Cabin Ruin Garden

Cabin Ruin Garden. Hanna Homestead.

"Nature soon takes over if the gardener is absent." , Penelope Hobhouse

, Pioneer plants are opportunistic and tenacious. They have the will and the means to take over the most inhospitable environment, readying it for longer-lived species who need better soil and shade conditions. The Cabin Ruin Garden is a created folly in the landscape meant to celebrate this pioneering spirit in the plant world while also honoring the bravery of two of the early homesteaders in Columbiana County - the Dixon and Hanna families., Meet the Hannas. , In the early 1800's, the Robert Hannas settled near another Quaker pioneer family, the Joshua Dixons, who were living in what is present day Columbiana. The Dixons had a fair daughter, Rachel, and the Hannas had a strong son, Benjamin. They married in 1803 and bought 160 acres from Joshua in 1810. Benjamin and Rachel built a log cabin at the top of a low knoll near a cool, clear spring, on land now known as Harvey S. Firestone Recreational Park. Log cabins at that time were simple: 16' × 20' structures containing only one room, a generous hearth, a door in the front and one in the back, and a loft used for storage and sometimes sleeping., The Cabin's exact location in the Park, its size, and architectural details remain a mystery. So, rather than a historically correct replication, the Cabin Ruin Garden includes the "remnants" of a typical cabin and its landscape while recognizing the regenerative power of plants as they reclaim untended land.