Category: plants

July Bloom Day: my caladium

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Sorry, I’m a day late for Bloom Day. . .

caladium bloom

The most interesting blooms in the garden this month are on my caladium, almost entirely hidden underneath its leaves.

caladium leaves

I never considered that caladiums could bloom — I think their showy leaves are usually thought of as substitutes for flower color.  However, when they do, online advice says to cut off the spathes to keep all nutrients going to the leaves.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is the 15th of every month. To see what’s blooming this week in other bloggers’ gardens, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Follow Up is today, the 16th of every month. Check out more beautiful leaves at Digging.

Vintage landscape: Danville, Virginia

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Oak Hill, Danville, Va,1930s, via Library of CongressMore massive boxwood hedges — this time at Oak Hill, near Danville, Virginia, ca. 1930s, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The house was built in 1825 by the Hairston family. It burned down in 1988.

Vintage landscape: brick walk

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genthe autochrome, steps, via LoC
“Women on the steps of a multi-story white building with dark timbering,” between 1906 and 1942 (I think before 1920), an autochrome by Arnold Genthe, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The small size of the digital copy of this image makes it difficult to be sure whether the walk areas are brick (like the steps). But I believe they are. (They could be something like decomposed granite.) I love how the tree has been preserved as part of the space.

Life in gardens: Foix, France

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Balcon aux rosiers, chalet de E. Trutat, Foix, c. 1903, Library of ToulouseTwo women and a young boy next to a balcony of roses at the Trutat chalet, Foix in the Midi-Pyrénées of France.

The autochrome was taken ca. 1903 by Eugène Trutat, via Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.

Look, Delia, how w’ esteem the half-blown rose
The image of thy blush and summer’s honour.  .  .

— Samuel Daniel, from “Delia 31“

Vintage landscape: green roof

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Fellesgamme i Nesseby. Høytørk.1900. Preus museumMan and woman work in front of a joint sod hut covered in grass and flowers, near the village of Vestre Jakobeselv, Norway.  Taken 1900 by Ellisif Rannveig Wessell, via Preus Museum Commons on flickr.

Living in Finnmark, in the far northeastern part of Norway, Wessel photographed the hard lives of its rural poor.  The Preus Museum — Norway’s national museum of photography — compares her to Jacob A. Riis and Lewis Hine.

She developed her own glass plates and used sunlight to make her prints.

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.

— Mark Twain, “Warm Summer Sun“