This is an example of how nice an urban ‘hellstrip’ can be. It’s just to the west of the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. I took this photo in the last few days of September.
I think they are all American native plants. I see a fine grass I can’t identify (just visible in the top photo), goldenrod (‘Fireworks’?), amsonia (I think), and the seedheads of purple coneflower.
I like the arrangement of squares of a single species, one after another, rather than all of the plants in one long mix. It goes well with the surrounding architecture.
Sometimes I save a weed if its leaves
are spread fern-like, hand-like,
or if it grows with a certain impertinence.
I let the goldenrod stay and the wild asters.
I save the violets in spring. People who kill violets
Is this not a picture of fun? Two buckets full of loppers, pruners, saws, and even a couple of machetes.
Our recent visit to Washington, D.C., coincided with a September Saturday “Weeding Day” at Dumbarton Oaks Park, sponsored by the Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy. I have wanted to volunteer for one of these days for a couple of years — ever since learning about the group’s efforts to restore this Beatrix Farrand masterpiece, which is located behind the more famous Dumbarton Oaks Gardens.
Owned by the National Park Service since 1940, the park has suffered from invasive exotic plants and water runoff.
The morning started with Ann Aldrich, the Conservancy’s Program Director, making sure we knew how to recognize poison ivy. Then we all doused our exposed skin in Tecnu, a soap that mitigates the effects of exposure.
We learned that poison ivy was not one of the weeds we would be pulling — it is native to the area and an important source of (protein) food for birds.
(Good) poison ivy surrounded by (bad) porcelain berry, English ivy, Japanese stilt grass, and liriope.
We were clearing a meadow area just above the stone pump house (no. 2), on the right in the drawing below.
Below is a picture of the area before we started. . .
And below is what it looked like after we finished (about 3 1/2 hours later). We probably would have cleared out more above the old log, but there was a bees’ nest on the other side.
Ann has spent many a weekend this summer leading garden enthusiasts, college students, and D.C. schoolchildren in “weed warrior-ing.” There is so much to do, and I am so impressed with the group’s ambitious commitment to this lovely place.
As I was leaving, I stopped to admire the Arts and Crafts-style stonework of the dams that Farrand installed all along the little stream that runs through the park.
The Conservancy was just about to have a contractor make repairs to this area when the government shutdown put a halt to even volunteer efforts. (The Conservancy supports and is supervised by the National Park Service.) I hope the work is underway now. Earlier this year, the group was able to place compost filter socks (below) near the Lovers’ Lane entrance to the park.
They are preventing further damage from the water runoff that comes shooting down the small asphalt road that runs along Dumbarton Oaks Gardens.
I had a great time and I will definitely do it again when we move back to Washington (the park is an easy walk from our house). If you live in the D.C. area and would like to help, click here and ask to be put on the Conservancy’s mailing list.
Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy is also holding a fundraiser on November 7, 6:30 p.m., at The Josephine Butler Parks Center. Author Richard Guy Wilson will speak on “Edith Wharton at Home: Life on the Mount.” (Wharton was Farrand’s aunt.) Tickets are $35; click here for more information.
* Farrand actually specified porcelain berry vine to be grown over her arbors, which just makes me shudder.
Another photo by John Vachon — an old house with a double porch in Houston, Texas, May 1943.* I love the tower room.
You really need to click on the photo and enlarge it to enjoy all the details of this one.
Sharp-eyed commenters on the Library of Congress’s FlickrCommons project noticed that the address on the curb is 1900 Franklin Street. The location is currently a parking lot next to the US Route 59 overpass, close to Minute Maid Park.
*via Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs Collection, Library of Congress.
The front of this small gallery on Rue de Flandre (or Vlaamsesteenweg) in Dansaert shows how Brussels can be both charming and a little grim at the same time.
I took these pictures a week ago yesterday.
There’s a nice appreciation of the city on The Economist’sIntelligent Life website here.
The neighborhood of Dansaert starts about four blocks northwest of the Grand’Place and is definitely worth exploring, especially if you are interested in Belgian fashion design and/or food.
The gallery, Impasse Temps/Tijd Gang*, is staging a series of weekend exhibits on “Pattern(s)” between now and November 24.
Walking along the Book Hill section of Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, I crossed the street to take a few pictures of this arrangement. It wins my own “best in mums and sweet potato vines” award. (There’s a little English ivy in there too.)
It’s appropriately in front of an antiques shop that sells mid-century modern furniture.
I also liked this planter made from old roof tiles at Marston-Luce a few doors down.
And I love the frog.
It takes a calendar one damp day to declare fall,
weeks of dying mums to second the motion.
This is an example of how nice an urban ‘hellstrip’ can be. It’s just to the west of the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. I took this photo in the last few days of September.
I think they are all American native plants. I see a fine grass I can’t identify (just visible in the top photo), goldenrod (‘Fireworks’?), amsonia (I think), and the seedheads of purple coneflower.
enclos*ure 