Towpath along the C & O Canal near Washington, D.C., about 1900. The canal was still in operation at this time, principally transporting coal.
Photo by Detroit Publishing Co. via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Month: October 2013
October Bloom Day: home again
View from the living room.
A double variety of Rudbeckia laciniata.
Graptopetalum in bloom.
Americans in Kigali: purple coneflowers grown from seed.
A Crassocephalum (vitellinum?) native to Rwanda.
Unknown shrub rose in the pink border.
An unknown white rose — our only scented rose.
The sunflowers bloomed while we were gone.
The cherry tomatoes waited for us.
We returned from three weeks of travel on Saturday night. Not a minute too soon, as a steady trickle of water was flowing from below the master bathroom sink and probably had been for a couple of days. The bedroom floor and two carpets were soaked — welcome home! Thankfully, the furniture and the rooms below were fine.
Until that moment, however, it had been a great trip — especially since I was able to visit Loi of Tone on Tone and his beautiful shop of Swedish antiques in Bethesda, Maryland. And in Madison, Wisconsin, Linda from Each Little World and her husband, Mark, not only took us on a tour of their lovely garden, but gave us lunch. We had very interesting conversation about art collecting and Wisconsin politics.
I was also able to go and pull invasive weeds at Dumbarton Oaks Park in Washington, D.C., and meet the great Ann Aldrich and some of the other weed warriors of the DOP Conservancy, which is supporting the National Park Service in restoring this Beatrix Farrand’s masterpiece.
Back at home, about five weeks into the rainy season, our grass is green again and there are a lot of flowers. Being away, however, has opened my eyes to a number of problems that daily familiarity was hiding, so now back to work. . . .
To see what’s blooming in other garden bloggers’ gardens this October 15, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.
The Sunday porch: Omaha, Nebraska
“Lady tending her flower box, Omaha, Nebraska,” (probably October) 1938, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
(Click on the image to get a better look.)
The photographer, John Vachon, was on his first solo assignment for the Farm Security Administration in October and November 1938. In addition to taking pictures of rural agricultural projects in Nebraska, he was tasked with recording scenes of life in Omaha for a book by Atlantic magazine writer George Leighton.
There is an interesting discussion of his Omaha work here. His pictures in the city captured “portraits of Depression victims and scenes of comfortable everyday life,” like the one above.
Vachon later worked for Look magazine for 25 years, and he won a Guggenheim fellowship in 1973, two years before his death at age 60.
The Sunday porch: Mount Morne
Reed [or Reid] Morrison House, Mount Mourne, North Carolina, 1938, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Carnegie Survey of the South Collection, Library of Congress.
Click on the photo to enlarge it and check out the pretty little sconces on each side of the front door.
The house exists today as a private residence — in seemingly excellent condition, but, alas, the sconces and vines are gone.
enclos*ure 