The Garden Mound Oaks of Vizcaya

These four live oaks were already big trees when they were hoisted onto the top of a hill that had not existed a few years earlier. The Garden Mound at Vizcaya is artificial, built between 1914 and 1922 for James Deering's Miami estate, and Vizcaya's own account says the massive oaks were transported in and lifted onto it. A garden writer adds that they came from another Deering property. How old they are depends on which caption you read. Vizcaya's label for the mound calls them 200-year-old, windswept live oaks; a video caption on the same page says 100. The garden writer says only that they were already large when moved, about a century ago. Nobody has published a girth that could settle it, so the honest answer is somewhere between one century and two. What is certain is where they have spent the last hundred years: on an exposed hilltop in hurricane country. Vizcaya trims them regularly to make them more resilient when the storms come. The four make a single stop. The mound sits at the south end of the formal gardens, up a short flight of stone steps, and the oaks are seen together from the top. Entry is paid, and Vizcaya opens Wednesday to Monday, closed on Tuesdays; check the hours before going. Vizcaya Metrorail station is about 500 metres from the entrance, a five to ten minute walk. Our pin marks the estate, not the mound itself.