“Residence, Woodbine, Iowa,” 1940, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Note the ornamental flourish under the window on the right.
Category: garden design
Vintage landscape: a curious garden
So many little faces. . .
Garden and wall of the Old Curiosity Shop, Ballarat, Australia, ca. 1895, via Museum Victoria.
“Little girls would bring their broken dolls to Mr Warwick for him to mortar into this wall,” according to the museum’s online catalogue.
The photo (and the one below) were contributed by Mrs Wilma Mahoney to The Biggest Family Album of Australia project.
Mr. and Mrs. Warwick in the garden of their Old Curiosity Shop, ca. 1895.
Happy Halloween!
October Bloom Day: Washington, D.C.
On this Bloom Day, I thought I would share some photos that I took this week of the remaining flowers and various seed heads in one of my favorite gardens in the city, the Smithsonian Institution’s Butterfly Habitat Garden.
(You can see more of the Butterfly Garden here.)
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is the 15th of every month. To see what’s blooming around other garden bloggers, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.
The Sunday porch: Santa Barbara
La Casa de la Guerra, Santa Barbara, California, September 1936, by Henry F. Withey for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The adobe house was built between 1819 and 1826 by José de la Guerra y Noriega. His descendants lived in parts of the house until 1945 (other parts were renovated as offices or shops after 1919).
“It is unquestionably the major monument of the Spanish and Mexican period in Santa Barbara. Architecturally it is also of great significance for the part it played in the creation of the 20th century Spanish Colonial revival in southern California,” according to the 1937 HABS report.
The house still stands and is open to the public as a museum.
Life in gardens: tea in Egypt
Tea time in the front garden of Mena House, an hotel in Cairo, Egypt. Taken between 1934 and 1939 by the Photo Department of the American Colony of Jerusalem, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos).
I think that tea has come too late for the lady in the foreground, who seems to have nodded off.
View of a pyramid from the front porch, Mena House, Cairo, Egypt.
The hotel opened in 1890 and featured Egypt’s first swimming pool. Famous guests have included British and Egyptian royalty, Winston Churchill, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Charlie Chaplin.
enclos*ure 