Posts
Easton’s Waterfowl Festival has celebrated its duck and goose heritage since the middle of the 20th Century. Here is Charlie Hughes, a young collector of decoys explaining his interest in the blue goose by Oliver Larson of Crisfield, mallards by Dan Brown of Salisbury, hooded merganser by Eddie Dean of Hoopers Island.
Crotons, Birds of Paradise, teas and spices, were all sought after by the explorers of the “New World.” How did the explorers bring the seeds back to their mother country using the Wardian Case? Conservatories and greenhouses were modeled on the Crystal Palace built in 1851 to showcase the plants discovered.
Built for James Deering in 1912 on Biscayne Bay south of Miami Beach, Florida, Vizcaya sits on 130 acres. Paul Chalfin helped Deering decorate both the interior and exterior gardens including the lovely interior courtyard.
Dr. John A. Snyder tells us not to live life in the key of “Middle C.” The brain is altered with pharmaceuticals, “medicines” that try to put us in the middle. Healthy human beings should be able to experience life’s pleasures and pains inherently.
Site specific abstract metal sculpture designed and created by Mary Ann Mears was display at Ladew Topiary Gardens. Mears created “Red Buoyant” in the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, and “Imagination Station” in Bethesda, Maryland. Her work is inspired by nature, growing natural forms.
Freedom’s Gardener, James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America, by Myra B. Young Armstead, is a book about a slave who became a master gardener and died a freeman. James F. Brown kept diaries between 1829-1866. Professor of History at Bard College, NY, Armstead brings to light how the citizens of the […]
A friend gave me the book, “A Walk Through My Garden” edited by Whitney Scott. I was looking for my Mother and came upon a poem, “Roses for My Mother,” by Evewlyn Lewis-Chase. Her endearing poem promoted my musing and picture … Mothers of Roses Bring Beauty Bring Sorrow Mothers of Roses Make Gardeners of […]
Ethne Clarke’s book, An Infinity of Graces tells the story of Cecil Ross Pinsent, an English architect in the Italian landscape. Mr Pinsent, as described by Ms. Clarke, “was trained not to look at any style…but with the full knowledge of what had been done in the past….” The time of Mr. Pinsent’s work was […]
Tapis vert, tapis vert, tapis vert. You are slowly walking between columns of oak and ilex with a carpet of grass under your feet. Yes, pull away those blankets of snow. There is a gateway ahead of you. A hermitage high on the hill. Just climb those scala santa. Edith Wharton wrote about the tapis […]
Hidcote Ethne Clarke paints a fascinating picture of an American expatriate who designs one of the foremost gardens in Great Britain pre and post WWI in her book, “Hidcote, The Making of a Garden,” published by W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Major Lawrence Johnston’s garden, Hidcote is a garden treasure in England, the first garden […]