Mahratta House & garden open day
Image by yewenyi
Mahratta' is one of Sydney's finest examples of an Art Deco home and the Paul Sorensen designed gardens are amongst his most beautiful.
Once every few years this magnificent private property is opened to the community. You are invited to a rare chance to wander around the 1.6 hectares of gardens which include rare exotic and native Australian plants, laid out by the famous Danish landscape architect Paul Sorensen.
These gardens are lovingly cared for primarily on a voluntary basis by the members of the School of Philosophy, the current owners and stewards of this historic home, and the gardens have never looked better.
Squash Garden House
Image by superfluity
Seven hundred years ago, several families of farmers lived in a collection of adobe and sandstone homes in a south-facing alcove in Upper Salt Creek, a 35-mile long canyon in what is now Canyonlands National Park. A spring once flowed from the cliff near their alcove, and water was abundant in the canyon. The wide floor of the canyon bottom allowed them to plant crops.
These families lived a life that was in some ways hard. The high desert is subject to drought and they endured exceptional heat in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. The ecology is fragile, and their use of wood for fire and building denuded the landscape and increased problems of erosion and flooding. As the environment deteriorated, many families in other parts of the canyon and throughout the region began to fear for their security and built their homes in alcoves high on the cliffs, accessible only with ladders that they could retract into the alcove at night.
But their lives were also rich in many ways, and much better than the lives of many contemporaneous people living in other parts of the world. They had a sophisticated agrarian economy, cultivating squash and corn, among other things, and storing their crop in sealed adobe granaries. They hunted bighorn and deer and small game. They created beautiful homes, decorated with traditional and religious designs. They painted the world around them, from their cookware to the walls of the canyons in which they lived. They painted the cycles of the moon and the rotation of their crops.
The family that lived in this small alcove in Upper Salt Creek grew squash in the garden they tended in front of their home. They ground the squash and corn on metates to make flour that could be stored throughout the winter.
When they left Salt Creek as part of a general migration away from the Colorado Plateau (perhaps due to drought, warfare, or a deteriorating environment), they left the garden behind, and they left remnant seeds in their granaries and middens.
Fed by the underground water source beneath their alcove, their squash garden has renewed itself for seven hundred consecutive years. Every year the big, leafy plants grow from seed; every year they produce squash, which are broken open and sometimes carried away by small animals.
Today, in the fall, you can visit what remains of the home these families left behind and see the squash growing in their garden. You can see the faint remains of the pictures they painted on the walls of the alcove and imagine the fields of corn they tended on the flat sandy bottom of the canyon, now covered with sage and blackbrush. And you can see the squash fruit that will renew the garden for one more year.
Dumbarton Oaks Gardens: South Facade: detail
Image by Penn State Libraries Pictures Collection
Title: Dumbarton Oaks Gardens: South Facade
Other title: Dumbarton Oaks Gardens (Washington, D.C.)
Creator: Farrand, Beatrix, 1872-1959
Creator role: Landscape Architect
Date: 1801 (house constructed) 1923-circa 1965
Current location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Description of work: The Dumbarton Oaks Gardens were designed by the noted landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand, in cooperation with her clients Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, who purchased the property in 1920. The formal gardens occupy 10 acres. The major work was completed between 1921 and 1941, although changes, notably the addition of the Pebble Garden and redesign of the Ellipse, continued to be made by Mrs. Bliss, working with Ruth Havey. Endowments were established expressly for the purpose of maintaining the gardens and for supporting a program of research in landscape architecture.
Description of view: South facade of house with semi-circular entrance stairs and front door flanked by columns.
Work type: Architecture and Landscape
Style of work: Federal
Culture: American
Materials/Techniques: Brick
Masonry
Source: DeTuerk, James (copyright James DeTuerk)
Resource type: Image
File format: JPEG, TIFF archived offline
Image size: 1397H X 2160W pixels
Permitted uses: This image is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. Other uses are not permitted. For additional details see: alias.libraries.psu.edu/vius/copyright/publicrightsarch.htm
Collection: Worldwide Building and Landscape Pictures
Filename: WB2007-0193 Dumbarton.jpg
Record ID: WB2007-0193
Sub collection: houses
gardens
Copyight holder: Copyright James DeTuerk
Fortification Design — 1862 Peninsula Campaign —
Image by cliff1066™
Inscription. The Confederate field fortifications constructed on the Virginia Peninsula were influenced by seventeenth-century French military engineer Marshal Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban and nineteenth-century American engineering professor Dennis Hart Mahan. Vauban designed superior fortresses with many fronts and bastions which presented an impenetrable defense in depth. He also revolutionized siegeworks by developing a system of parallels and zig-zag trenches for reducing fortresses with only minimal casualties to the attacking force. Vauban built over 30 fortresses, conducted 50 sieges, and wrote several engineering texts during his 50-year military career. His designs and writings influenced military engineers into the twentieth century.
