Category: plants

Uptown garden

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“Artist’s uptown residence,” New York City, ca. 1860, via Robert Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views, New York Public Library.

Detail from above image.

Upper Manhattan at this time was rapidly transforming from country to city — as villages and small farms became blocks of middle-class rowhouses. This backyard, with its neat latticed sitting area and then large cabbage garden, seems to encapsulate the change.

Detail.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the name of the artist or the address. Is he one of the two men in top hats sitting by the door, or was she standing in front of them, balancing a small boy on the fence — or maybe taking the picture?

Tulip fields

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Having a picnic near the tulip bulb fields of Aalsmeer, the Netherlands, 1960, via Collectie SPAARNESTAD, Nationaal Archief Commons on flickr.

The largest flower auction in the world is in Aalsmeer. There’s an interesting video clip of it here.

U.S. Botanic Garden

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Euphorbia milii, U.S. Botanic Garden, Washington, D.C., 1920, by National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The plant is a native of Madagascar. Its common name is “crown of thorns.”

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

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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.