Green Passion plant nursery — which I visited yesterday — has beautiful, healthy plants and knowledgable owners who speak French and English.
It’s located on Avenue du Lac Kivu in Kigali, Rwanda.
You can scroll through larger images by clicking on ‘Continue reading’ below.
“Ladies seated at their embroidery, including one engaged in lace-making, and another at the virginal, with a man beside her singing. Behind, a formal garden, with clipped hedges, parterres, and fountain.”
The image is from the Album Amicorum of Gervasius Fabricius, 1603-1637, (Würzburg and Salzburg) via The British Library Commons on flickr.
It’s hard to see how any of them could work over their ruffs.
Now for women instead of laborious studies, they have curious Needle-workes, Cut-workes, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devises of their own making, to adorne their houses, Cushions, Carpets, Chairs, Stooles, confections, conserves, distillations, etc. which they shew to strangers. . . . This they have to busie themselves about, household offices, etc. neate gardens full of exotick, versicoloure, diversely varied, sweet smelling flowers, and plants, in all kindes, which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keepe, proud to possesse, and much many times to bragge of.
— Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621
. . . to the White House, Washington, D.C., March 1922, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Thomas Jefferson, the second President to occupy the White House, directed that hundreds of small trees be planted in groves around the grounds (none of them exist today).
John Quincy Adams was the first to add ornamental trees. Andrew Jackson brought in the first sycamores, elms, and maples.
There’s more about the history of the White House gardens and grounds here.
What kind of small tree/large shrub do you think this was?
I never before knew the full value of trees. My house is entirely embossomed in high plane-trees, with good grass below; and under them I breakfast, dine, write, read, and receive my company. What would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.
—Thomas Jefferson to his daughter, Martha, (from Philadelphia), 1793
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a whole greenhouse devoted to growing violets for the house during the cold weather months?
Or orchids and palms?
Frances Benjamin Johnston took the above photographs (except one) in 1889 and 1890.
Or azaleas?
A large conservatory complex occupied the west side of the White House from 1857. . .
until 1902, when the West Wing was built.
All photos above via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Four more winter gardens are here.
The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.— Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, from “Sonnet“
“Woman standing beside potted begonias on porch, message from Rosa to Alice on back.” Via the Samuel Bell Maxey Collection of the Texas State Archives Commons on flickr.
Beautiful plant. Conditions must have been ideal on the porch. Or was it recently evicted from the living room for taking up too much space?
Unfortunately, Rosa’s message to Alice is not revealed. A thank you note for the original cuttings? Or just a little gardening conversation/showing off?
I’m also curious about whether the chicken wire all along the front railings was supporting vining plants or keeping animals (or even chickens) back.
The Archives’ photostream gives no information on the photographer, location, or date for this image. The Samuel Bell Maxey Collection includes the late 19th and early 20th century photographs of the Maxey family of Paris, (northeastern) Texas.
enclos*ure 