The lantern slides

Cindy at enclos*ure19 Comments

This is really exciting.  Yesterday, the Library of Congress released online the digital images of more than 1,000 hand-colored, glass-plate lantern slides of gardens taken (mostly) by Frances Benjamin Johnston.

The images in the collection were taken from 1895 to 1935.  Originally black and white photographs, Johnston had them hand tinted and made into slides to illustrate her popular garden lectures, which she gave to garden clubs, horticultural societies, and museum audiences from 1915 to 1930.  As part of the Garden Beautiful Movement, she encouraged Americans to grow gardens on tenement lots, in row-house yards and in parks, which had deteriorated from industrial pollution and neglect during the Gilded Age.

The slides have not been seen in public since Johnston last projected them during her lectures.  They depict more than 200 sites — primarily private gardens — in all regions of the United States and in Europe.  The entire collection, 1,130 digital images, can be found in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, here.

I’ve just begun to enjoy this beautiful resource, but here are 11 images that I pulled out quickly during my first enthusiastic look.

The photo above is of Chateau of Bréau, Dammarie-les-Lys, Seine-et-Marne, France.  July 1925. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

The Touchstone Garden, New York, New York. Sculpture exhibition, summer 1919.

“Cliveden,” Viscount Waldorf Astor house, Taplow, Buckingham, England.  Long Garden, summer 1925.

Myron Hunt house, 200 North Grand Avenue, Pasadena, California. Garden Terrace, spring 1917.

“Inellan,” Walter Douglas house, Channel Drive, Montecito, California.  Pathway to Pacific Ocean, spring 1917.

“Flagstones,” Charles Clinton Marshall house, 117 East 55th Street, New York, New York.  Tea house/sleeping porch.

“Gray Gardens,” Robert Carmer Hill house, Lily Pond Lane, East Hampton, New York, New York.  View to Garden Trellis.

West Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.  Irises along the embankment, April 1905.

Dr. Charles William Richardson house, Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C.   Irises, 1921.

“The Fens,” Lorenzo Easton Woodhouse house, Hunting Lane, East Hampton, New York. Pergola, 1914.

Unidentified city garden, probably in New York, New York.  Pathway, 1922.

A selection of 250 of the color images can also be seen in a new book by house and garden historian Sam Watters, Gardens for a Beautiful America, 1895-1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston.  It will be published this month by Acanthus Press, in association with the Library. ($79, here — not yet available.)

The Library of Congress is the repository of Johnston’s personal papers and approximately 20,000 photographs. But the lantern slides lacked garden names, locations, and dates and, therefore, had not been released to  general public access.  Watters took on the challenge of cataloging the collection, and after five years of research in libraries and archives, he has transformed vague earlier library notations into detailed data.  For example, an unlabeled slide was recognized as a prize winner in a 1922 design contest and is now identified as “The Janitor’s Garden, 137 E. 30th St., New York City.”

For more information about Frances Benjamin Johnston, see here and here.

Cherry tree clouds

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I spotted these clipped cherry trees in mid March, in front of a George Washington University administration building, and they made me smile.

The Washington, D.C., area has a lot of Prunus avium, so I liked it that someone took a few liberties with three of them.

the clouds of

a thousand skies from

cherry buds

— Saigyo Hoshi, Japanese poet, 1118-1190

A Brassica moment

Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

On the same day that I walked by the White House, I visited the Smithsonian Institution’s Heirloom Garden at the American History Museum and its Butterfly Garden beside the Natural History Museum to see how they look in early spring.

In both, the SI gardeners were putting forward Brassicas — ornamental kale, cabbage, and red mustard.

In the American History Museum entrance planter, yellow predominates, not from forsythia, but from the flowers of ornamental kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) and red mustard (Brassica juncea). Here’s the link to how it was planted last summer.

Now it’s filled with dusty miller, violas, and two Brassicas. I did not see any labels, but I’m pretty sure that the lacy white one on the sides is B. oleracea ‘Peacock White’  and the other one with light purple/light green leaves in the center is B. juncea ‘Red (or Ruby) Streaks,’ a mustard mizuna.

The museum’s big blue pots are also planted in purple kale (I think it may be B. oleracea ‘Peacock Red’) and violas. (You can click on any photo to enlarge it.)

At the Mall entrance to the Butterfly Garden, below, various Brassicas stood out, along with yellow tulips and violas.

These photos show ruffled dark purple B. oleracea ‘Redbor,’ as well as (I think) ‘Garnet Giant’ red mustard (in the center above) and Johnnie jump-up violas.  The lacy light-purple/light-green plant is B. juncea ‘Red (or Ruby) Streaks.’

I think the tall, dark blue-green kale in the foreground below is dinosaur kale, maybe ‘Lacinato’ or ‘Cavalo Nero.’  Unfortunately, it was not labeled.

Below are ‘White Peacock’ kale.

I didn’t find a label for the very dark purple kale below.  They may be ‘Redbors’ that are just more mature and darker than the other specimens.

The cabbages in the front of the bed below are ‘Red Drumhead,’ with a row of dinosaur kale behind them.

At the entrance are more dinosaur kale.  Here’s the link to what they looked like last summer.

Here and here are some links to growing ornamental kale.

To scroll through larger versions of all the photos above, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on the first thumbnail in the gallery.

ADDENDUM: In Paris, in March, I spotted some lovely flower beds on the Champs Elysees planted only with various-colored primroses and regularly interspersed tall flowering ornamental kale (something like B. oleracea ‘Redbor’). Unfortunately, I was on a bus and couldn’t get a picture.

Continue reading “A Brassica moment” →