Farmhouse with sod roof, western Norway, ca. 1890-1910, via Fylkesarkivet i Sogn go Fjordane Commons on flickr.
The stone foundation, steps, and terracing are beautiful. Also note the ladder-type device that the man on the right is using to pick fruit. Click on the image for a larger view.
Lady Henry Somerset and T.P. O’Connor in a garden distributing cabbages to children, between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915, Bain News Service, via Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Lady Henry (born Lady Isabel Cocks) was an heiress who married the second son of the Duke of Beaufort. After the couple separated, she turned to charity work on her various properties. She later became president of the British Women’s Temperance Association and a campaigner for birth control and women’s suffrage. In 1913, the readers of the London Evening News voted her their choice for first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Thomas Power O’Connor was an Irish journalist who founded and edited several newspapers in London. He was also a member of Parliament for the Irish Nationalist Party and later as an independent (representing Galway and then Liverpool).
I cannot tell what plants are growing in the flower (?) beds, but they are sectioned off — perhaps by bloom color?
“‘City farmer’ tends garden in the Fenway, administered by the 600-member Fenway Civic Association. Four hundred twenty-five personal gardens are tilled on these five acres in Metropolitan Boston, [Massachusetts],” May 1973, by Ernst Halberstadt, via U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.
This photo was taken for DOCUMERICA, an early photography program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
From 1972 to 1977, the EPA hired over 100 photographers to “document subjects of environmental concern.” They created an archive of about 20,000 images. In addition to recording damage to the nation’s landscapes, the project captured “the era’s trends, fashions, problems, and achievements,” according to the Archives, which held an exhibit of the photos, “Searching for the Seventies,” in 2013.
On a quick trip to Cambridge last week, I really liked this border of Echium pininana (or giant viper’s bugloss) along the lawn behind King’s College, here. (The building is actually part of Clare College.)
A different kind of foundation planting.
The biennials, which are native to the Canary Islands, can grow as tall as 13′ (or 4 m.). They want well-drained soil, full sun, and shelter from wind.
I also liked this wide walkway border of Queen’s Anne lace and long grass at the entrance to Trinity College.
The tree on the right is a grafted descendant of the apple tree that inspired Isaac Newton.
Palace of Horticulture, Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, San Francisco, California, 1915, an autochrome by an unknown photographer, via George Eastman Museum Commons on flickr.
The Exhibition was open from February to December 1915 and celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914. It also showcased the city’s recovery from the devastating 1906 earthquake. Its palaces and halls were built on a 635-acre site along the city’s northern shore, between the Presidio and Fort Mason.
“Constructed from temporary materials (primarily staff, a combination of plaster and burlap fiber), almost all the fair’s various buildings and attractions were pulled down in late 1915,” according to Wikipedia.
enclos*ure 