In 1831 Mount Auburn in Cambridge, MA was the first American rural cemetery, built to provide a place of burial, but also a park that would attract visitors on the weekend to enjoy a bit of nature. Trees, shrubs, winding…
As I have written before on this blog, I like to use what I am currently reading for a new post . Just picked up the book Grounds for Pleasure: Four Centuries of the American Garden by Denise Otis. The…
The Missouri Botanical Garden began in the mid-nineteenth century as the garden of businessman Henry Shaw (1800-1889). He later gave his garden to the city of St. Louis so that visitors could learn about plants and horticulture. It was no…
At the August Garden Writers Associaton annual meeting, held this year in Indianapolis, I took a short walk around the hotel. On that excursion I noticed in a courtyard the trumpet vine, hanging off a trellis a half-city block long.…
The Victorian period in the nineteenth century included carpet beds and ribbon beds, made up of colorful annuals, which often appeared on the lawn in various shapes. William Webster was a popular Rochester,New York landscape gardener or designer. In the…