Heart-shaped cave etched by wind and water on face of Ayers Rock. Photo: Getty.

The ubiquitous stylized heart symbol we have come to associate with love and Valentines Day can be found in outdoor environments all over the world. Some are manmade, but many are Mother Nature’s Valentines.

A lake fed by a spring in the Amazon River basin. Photo: Reuters. 

Heartifacts of Nature
I’m stepping away from the city today to travel the globe in search of “heartifacts”–works of nature that appear in the form of natural heart-shaped artifacts, or naturefacts, some small enough to hold in your hand, others spanning miles or more and only visible from above.

Calla Lily. Photo: David Goehring

Coeur de Voh, or Heart of Voh, large formation of mangrove vegetation, North Caledonia. Photo: Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

Courting swans. Photo, CM Sippel.

Heart-shaped rock at Joshua Tree National Park. Photo: Michael Dorausch 

Krameria erecta. Photo: Rob Kesseler

Heart-shaped Salina (Salina do Coração). Photo: Lucas Leuzinger

Heartworks
As art often imitates life, or nature, a number of very creative people have used their natural environment to create some amazing manmade artworks using materials from nature like trees, water, and stone–or not, like the housing track below.

Bing Maps Bird’s Eye view: Heart-shaped neighborhood in San Bruno California. Photo: © Microsoft / DigitalGlobe / Nokia

Manmade pond in Lorain County, Ohio. Photo: Google Earth.

Heart-shaped woods in Oare, Wiltshire, England. In 1999, Lady Keswick of Oare House had 1,000 Hawthorn trees planted in memory of her two brothers. Photo © Microsoft / DigitalGlobe / Nokia

Bing Maps Bird’s Eye view: View of heart-shaped woods outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: © Microsoft / DigitalGlobe / Nokia 

Created by man: Three heart-shaped ponds near the Halmstad City Airport, Sweden. Photo © Microsoft / DigitalGlobe / Nokia

A Love Story Told in Trees
When British farmer Winston Howes’s wife Janet died suddenly from heart failure 19 years ago, he and his son spent weeks planting a living statement of Winston’s enduring love for her: an expansive heart-shaped memorial meadow on an acre of 6000 oak trees bordered by bushy hedges.

Winston Howe’s heart shaped tribute to his wife. Photo: Adam Gray, SWNS.

The wooded tribute to wife and mother can’t be seen from the road and remained a secret for two decades until it was it was discovered in 2012 by a balloonist.

Different season, aerial view of Howes heart-shaped wood. Photo: SWNS.

As the balloonist, Andy Collett, told the Daily Mail, “It was a perfect heart hidden away from view–you would not know it was there. You can just imagine the love story.”

Winston and Janet Howes. Photo: SWNS.

Every spring Howes–who flew over the field several years ago to view it from above–plants daffodils in the meadow which he accesses by a cleared path that leads him to the tip of the heart. Happy Valentines Day Winston and Janet, and to all of you. xo