Category: working in the garden

“By any other name . . .” would be wrong

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Plant by plant, I am putting names to the flowering shrubs in our Rwanda garden. Here are two more, supplied by the readers of Fine Gardening’s Garden Photos of the Day, from my pictures on Monday and Wednesday.

Eranthemum nervosum (aka E.pulchellum) or blue sage or blue eranthemum has gentian blue flowers, as you can see.  In the family Acanthaceae, it is native to India.  It will grow 4′-6′ and likes light shade.  It will grow in the garden in (U.S.) zones 10b and 11. (I think all the shrubs in this post would be suitable for pots in colder climates.)

Brunfelsia latifolia (aka B. australis) or yesterday, today, and tomorrow plant is native to South America.  It is very fragrant at night.  Our largest specimen, which needs pruning, is about 5′ tall, 4′ wide.  It is in the same family as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and petunias — Solanaceae or nightshade.

Y.T.T. likes well drained, moist soil and full sun to part shade — its habitats are light woodlands and thickets — and grows in the garden in (U.S.) zones 9-11.  The flowers open purple, then go to lavender, and then white.  The genus was named for early German herbalist Otto Brunfels (1464-1534).

I’m just showing this off.  I already knew its name.

Brugmansia is native to tropical South America and, like the Brunfelsia, is also in the family Solanaceae. It is also called angel’s trumpet or datura (the name of a closely related genus).  The semi-woody shrub can branch off like a small tree and grow to 6′-20′.  It has a fragrance in the evening. It likes moist, well-drained, fertile soil, full sun to part shade, and grows in the garden in (U.S.) zones 9-11.

Oiseau de France comme avant

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“Gardener standing alongside shrub trimmed into shape of a rooster, in garden at Villa Trianon, France,” about 1925. Click the photo to enlarge.

I have looked at a lot of photographs of topiary lately, but this one is particularly spiffy (beau, somptueux, resplendissant).

It’s from the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) was one of the first American women to achieve prominence as a professional photographer. After studying art in Paris, she returned home to Washington, D.C., in the 1880s and opened a photography studio about 1890. Her family’s social standing gave her access to the capital’s elite, including the First Family, politicians, and diplomats, and her business soon took off. In the 1910s, she turned to garden and estate photography.

Victory gardens

Cindy at enclos*ure15 Comments

I have been looking at vintage garden photos from the online catalog of the Library of Congress. These two — of 1943 victory gardens in northwest and southeast Washington, D.C. — are really charming.

This couple is heading home from their plot with their sailor whites still looking clean and sharp.

“Washington, D.C. Victory garden in the Northwest section,” 1943, by Louise Rosskam. Via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).

Below, Mrs. Carr seems to be present for moral support only, or perhaps she will take the next shift with the shovel.

“Washington, D.C. Leslie Edward Carr of the British Purchasing Commission with his wife at their victory garden on Fairlawn Ave., Southeast,” June 1943, by Joseph A. Horne. 

Louise Rosskam, who took the first photo above, was “one of the elusive pioneers of what has been called the golden age of documentary photography.” She took a number of pictures of the same group of northwest D.C. victory gardens in the spring of 1943. (Click on any of the photos to enlarge.)

I believe this is the couple in the first photo above.
Apartment buildings in the background.
Another couple working. I love her high-waisted, wide-leg white pants.
This lady also looks great in black gloves and snood and sunglasses.
The individual plots were outlined with field rocks.
Another gardener heading home by the same fence opening.
Buying victory garden supplies.

All the photos above (except that of the Carrs) are by Louise Rosskam, via the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

I believe these garden plots were in the neighborhood of Glover Park, where we have a house. According to the Glover Park Citizens Association, it established the first World War II victory garden in the city, at 42nd and Tunlaw Road. It still exists today as a community garden. (Alternatively, they may be of the Tilden victory gardens at Connecticut Avenue and Tilden Street, which Rosskam also photographed.)

This is a link to a short film made in the forties about how to prepare, plant, and harvest a 1/4 acre victory garden. It features a rural northern Maryland family and is an interesting look at home gardening advice and practices of the time.

The butterfly garden

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On the same early August day that I visited the Smithsonian’s Heirloom Garden, I also enjoyed a long walk back and forth through the Butterfly Habitat Garden, located on the east side of the National Museum of Natural History.

The garden is made up of plants that have specific relationships to the life cycles of eastern U.S. butterflies. As you walk along, you pass sections that mimic habitats important to the insects: wetlands, meadows, edges of woods, urban gardens.

It’s a long corridor really, bordered by busy 9th Street, N.W., on one side and the museum’s parking lot on the other. Yet, stepping in, you feel enveloped in another world, one that combines a little city polish with naturalism.

I offer these pictures from last summer as more inspiration for those in cold climates who are deep into their nursery catalogs and graph paper, planning for spring.

I haven’t labeled all the plants because the Smithsonian’s interactive map at this link has plant lists for each habitat.  (However, they do not include the grey-green plants in the first and seventh photos  [It’s dinosaur kale, possibly Brassica oleracea var. acephala ‘Lacinato’ or ‘Cavalo Nero’] or the tall plants with the small, purple, fuzzy blooms in the tenth.  [It’s Ironweed, Vernonia.  Thanks James Golden.]  Can anyone identify them?  I feel they are just on the tip of my brain.)

To see much larger versions of the slideshow photos, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then click on the first thumbnail. You’ll be able to scroll through the images in succession. Continue reading “The butterfly garden” →

A Kodachrome heirloom

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Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

This photo of a homesteader’s garden in Pie Town, New Mexico, September 1940, was taken by Russell Lee, a photographer of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information. It was part of a 2006 Library of Congress exhibition of early color images taken between 1939 and 1943, “Bound for Glory: America in Color.” Thanks to links by Studio G and The Denver Post.

Click this link to see a larger version or to buy a print.  Click here to see another view of the same homesteader’s garden.