Tag: zonal geraniums

The Sunday porch: geraniums

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More properly called by their genus name, Pelargonium.

Porch, Chamisal, New Mexico, Library of CongressAn enclosed front porch in Chamisal, New Mexico, July 1940, by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Lee and his wife, Jean, spent two weeks in Chamisal and Peñasco documenting the lives of the towns’ Hispanic small farmers and ranchers. Both communities are located along the High Road to Taos, which begins in Santa Fe and crosses the high desert and forest of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The area was the setting for the 1974 book  The Milagro Beanfield War — as well as the filming location for the 1988 movie of the same name.  Milagro was the first of a trilogy of novels by John Nichols about north central New Mexico.  The second and third books were set in the fictional town of Chamisaville.

The winter garden: Illinois farmhouse

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The winter garden/enclos*ure: farmhouse living room, Mercer County, Illinois, November 1936, by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress“Window of farmhouse living room. Mercer County, Illinois. Hired man lives in house on farm which was formerly residence of owner-operator,” November 1936.  Photo and caption by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

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Another winter garden is here.

Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

— Carl Sandburg, from “At a Window“

The Sunday porch: Charleston piazzas

Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

Charleston, S.C.Piazzas and garden, Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1910-20, by Detroit Publishing Co., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The double side porches of Charleston are traditionally called ‘piazzas’ (pee-AH-ahs), a term that came into local use about 1730.

It’s also a feature of the city’s 18th and 19th century homes to have the formal front door (behind the cute little dog above) open onto the lower piazza instead of to the interior of the house.

If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you can better see all the little terracotta pots and geraniums lined up on the shelves along the railings.

I’ve sent my empty pot again
To beg another slip;
The last you gave, I’m grieved to tell
December’s frost did nip.

I love fair Flora and her train
But nurse her children ill;
I tend too little, or too much;
They die from want of skill.

I blush to trouble you again,
Who’ve served me oft before;
But, should this die, I’ll break the pot,
And trouble you no more.

— Christian Milne, “Sent with a Flower-Pot Begging a Slip of Geranium”