The Sunday porch: the peacock

The Sunday porch/enclos*ure: Federal Hill, by FBJ, Library of CongressFederal Hill, Fredericksburg, Virginia, between 1927 and 1929, Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Peacocks are probably the ultimate garden ornament — if you have the room and patience.  (It takes several years for a male to grow a substantial tail covert or “train.”)

Life in gardens: warm afternoon

Warm afternoon 2, Southwest Washington, D.C., E. Rosskam, LoC. . . in Southwest Washington, D.C., 1941, by Edwin Rosskam, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Southwest is the capital’s smallest quadrant, located south of the National Mall along the Potomac River.  After the Civil War, it was populated by freed Blacks to its east and Scotch, Irish, German, and Eastern European immigrants to its west. Its old neighborhoods were largely destroyed in some very questionable “urban renewal” in the 1950s.

Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream…

Jennifer Grotz, from “Late Summer