In which U.S. state can you find a garden of upside-down trees within a national forest?

The Tongass National Forest, located in the state of Alaska, is the largest national forest in the United States. It is managed by the National Forest Service; and a portion of it shares a border with British Columbia, Canada. This unique temperate rainforest covers 16.7 million acres (68,000 square kilometers) and encompasses a wide variety of terrain; the islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords, glaciers, and tree-covered mountains. Tongass covers much of southeastern Alaska, and in the heart of the forest, near the state capital of Juneau, lies Glacier Gardens, a 50-acre botanical garden known for its “Flower Towers.”

The towers were initially created when garden owner Steve Bowhay was rehabilitating the garden after a landslide in 1985. In a fit of anger (after accidentally damaging some excavation equipment), he used the machine to pick up a fallen tree and slam it into the ground upside-down. The trunk, with treetops in the mud and roots in the air, dangling down, inspired him and now the gardens are home to around 20 upside-down trees.

Today, dotted throughout the garden, those trees (or “Flower Towers”) still have their tops buried in the ground and their roots thrust up in the air, forming a basket that cradles colorful trailing flowers. Netting and mosses form a flower bed in the center of the root ball, and begonias, fuchsias, and petunias bloom in a wide array of bright colors, as they delicately spill down from the roots of the overturned trees.