Pears, ca. 1940, Food Science and Technology Department Photographic Collection, via OSU (Oregon State University) Special Collections & Archives Commons on flickr.
Category: plants
Balmoral, Victoria
“Two children on a seesaw,” Balmoral area, Victoria, ca. 1925, from The Biggest Family Album in Australia Collection, via Museums Victoria Collections (under CC license).
This is a small circus. I love the bench in the back bending under the weight of the plants.
(You can enlarge the image by clicking on it.)
Boys, dogs, and a squash
“Boys with prize marrow and dogs,” Swan Hill, Victoria, 1923, by Kate Bradbury, via The Biggest Family Album in Australia, Museums Victoria Collections.
The boys are Gordon and Colin Bradbury.
A show of mums
The Library of Congress labels this photo “Agriculture Department Dahlia Show,” 1911, but I’m sure it’s from the USDA’s annual Chrysanthemum show, which was held in one of the Department’s greenhouses in Washington, D.C.
The first of the annual exhibitions opened in October of 1902. I haven’t been able to find out anything more about them, but they were still being held in 1937.
All the photos here are by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
My advice to the women of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.
— William Allen White (1868 – 1944)
I’m sure the same applied to mums.
Pasadena, California
The garden terrace of the Myron Hunt house, 200 North Grand Avenue, Pasadena, California, 1917, a hand-colored glass lantern slide by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
This looks like such a tranquil and comfortable garden space — while at the same time, just a little mysterious. If you look closely, you can see that there is a simple rope and board swing hanging from a tree limb in the center, and at least one of the chairs is a rocking chair.
Hunt was a successful architect in Southern California in the first half of the 20th century. He designed this house and garden for himself in 1905. Today, the house survives, but the garden is gone.
There is another Johnston image of the garden here, looking across an open garden room to the steps and elevated bust shown above.
enclos*ure 