Elizabeth Street in Beamsville here in Niagara. This is a great accomplishment as this is generally a zone 7 tree and we are in zone 6. There is another tree at the Vineland Research Station beside the Foreign Affair Winery. Perhaps I'll have time today to see if it is blooming. This is like the weeping cheery at the Niagara Horticultural Station - one has to go frequently to check its status and catch it in bloom.
Paulownia is a traditional tree in China and Japan - it has a long symbolic history as well as being a productive forested tree. In Japan, it was once customary to plant a Paulownia tree when a baby girl was born, and then to make it into a dresser as a wedding present when she married. More recently it has been used in guitars as the core body.
