“Prune Orchard near Santa Clara, California,” undated, from the Visual Instruction Department Lantern Slides Collection of Oregon State University, via flickr.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
— Allen Ginsberg, from “America“
Category: landscape
GB Bloom Day: snow day
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
“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. . . “?
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”
The winter garden: El Paso, Texas
“Plastic flowers festoon Mt. Carmel Cemetery in El Paso, Texas,” February 2014, by Carol M. Highsmith, via The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The Sunday porch: Naples, Florida
Porch at the Hole in the Wall Golf Club, Naples, Florida, February 16, 1960, by Gottsho-Schleisner, Inc., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
enclos*ure