Vintage landscape: Bluff Hall gate

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What a great old gate at Bluff Hall, Demopolis, Alabama, in 1936. I love the fat finials.

The playwright Lillian Hellman may have passed through this gate in the first decades of the 20th century.  Her mother’s family was from Demopolis, and she visited there as a child.  She later used the town as inspiration for the setting of The Little Foxes.  Lionnet is said to have been based on Bluff Hall and another local mansion.

Today the house is on the National Register of Historic Places and is open to the public as a museum.

Photo: by Alex Bush for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Leicester Square

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In London, in September, we went to TKTS at Leicester Square to buy discounted theater tickets.*

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While there, I really admired this sinuous bench/hedge/fence combination, which enclosed the central garden areas of the square — particularly the use of highly polished steel for the railings.

(You can put your cursor over the slideshow to bring up a ‘pause’ button.)

The square was recently re-designed by Burns+Nice, with the installation completed in May of this year.

*We saw “Yes, Prime Minister,” which probably ought to have remained a half-hour sitcom, but was a lot of fun nevertheless.

Look under here

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Studio G has a nice post today about a rooftop garden in New York City with some turned-up decking. It made me remember this 2007 photo, which I took in front of the city hall in Paris.

In which we learn some elegant French

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Well, maybe not, but this French government ad carries an important message.

Below, the tagline in the lower right corner roughly translates as ‘eating, that’s good; throwing away, that sucks (ça craint!*).’

“I love food, I respect it.”

Chaque Français jette . . . “Every French person throws an average of 20 kgs. of food in the trash can each year.”

According to the FAO,  a European generates 60-110 kgs. (130-240 lbs.) of food waste yearly; an American, 95-115 kgs. (210-250 lbs.); a person from a developing country, 6-11 kgs. (13-24 lbs.).

“Don’t waste a crumb, finish your plate.”

For more information, see the campaign webpages here and here.  And there’s more about French food at French Food in the U.S.

I spotted these posters on the wonderful blog about gardening in Paris, Paris coté jardin, by Alain Delavie.

*Also means ‘that’s dangerous.’  ‘That sucks’ can also be ‘c’est nul.’