Category: life in gardens

The Sunday porch: catching up

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Two women, by Michael Francis Blake, Duke University Libraries Commons on flickr“Snapshot, two women sitting on the front porch of a house, unidentified,” ca. 1912-1934, by Michael Francis Blake, via David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Libraries Commons on flickr.

Blake was one of the first African-American studio photographers in Charleston, South Carolina.  His collection at Duke consists of 117 photos in an album entitled “Portraits of Members.”

. . . our effort to open the gift of the world,
our hope to find years
in this box we tear apart.

— Allan Johnston, from “Evening Conversation“

Life in gardens: tea in Egypt

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Tea in Egypt 1, Matson Col., LoCTea 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.

Tea in Egypt 3, Matson Col., LoCView 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.

Tuinhuis garden

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The tuinhuis or ‘garden house’ (shown in the fifth slide above)  is a small cafe on the grounds of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The surrounding garden was a very pretty place to rest after a long ramble around parts of the city center and the Museumplein, during a one-day travel stopover last week.

About half the area is composed of wide gravel paths around a simple boxwood parterre — which is filled with cottage annuals like variegated nasturtium and lime green flowering tobacco.

On the other side, white marble (I think) outlines the narrow planting beds.  Currently, you can see a free exhibition of Calder sculptures in the garden, as well.

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Life in gardens: Kew tea house

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Kew Garden tea hse burned, LoC“Tea House, Kew Gardens,* burned by suffragettes,” February 1913, by Bain News Service, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Twelve days earlier, Kew’s orchid house had been attacked, although much less seriously: a window was broken and some specimens were destroyed.

There was £900 of damage to the tea house building.  Unfortunately, the owners — two women — had only insured it for £500.

Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton, of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), were arrested on the night of the attack and later sentenced to 18 months each in Holloway prison. Both were released early after going on hunger strikes.

WSPU members also used acid to burn the words “votes for women” into the greens of golf courses.

*Located 10 miles west of central London, U.K.