Vintage landscape: flowers and cabbages

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“A cottage & garden, Alaska,” ca. 1909-1920. By National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

A similar photo of this cottage was labeled “a sourdough’s home.” The word ‘sourdough’ was slang in Alaska for an oldtimer, probably from the Klondike gold rush.  You can click on the image to enlarge it.

                        O cabbage gardens
summer’s elegy
                        sunset survived
— Susan Howe, from “Cabbage Gardens”

Another summer, continued

Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

I thought you might like to see some photos of my parents’ garden in Northern Virginia — the one which surrounds  last week’s “Wordless Wednesday” stepping stone.  I took these pictures last August, before we left for Rwanda.

Tara Dillard often writes in her blog about beautiful landscapes shaped by the “poverty cycle.”   My parents have a deer cycle.

Every summer, the deer pass through the garden, the old Christmas tree field, and the woods — eating and eating.  Their numbers have increased over the garden’s 30-year existence, as farmed and forested lands have been lost to suburban development.

The result is a planting palette dominated by species that deer don’t like:  boxwood, cherry laurels, beautyberry, Miscanthus grass, lamb’s ear, Liriope, Hellebores, Russian sage.

The hollies, Aucuba, Hostas, Viburnums, and Solomon’s seal — which deer do like — are protected, with some success, by lines of nylon filament and and smelly sprays.  The two dogs occasionally rise to a bark and a brief pretend chase, but mostly ignore the passing herds.

My mother misses her old daylily collection, but she also loves watching each year’s crop of fawns.  I think the drifts of silvery grey, lavender, lime, and dark green are peaceful and perfectly set off the gorgeous view of the mountains.

Click on any thumbnail below and enjoy.

The garden and view from the patio on the first of three terraces. A small pond is hidden by the arbor.
The view from the pond. The area is planted with lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina), Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), and a bright green small creeping sedum. You can also see the spent stalks of naked lady lilies (Lycoris squamigera) and some irises.
The arbor, built by my father, holds Clematis montana. In the foreground is beautyberry, Hellebores, and wild violets. The center holly has been limbed up by the deer. My father also built the stone retaining walls, using stone from the woods. On the top terrace (hidden by the arbor) is a patio area covered by a pergola.
Clear filament protects Viburnums and Hostas. The dark green plants in the background are Hellebores.
Hellebores border a path from the woods to the pond.
The pond.
A tall persimmon tree and a perennial bed that covers the site of an old sinkhole. Beyond is the old Christmas tree farm.
The view of distant mountains.
Sophie hunts in the Miscanthus; a grove of persimmon trees is in the background.
A birdhouse surrounded by Buddleia, goldenrod, and Miscanthus.
View from the house.
Looking down from the top terrace level and pergola.
My grandparent’s garden chairs.
“Tread lightly.”
Stepping stones with the imprints of grandchildren’s hands and feet.
The holly over the bench was limbed up by the deer.
Lichens on the bench.
A high fence protects the vegetable garden.
We brought this sculpture made from old auto parts back from Niger.

Interior vintage landscape

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“Interior of large circus tent,” c. 1907 by F.W. Glasier, via Library of Congress.

. . . and when the circus leaves
the trampled ground will
once more overgrow with grass.

— Miroslav Holub, “Dreams“

You know there’s a story here

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“Mrs. Harriman [Florence Jaffrey] does [not] burn fences behind her. Washington, D.C. May 27 [,1927].

“In leaving for her new post as American Minister to Norway, Mrs J. Borden Harriman is not burning but leaving her fences behind her. The last time Mrs. Harriman was away from her Capitol home for any length of time she found a load of dirt from the excavation for the new home of the late Raymond T. Baker dumped on her front lawn upon her return. She sued for $23,000 but the case was settled out of court. This time she has had a high fence constructed around her property to prevent a recurrence of the same thing.”

Mrs. Harriman’s complaint said “that on the 22d of April, 1931, the defendants, ‘with force and arms, did break and enter into and upon the said ground of the plaintiff, and trod down, trampled upon, consumed, destroyed, and spoiled the grass, herbage, shrubbery, ornamental trees, then and there growing and being of great value,’ etc.”

Perhaps the fence should be even higher.

Photo by Harris & Ewing; both it and text in quotes via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.  Mrs. Harriman’s home was at the intersection of Ridge and Reservoir Roads — I believe in the Pallisades neighborhood (although I haven’t found a Ridge Road that intersects with Reservoir).

Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge.
— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

Thanks to the blog Living in Kigali for including enclos*ure in their list of “Super Fabulous Rwanda-Related Websites.”