Category: landscape

The Sunday porch: Alberta

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Mary and Sandy Lee (daughters of the photographer) cleaning the porch, Mountain Park, Alberta, 1935, by Charles Lee, via Provincial Archives of Alberta Commons on flickr.

Cleaning should probably be in quotation marks. I think their mom was in the house having some quiet time.

The girls’ father, Charles Lee, emigrated from England to Mountain Park, Alberta, in 1919. There, he worked for the coal mine as a delivery person, steam engineer, and watchman. He also became a photographer and created postcards of Mountain Park. The mine closed in 1950, and the Lee family moved on.  Mountain Park is now a ghost town.

GB Bloom Day in April

Cindy at enclos*ure10 Comments

I went over to the University of Hohenheim’s Spielhaus garden for the first time in months yesterday to see what was blooming in mid April.  The cherry trees that were so amazing this time last year had finished and the magnolias were also winding down.  The perennial beds were still pretty subdued, except for this very nice bit just below the terrace and wisteria arbor.

I thought this combination was great: Tulipa clusiana ‘Tubergen’s Gem’ and yellow Aurinia saxatilis ‘Compactum’. The little weeping tree above them is Sophora japonica ‘Pendula’.

The Spielhaus (play house) was built in the 1780s for Grand Duke Carl Eugen von Württemberg and Franziska von Hohenheim, his mistress and then morganatic wife. It originally only had one floor and was one of about 60 folly-type structures in their “English garden” of Hohenheim Palace.

In another part of the Spielhaus garden, these small tulips were really sweet.

I loved these Tulipa clusiana var. clusiana.

I also loved the Tulipa sylvestris, although I didn’t take a very good picture of them.

I like the way they all turn in more or less the same direction.

To see the mid-April flowers of other garden bloggers, please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

The flower seller, NYC

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment


An Easter floral display at Bradshaw & Hartman, New York City, between 1900 and 1905, by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos).

I found this advertisement in The Weekly Florists Review, Vol. 12, 1903:

Established 1891
Geo. E. Bradshaw   John R. Hartman
Wholesale Florists
53 West 28th Street, New York
Telephone 1239 Madison Square
Consignments Solicited
Mention the Review when you write.

The current building at 53 W. 28th Street seems to be the same one in these pictures.

There have been flower wholesalers on this section of 28th Street since the 1890s, according to this interesting article in The Economist.

Sydney, Australia

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, date and photographer unknown, via Royal Australian Historical Society Commons on flickr.

April trees

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

A repeat post from April 2013. . .

Ribbon tree in Chicago/enclos*ure

Our two days in Chicago were windy (of course) and occasionally damp, and very few trees had even begun to leaf out.

Ribbon trees in Chicago/enclos*ure

But I was taken by this arboreal display of blue outside the Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue.

Ribbons in trees in Chicago/enclos*ure

The ribbons were tied in the trees and along the fence in memory of the 28,828 children of Illinois who were abused last year.

blue ribbons tree in Chicago/enclos*ure

April is Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month in the U.S.  You can get more information here.

ADDENDUM:  The blue ribbons are in the trees outside the church this year (2017) as well.

 

this is the garden: colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night’s outer wing. . .

— e.e. cummings, “This is the Garden“