Category: architecture

In a vase on Monday: London

Cindy at enclos*ure23 Comments

Last week, we were in London, and, walking around Whitehall, I discovered the 18th century Blewcoat School building and this beautiful botanical display.

I thought I would share it for today’s “In a vase. . .,” since I haven’t been able to buy flowers, and nothing is blooming in the yard (although I think I will see primroses along the fence by next week).


The building now houses a fancy bridal shop, Ian Stewart.


Why the use of onions, I’m not sure — they do seem to be cooking onions and not ornamental Alliums. There may be a connection to unity and wholeness (round, concentric layers).  One website said onions were once given as marriage presents during the Middle Ages.

A chair covered in twigs.

At the side of the building.

To see what other bloggers have put in a vase today, please visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

The Sunday porch: Plaquemines Parish, La.

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“Mother of three soldiers,” Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana,  June 1943, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.


The three Blue Star service flags in the window indicate that the family had three sons fighting in WWII.

The Sunday porch: Palacios, Texas

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Photographer’s studio and other businesses, Palacios, Texas, May 1943, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Sunday porch: New Hampshire

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Unidentified porch, Isle of Shoals, New Hampshire, ca. late 19th c., photographer unknown, via Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Isle of Shoals are a group of small islands off the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire. They may be best known as the home of writer and gardener Celia Thaxter. She hosted an informal artists colony at her father’s hotel on Appledore Island during the summers of the 1870s. Her guests included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and artist Childe Hassam, who illustrated her book, An Island Garden.

.  .  .  .  I but crave
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
That breaks in tender music on the shore.

— Celia Thaxter, from “Land-Locked“

Mini-me

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Back yard of Company Officers’ Quarters Type D, Hamilton Field, Novato, California, 1994, by David G. De Vries for this Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Type D Quarters are an example of Spanish Colonial Revival style “adapted to reflect California’s mission heritage in a dramatic departure from traditional military architecture,” according to the survey.