Garden History Quote of the Week

"Democrats favored the formal European approach while Republicans opted for the picturesque English style." from a discussion of t...

The Viele Map

"In connection with this brief account of the origin of the Central Park, it seems appropriate here to notice the topographical atlas o...

Langston Hughes' Children's Garden, Harlem, 1955

From The Life of Langston Hughes, by Arnold Rampersad, found at cityfarmer "In the backyard at 20 East 127th Street, (Mr. Langston’s ho...

The fantasmic topiary of Pearl Fryar

“Gardening books will tell you that some of these things in my garden can’t be done, but I had never read them when I got started. Not knowi...

How to Grow Cabbages and Cauliflowers Most Profitably

Those inclined towards horticultural and agricultural history will be pleased to find a very thorough bibliography devoted to the History of...

More Outsider Art in the Garden: Roadside Grottoes

Rustic, do-it-yourself garden endeavors, by untrained artists at Pluto-like distances from any traditional art milieu, seem much more common...

Outsider Art in the Garden: the sculptures of William Edmondson

While recently in Nashville I got to see an exhibition of sculpture by William Edmondson, the first African American to have a one-man show ...

Herbert Bayer's Earthworks

From reader Brice Maryman comes the news that the Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks of Herbert Bayer in Kent, Washington, have been designated a...

Bellwood Plantation and the Southern Swept Yard

If you can bear one more post derived from Bellwood... I'm particularly fascinated by the two yards created in this landscape, as define...

Bellwood Plantation - the House and its Axis

The house itself is a modification of the Greek Revival style whose popularity had drifted across the pond from the likes of James 'Athe...

Bellwood Plantation - the Wilderness

I'm still thinking about Bellwood Plantation, pictured in the previous post . A quick google turns up many Bellwoods, but unfortunately ...

Garden History Groups in the USA

For those of you wishing you were in London to volunteer with the Parks and Gardens trust, there are a few local garden history groups here ...

Because it's Beautiful...Boston Parks

Used to be 25 cents, now it's $135 from rulon-miller books. "Boston Park guide including the municipal and metropolitan systems of ...

Garden for an American Craftsman House

The bungalows from the early twentieth century (c. 1890-1930) we in America refer to as 'Craftsman' houses are often now, in the twe...

Previous Art Installation in Madison Park and the New York Public Library Image Collection

A previous art installation at Madison Park was this high-rise birdhouse, from an 1871 print in the collection of the New York Public Librar...

Philbrook garden history

The reason Italian villas (and Italianate gardens) built in the early twentieth century dot the Midwestern landscape like some alien species...

my first garden

Everybody knows a garden...quite simply a landscape that is in some way, more or less, intervened with--designed. But who planted it, and wh...