Category: garden design

The Sunday porch: Oak Hill, Alabama

Cindy at enclos*ure4 Comments

Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of CongressThe Ramsey-Jones-Bonner House, Oak Hill, Alabama, March 24, 1937, by Alex Bush for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).

A nice front porch, but not especially interesting — except that it is a Carolina (or rain) porch.

Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of Congress

Its columns rest on masonry bases set “directly on the ground . . . in front of the foundation of the porch floor. This is a distinctive regional characteristic,” according to the registration form (1998) for the National Register of Historic Places for the Oak Hill Historic District.

The back porch, however, is more unusual.

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Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of Congress

“[The] rear wings have integral recessed porches facing inward and creating an atrium-like space which has been roofed [with] corrugated metal. . . . [The] . . . first floor   [is] essentially an enclosed dogtrot. . . .”

Old Ramsey Hse., 1937, A. Bush, HABS, Library of Congress

The house was built in 1836 by Abiezer Clarke Ramsey, a school teacher and Methodist circuit rider.  In 1937, he married Elizabeth Amanda Wardlaw, a widow with four children.  She and Abiezer had seven more before her death in 1854.

The house still stands in the Oak Hill Historic District.
Continue reading “The Sunday porch: Oak Hill, Alabama” →

Vintage landscape: Lob’s Wood

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Lob's Wood, Ohio, ca. 1920, via Library of Congress“‘Lob’s Wood,’ . . . Perintown (Milford), Ohio. Woodland daffodils,” ca. 1920, a hand-colored lantern slide by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The 97-acre property pictured above was purchased in 1898 by Carl H. Krippendorf, a Cincinnati businessman who had spent childhood summers in the surrounding area.  He wanted to save the woodland from being turned into a tobacco field.

Krippendorf soon built a house there for his new wife, Mary Greene, and began planting daffodils and other bulbs. They originally called the land Karlsruhe, meaning “Karl’s place of peace” in German. After World War I, the name was changed to Lob’s Wood.  

In 1919, during “Daffodil Days at the Krippendorf Farm at Perintown,” $2,700* was raised for war-devastated France. In one afternoon, they sold 15,000 cut daffodils.

Carl became a friend and correspondent of the garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence.  She wrote about his garden in The Little Bulbs and Lob’s Wood.

 The Krippendorfs lived on the property (eventually 175 acres) for 64 years.  Today the house and woods are part of the Cincinnati Nature Center.

What explains poetry is that life is hard
But better than the alternatives,
The no and the nothing. Look at this light
And color, a splash of brilliant yellow

Punctuating an emerald text. . .

— Alicia Ostriker, from “Daffodils“

*about $34,000 today.

GB Foliage Follow Up: tree peonies

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Peony's leaf buds in snow, March 2016, Stuttgart, enclos*ure

The garden beside the 18th century Spielhaus of Hohenheim University’s Exotic Garden has a number of mature tree peonies. Like red corals, their new leaves are emerging now.

I took these pictures yesterday while it was snowing.

Peony leaf buds in snow, March 2016, Stuttgart, enclos*ure

Peony label in snow, March 2016, Stuttgart, enclos*ure

Because I really haven’t been gardening here in Stuttgart, for this year’s Bloom Days and Foliage Follow Ups I will record the flowers and leaves of this nearby, very pretty perennials and woody plants garden.

Thanks to Pam at Digging for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Follow Up the 16th of every month.

If you were with me
We should need no light
But peonies.

— Grace Hazard Conkling, from “Diary Written on Peony Petals“

GB Bloom Day: snow day

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26 March 2016 Bloom Day, Stuttgart, enclos*ure

Because I haven’t really been gardening here in Stuttgart, I decided that for this year’s Bloom Days, I would make a record of the flowers of the display garden of the 18th century Spielhaus at the Exotic Garden of the University of Hohenheim, which is close to our neighborhood. 

Unfortunately, when I visited this afternoon it was snowing hard, and I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked. I may have to try again later this week.

Please click on any thumbnail in the gallery below to scroll through larger images. And to see what’s blooming today for other garden bloggers, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

First seeing the Spielhaus through Japanese cornelian cherry trees in bloom.
Cornus officinalis.
The Spielhaus or playhouse,
which is part of the “English Garden” (now called the Exotic Garden) constructed by Duke Carl Eugen and his mistress (and later wife) Franziska von Hohenheim in the late 1700s. It’s now incorporated into modern Hohenheim University.
Abeliophyllum distichum. . .
. . . or white forsythia.
At this point, I was really hoping that my camera was water resistant.
Flowering Arabis ferdinandi-coburgi ‘Variegata’ or Alpine wall cress.
I believe the patch of blue on the right is a planting of Scillas.
Of course, there were snowdrops.
Abeliophyllum distichum ‘Roseum’ with hellebores in the background.
Aubrita-Hybride ‘Lavander’.
Pansies on the terrace.
Wisteria on the arbors.
Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’. . .
. . . or sweet-smelling winter honeysuckle.
A huge Platanus x hispanics or London plane tree.

You must stand still; and then. . . you will hear the infinite march of buds faintly roaring.

— Karel Capek [on the coming of spring], from The Gardener’s Year

Life in gardens: Mr. Hesse

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2 Mr. Hesse, Wash, D.C. 1928 or 29, Library of Congress“Mr. Hesse, Bot.[anic] Gardens,” Washington, D.C., 1928 or 29, by National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Years later, did he go back and say, “I remember it as so much bigger. . . “?

1 Mr. Hesse, Wash, D.C. 1928 or 29, Library of Congress

The little boy was almost certainly the son of George Wesley Hess, who was Superintendent and then Director of the U.S. Botanic Garden from 1913 to 1934. There are more photos of the family and the Garden here.

I bless thee, Lord, because I GROW
Among thy trees, which in a ROW
To thee both fruit and order OW.

— George Herbert, from “Paradise”