Category: garden design

Vintage landscape: Pasadena garden

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I do think a garden should be seductive. The strength of any garden is its ability to take you away.

— David L. Culp, in “3,000 Plants, and Then Some,” The New York Times.

1930 Pasadena garden, Archives of American Gardens, Smithsonian Institution Unidentified garden in Pasadena, California, 1930, by Diggers Garden Club, via Archives of American Gardens, Garden Club of America, Smithsonian Institution Commons on flickr.

Simple, elegant, and a little mysterious. . .

The Diggers Garden Club was founded in 1924 and still exists today.  It is a member of the Garden Club of America, which is celebrating its centennial this year.

At its 75th anniversary, the GCA donated 3,000 glass lantern slides (of which this is one) and over 30,000 film slides to the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens.  Its members continue to contribute to the collection, which now has over 60,000 images.

Many of the gardens pictured in the Archives’ slides are unidentified.  The Smithsonian is asking the public’s help in finding names and locations.  Click here to view its “Mystery Gardens Initiative.”

Roadside planters and imigongo

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Town planters in eastern Rwanda/enclos*ure

While traveling in southeastern Rwanda on Thursday, we stopped for lunch in Nyakarambi.  I liked the town’s roadside planters, which are painted in the graphic patterns of imigongo art.

Town planters in eastern Rwanda/enclos*ure

All the planters held rather dusty palm trees. We are in the middle of the long dry season, which will last until early September.

Imigongo paintings traditionally decorated the interiors of houses in this part of Rwanda. The raised designs are made with cow dung and painted with white kaolin clay and a black substance made from aloe plant sap and the ash of burned banana skins and Solanum aculeastrum fruit.  Other natural colors — red, grey, and ochre — are also used, and today’s artists often add representations of people and houses.

Nyakarambi has a cooperative and shop devoted to imigongo.  I added to my little collection with the piece below, which is about 12″ x 14″.

Imigongo painting, Rwanda/enclos*ure

I didn’t take any photos of the cooperative while we were there; the women weren’t working and their stock of paintings was small. But, several months ago, we were at Nyungwe Forest Lodge, which has several walls in the lobby displaying imigongo.

Imigongo at Nyungwe Forest Lodge, Rwanda:enclos*ure

Imigongo on walls at Nyungwe Forest Lodge, Rwanda:enclos*urePhoto just above by M. Koran.

Vintage landscape: small side porch

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Latticework on side porch in Georgia, 1939 or 1944, by F.B. Johnston, Library of Congress/enclos*ure

Hill Plantation, Wilkes County, Georgia, 1939 or 1944, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

I love the latticework on this old side porch.

K Street in 1850

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K St. backyards, Washington, DC, Library of Congress/enclos*ureView from the second story of the home of Mrs. John Rodgers at Franklin Row, K Street, N.W., between 12th and 13th Streets, in Washington, D.C.

The watercolor* depicts the backyard and adjacent neighborhood and shows children standing on balconies.

It was painted by Montgomery C. Meigs.  Mrs. Rodgers was Meigs’s mother-in-law and the widow of Commodore John Rogers, a naval hero.

Despite the modest appearance of the yard and surroundings, Mrs. Rodgers was wealthy and socially well-connected.   Even well-to-do Washington in the 1850s seems to have had a somewhat ramshackle look.

You will need to click on the image to get a larger view.  Here’s what the downtown city block looks like now.

As a military engineer, Meigs left his mark on the capital.  In the 1850s, he supervised the building of the Washington Aqueduct and the Union Arch Bridge, as well as the wings and dome of the Capitol Building.  He also played an important role in the early design of Arlington National Cemetery, and he designed and supervised the construction of the Pension Building (now the National Building Museum).

*Via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Uptown bird

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Last week, the town of Weston, Massachusetts, celebrated its tricentennial by hosting  a garden tour.

coffee pot birdhouse on Of Gardens

This charming fancy bird house was one of the highlights shared with us by Of Gardens, on Friday.

Photo by Amy Murphy, used with permission.

For more photos of some lovely Weston gardens, click here.