The Sunday porch: Petworth rowhouses

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. . . . . Houses in rows
Patient as cows.

— Robert Pinsky, from “City Elegies — III. House Hour“

Petworth rowhousesRows of houses in the Petworth neighborhood, Washington, D.C., ca. 1920-1950, by Theodor Horydczak, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Petworth was farm and forest until the 1880s when the land was purchased for development.  In the 1920s and 30s, thousands of rowhouses were built, many of them in a style popularized by developer Harry Wardman (from 1907) — with its distinctive elevated front porch and tiny front yard.

Wardman-style rowhousesAbove:  Petworth rowhouses on Shepherd St., 2010, by Carol Highsmith, via Library of Congress.

“The porches [were] a big part of growing up in Petworth.  On my block there had to be 15 or 20 kids, and you’d come home from school, get on the porch, and look down the block, and you could see this long row of porches, and you’d see everybody coming out of their house. The porches made you get to know your neighbors, they made it a neighborhood.”

— A Petworth resident in the 1940s, quoted in the Washington City Paper

Wardman built his front porch rowhouses in large parts of northwest Washington, and several other developers copied them all over D.C.

Petworth was named a “Best Old House Neighborhood of 2013” by the magazine This Old House.

back yards and laundryAbove: backyards of rowhouses, neighborhood not noted, Washington, D.C., July 1939, by David Myers, via Library of Congress.

At the backs of Wardman-style rowhouses were screened sleeping porches (top) and kitchen porches (bottom).

Petworth resident Annette L. Olson decided to install a green roof on the top of her rowhouse front porch.  She wrote about the process for the “Where We Live” column of The Washington Post here.

Back here in Kigali. . .

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We have orchids in the acacia tree.
34 orchids

1c orchids

These two clumbs of orchids came out of the big old Norfolk pine that used to grow at the entrance to the terrace. (It was cut down a year and a half ago when it was clear it was dying.)

1 orchids

When we wired them onto the acacia, the gardener said the flowers were yellow, but I really didn’t think I’d ever see them bloom.

1a orchids

1b orchids

5 orchids

Another change: at the end of the long lawn (below), we have added two tall pots to set off a trio of pine trees.

10 pots

I will plant something tall to the right of the trees/pots grouping.

12 pots

At the other end of the lawn, I placed this single tall pot. I will enlarge the planting area at the base of the traveller’s palm and add some stones to make a level base for the pot.

13 pots

And finally, I faced the fact that my stepping stones and grass arrangement (below) on the right side of the entrance to the terrace just didn’t work. (The aforementioned Norfolk pine used to fill this area.)

Before

We (meaning the gardener mostly) took up all the grass and stones . . .

21 front

and we replanted (meaning me) with the same plants that are in the borders around the driveway:

front circle

Mexican sage, small pink shrub roses (like ‘The Fairy’), datura, lambs’ ear, and yellow day lilies.

23 front

I’m still working on the placement of the pots. Please stay tuned.

The Heirloom Garden in early fall

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During the last week of September, I took a walk around the Heirloom Garden of the Museum of American History and was filled — once again — with admiration for the Smithsonian Institution’s horticulture division.

The garden — huge, raised planters, all the way around the building — contains a mix of open-pollinated plants cultivated in America prior to 1950. The perennials and annuals are anchored by crape myrtles and a variety of shrubs.

The space is very large, open, and — at the south entrance — crowded with tourists. Still, the beautiful long borders, which were being allowed to fade with fall naturally, offered a surprisingly intimate and even soulful experience.

You can see more Heirloom Garden pictures here.

One would have thought, (so cunningly the rude
And scorned partes were mingled with the fine,)
That Nature had for wantonesse ensude
Art, and that Art at Nature did repine;
So striving each th’ other to undermine,
Each did the others work more beautify;
So diff’ring both in wills agreed in fine:
So all agreed through sweete diversity,
This gardin to adorne with all variety.

— Edmund Spenser, from “In the Bower of Bliss”

The Sunday porch: Nicholas County, Kentucky

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The Sunday porch/enclos*ure: 1940 Kentucky farmhouse, by John Vachon, Library of Congress

Just one more porch photographed by John Vachon — this one in Nicholas County, Kentucky, in November 1940.*

What frills attached to such a simple farmhouse and yard.

The Sunday porch/enclos*ure: 1940 Kentucky farmhouse, by John Vachon, Library of Congress

Her dress goes with the house and her curls with the porch.

*via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Here’s one little dream. . .

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To have a pied-à-terre in Brussels and to have it be on Rue de la Cigogne.

Street of the Stork.
The 1780 “porch” at the Rue Rempart des Moines entrance.
I think I see the house. (And check out the beautiful streetlamp.)
The pink one on the left.
Yes, that’s the one.
Looking back. Sigh. . .
Or maybe this house with the little door?
Or the one with the stone lintel from 1596?
Leaving by the entrance on Rue de Flandre.

Rue de la Cigogne is a ruelle or alleyway about 70 m. (230′) long between Rue Rempart des Moines and Rue de Flandre in the neighborhood of Dansaert.

Click any thumbnail in the gallery above to scroll through larger images.

All day all over the city every person
Wanders a different city, sealed intact
And haunted as the abandoned subway stations
Under the city. Where is my alley doorway?

— Robert Pinsky, from “City Elegies — I. The Day Dreamers“