Category: design

The Sunday porch: Danville, Virginia

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Danville, Virginia farmhouse, 1935, Library of CongressFarmhouse on Michaux Plantation, Danville area, Virginia, 1935, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. (There are two more views here.)

I could not find out when this simple house* was built or if it still exists. It is somewhat similar to this house in the same area, which Johnston’s notes say was built between 1776 and 1850.

Michaux was one of eleven plantations in southern Virginia owned by the Hairston family, one of the largest slaveholders in the South. Its name probably indicates that the land was also once owned by a member (this one?) of the local branch of the Michaux family.

This is the kingdom that you find
When the brave eye-holes stare
impartially against the air. . .

— Joy Davidman, from “Stark Lines-Resurrection”

*It reminds me of the old house or schoolhouse quilt block pattern.

Vintage landscape: iris garden

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Iris garden, Japan, University of Victoria LibrariesIris garden beside water in Japan, probably Yokohama, ca. 1910, via University of Victoria Libraries Commons on flickr.

The hand-colored glass plate slide is from a collection of “Yokohama photographs,” sold to foreign tourists between about 1868 and 1912.

Vintage landscape: wisteria

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Wisteria Japan

Women in the garden in Japan, late 19th to early 20th century, via Photographs of Japan Collection, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, The New York Public Library.

In a vase on Monday: Paris

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Rosebud in Paris, 2016, enclos*ure
Passing by the windows of Rosebud Fleuristes, 4, Place de l’Odéon, Paris. In the vase are lupin, viburnum, and hydrangea flowers.

We spent the long holiday weekend in Paris, just getting back this afternoon — so I don’t have a flower arrangement of my own today. But I can offer a few pictures of the windows of two florists in the area north of the Luxembourg Garden: Rosebud and Stanislaus Draber.

Rosebud, Paris, 2016, enclos*ure
Foxtail lilies and viburnum flowers at Rosebud, which was mentioned in the Paris-Match article as having been created with “a concept of florist-art gallery” (à l’origine d’un concept de fleuriste-galerie d’art).

On the train to France, I read an article in Paris-Match magazine, “La Fleur Fait Sa Révolution!”

“The flower has become a symbol of an urban renaissance, creative and super-cool,” it said. “One talks flowers with the same appetite that characterizes the foodistas for cooking. The opening of peonies, the Japanese [pruning] knife, and the art of the bouquet are now at the heart of urban conversations.” The trend is “embodied by the explosion of the neo-artisans who are also called the ‘makers’ (les «makers»).”

The article also mentions that the flower-market gardens around Paris “have almost disappeared in favor of the industrialized Dutch market. If nothing is done within ten years, there will be no bouquets of real scented garden roses for the high fashion Parisian florists.”

In a vase on Monday, Paris window, May 30, 2016, enclos*ure
Peonies, roses, and sweet peas in the window of Stanislas Draber, 19, rue Racine, Paris.

To see what other gardeners/bloggers/makers have put in vases today, please visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

ADDENDUM: There’s an interesting video clip by Rick Steves of a giant Dutch commercial flower auction here.