A woman admiring a garden at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, St. Louis, ca. 1910 to ca. 1935, via simpleinsomnia on flickr, under CC license.
On the back of the photo: “Shaw’s gardens. This gives wrong impression of you.”
The front window
“Mrs. Herman Perry in her home at Mansfield, Iron County, Michigan,” May 1937, by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Look through the net curtains at her tomato plants in tin cans. I wonder if she really waited until the average last frost date* for zone 18 — which is currently between July 1 and 10 — to put them in the ground.
Lee took the photo on assignment for the U.S. Farm Security Administration. Mrs. Perry was “the wife of an oldtime iron miner who worked in the mines before they were abandoned.”
*The average first frost date is between September 1 and 10.
In a vase on Monday: peonies
For each of the last two springs in this house, the peony plant in the back yard has given me exactly one bloom. This week, there were eight — all but two opening fully on the same day. Their stems are very curved from being knocked over earlier in the month by a late snow and then rain and wind. Next year, I will try to remember to rig up some sort of support before they emerge.
The blooms look red, but they’re actually a very dark pink, and they have a nice light scent. I arranged them with some wild pink geranium that comes up along the back fence (maybe G. palustre?) and some sweet woodruff. The Westerwald salt-glazed pottery pitcher is from this Saturday’s flea market.
To see what other bloggers have put in a vase today, please visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. She hosts this Monday theme.
The Sunday porch: Georgia
“[H]ouse with picket fence, man and dog seated on porch and a dog lying on the sidewalk,” Georgia, ca. 1899, photographer unknown, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
This photo was in one of the several albums depicting African-American life that W. E. B. Du Bois compiled to exhibit at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair.
Click on the image for a little better view.
Lisbon, Portugal
Luís de Camões Square, Lisbon, between 1933 and 1983, by Estúdio Mário Novais, via Art Library of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Commons on flickr, under CC license.
The 1867 sculpture is of Camões, a 16th century epic poet. The square looks much the same today, but the design of the paving tile (Portuguese pavement or calcada Portuguesa) is different.
enclos*ure 