Mahan graduated from West Point in 1824 and studied military engineering in Europe from 1826-30. He spent his last year at the French military school of engineers and artillery in Metz. There he read texts influenced by Vauban. Mahan returned to West Point in 1830 and taught there until 1871. As professor of engineering, Mahan instructed virtually every West Pointer who later served in the Confederate or Union armies. He wrote many articles and books during his 39-year tenure. His Triest on Field Fortifications was used extensively by Civil War engineers for constructing redoubts, bastion fortifications, redans and other earthworks.
The fortifications at Lee’s Mill contained two types of earthworks detailed in Mahan’s book. The first was the breastwork with its chest-high parapet and interior ditch for protecting infantrymen. The second was the redoubt for mounting artillery pieces. This many sided fortification provided protection from enemy fire and slowed their advance. Confederate engineers Isaac St. John and Alfred Rives astutely situated the earthworks along the Warwick River and three redoubts above on the heights. Their fortification designs incorporated the natural landscape and delayed the Union advance from Fort Monroe and Camp Butler at Newport News Point.
This marker is included in the Virginia Civil War Trails marker series.
www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=11333
New Upper Terrace (1/4) (back garden, autumn 2008)
Image by Darkroom Daze
The upper end of our garden, with its new Upper Terrace, just completed.
Jill is sitting at our new garden table in front of the Valrosa Cabin (workshop). Compare this view with the same area five months earlier. All the visible construction, including the cabin, was done for us by Acer Landscapes. The overall scheme was our own with advice from Acer. The areas of bare soil are new borders waiting to be planted.
NOTE ON THE GARDEN
The garden was very plain and bare when we arrived in 1985. We have been developing the design gradually since then, but not from a single pre-planned conception. Eventually we developed the overall shape, with a 'winding river' effect made by the lawns and path (though this is not shown in this view). The shapes of the rockeries, planting and other features are based on the way a small stream winds between 'interlocking spurs' in hilly terrain (though this is not seen in this view). We did all the planting, and I built many of the features. For further history of our garden, see set description for 'OUR BACK GARDEN'
GARDEN DETAILS
To see the garden details better, go to Actions (top L) > View all sizes > Original. See also notes on picture. However, notes are not retained in downloaded versions of Flickr images.
Features
- Fencing - newly erected by Acer Landscapes, with Chelsea trellis along the top.
- Path (1) - concrete block paving with treated wooden edging, recently (2007) laid by Acer Landscapes. This section (lower L) is the uppermost part of our main garden path and leads to steps of Valrosa Cabin in background.
- Path (2) - new section of path (R foreground) in reclaimed York stone in 'crazy' style. This connects the new step up to the new Upper Terrace to an older side path which comes along the fence from our Escallonia Arch (out of sight behind us). Step is made of Indian stone and London stock bricks.
- plant containers - on front of terrace, cast in concrete, with medieval-style design, a present from my father a long time ago, here planted with box trees.
- Upper Terrace - centre, concrete block paving with treated wooden edging, just completed by Acer Landscapes.
- Valrosa Cabin workshop - in background L, fully insulated, built for us the previous year by Acer Landscapes.
- Water butt - centre R, newly installed by Acer Landscapes, for storing rain water from roof of Valrosa Cabin, just behind.
Plants
- Buxus sempervirens - box-trees in the two containers on the terrace, grown from small seedlings and shaped into truncated cones.
- Ficus carica 'Brown Turkey' - fig tree, centre R in corner of terrace. 'Brown Turkey' is the commonly-chosen variety recommended for the British climate for yielding fruit. Tree looks new but is actually about 20 years old and had to be cut back to enable Valrosa Cabin construction in 2007. We planted it c.1990 not long after we arrived in the house. As recommended, we confined the roots with a loose brick surround beneath soil level.
- Picea glauca var. albertiana 'Conica' - dwarf white spruce, centre foreground.
LOCATION DETAILS
Country: Great Britain: England
City: London
London Borough: Lambeth
District: West Dulwich, SE21
Altitude: 40m
Aspect: View is approx to NW. Fence faces approx. S.
Photo
© Darkroom Daze Creative Commons.
If you would like to use or refer to this image, please link or attribute.
CIMG1593.JPG - Version 2
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