We set off in search of Dumbarten Oaks but before we got there came across the garden at the Tudor Place on 31st Street NW. Originally opened by a granddaughter of Martha Washington. We only had time for walking the gardens rather than the guided tour of the house, but in between showers, it was beautiful. The house was built in 1815 and includes 5 1/2 acres of land. It remained in the hands of the same family until 1983. The plants are being accessioned into the museum holdings as a living collection. I loved the outdoor rooms (walked through but couldn’t sit down because everything was wet. Here are some highlights:
A gate like that would be welcoming…
The store had fascinators so you can outfit yourself for a royal wedding!
Old trees, formal beds…
Places to sit (they recently lost all their fish in the ponds because they do not know how to hide). Along with the formal parts there is also a dell
(And mosquitos…)
Love the boy and his dolphin…
My favorite plants…
And historic restored cold frames to grow them…
It was a beautiful stroll through history (I have a feeling I am going to be saying that a lot this week.
While walking through the Castel Sant’Angelo we came across a newel post covered with carved bees. I thought it was charming in its weathered way.
The symbol of the bee related to the family Barberini (they had changed it from an earlier symbol of a horsefly) and a few days later we visited their Palazzo which is now the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica. This is a building worked on by three different architects, Bernini, Borromini, and Maderno. Bees were everywhere. Picasso was also everywhere on this trip…we saw three different exhibits of his work (more on that in another post.)
There we were…hopping into the ’68 Datsun station wagon that had stood the test of miles, freshly married, dirt poor, (but no debt after law school…you could do that then), enthusiastic about what life held for us. In it together for forty-one years. Tonight we are off to a tapas dinner in San Francisco trying to recreate that lovely trip to Barcelona a few months ago. Onward and upward! (This morning we were awakened by a 4.0 earthquake! Just shows you how earth-shattering August 17 really is!!)
Here is how I made this image…
I walked through my garden to take these pictures…
Then I started to combine them all using the ImageBlender App…
Put the last one through Waterlogue App to get this…
Took an iPhone photo of an old wedding photo….
Gave it some touch ups (after all these years, the colors on all the wedding photos are really altering) and a frame in Snapseed App…
It was added on top of the flowers and angled by using ImageBlender…
A frame was added to the entire image in Snapseed and then text was laid on top with Over App. Fin
Back before I went to Barcelona, I mentioned that I had been helping some parents at an elementary school in the district I used to teach in construct a ceramic mosaic. When I left, after many months of making clay tiles, glazing clay tiles, creating images of the life skills the kids at the school are taught, and cutting tiles and mirror for the background, they had begun the installation.
By the time I got back they had completed the installation with every kid in the school getting to make an addition of some type. They had even completed the grouting and the entire mural was absolutely fabulous! (I was kind of sorry I missed the grouting because I do love to grout. Oh, well, the next project!)
These are Shweta and Tammy, mothers, artists, volunteers, organizers and Renaissance women who are really fun to hang around with because they do cool projects. I would follow them into an art project anywhere. Kudos on a job well-done! Just goes to prove the universal goodness brought to you by art.
In addition, on the universal goodness of nature:
I have mentioned my Dutchman’s Pipevine on my gate many times over the years. It is great because it is a California native plant so takes little water, the deer don’t like to eat it so it can hang to the outside of the garden gate, and it has possibly the greatest flower ever seen…
We planted ours probably six years ago for the above qualities and one more. There is a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly that only likes it. So we have waited and waited for ours to come…which it finally did a few weeks ago.
I could not get a picture of it because it was really flittering…
but Terry succeeded…
but then it was gone. Today I passed by the vine and into the house, glancing over to see if it was time for me to take fast growing tendrils and weave them back into the trellis and I noticed that many ends had been chewed off.
After my first thought that we had somehow grown a super-large example of deer that was taller than the gate and wrecking havoc despite the poisonous nature of the plant (which is why they are not supposed to like to eat it), I looked closer and found that we now have a colony of caterpillars…
The caterpillars are not poisonous at first, but the more leaves they eat the more poisonous they become. This is why the birds do not like them even though black with red spikes makes them kind of obvious. The caterpillars leave the Pipevine for a different plant when they make their chrysalis. I feel like a grandmother to thousands! I am so proud…
For those who might travel to Barcelona…I mentioned that you can purchase your tickets for the big sites online. For Park Güell, I learned something after I got home (from someone else’s blog). It seems that they had gone without tickets and faced a two-hour line in the hot sun in order to get in. One of the guards told them that if they came back the next day they could get in for free between the hours of 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. They did that, and there were no other people around. Great pictures without tourists, unlike mine! oh, well…Park Güell was still fabulous. I love trencadÃs!.
Park Güell
Casa Milà (La Pedrera)
Casa Milà is the building with no straight lines and roof vents and chimneys that look like they are out of a sci-fi thriller. Imagine this without the chain link, as it was originally…
Gaudà framed his own Sagrada Familia through a parabolic arch (one of his favorite architectural devices)…
Yes, there are more roofs in the future…watch this space, again…
I have mentioned before how much I love the app Snapseed for processing my iPhone photos. For many, many years it has been my go-to, all-purpose, crop, clean-it-up and tweak app. So imagine my surprise when I opened it last week to find that there was an entirely new version. I am so set in my ways, I was immediately frustrated. That frustration grew and grew as I tried to do the things that I have always done, but couldn’t find the work flow as it had always been. hmmm, I said, why would you do that to me oh, favorite app…
Many YouTube videos later and a walk in the garden yesterday, I have made my peace…I at least know where things are now.
Fernald’s Iris
Lewisia
Pink Monkeyflower
Spicebush
New dwarf Butterflybush
Swallowtail looking for new dwarf Butterflybush!
California poppy
California poppy
So I say, people, take out your green grass lawns, install drip irrigation, put in native California plants…you will not regret it as you face the draught…spot through the garden a few non-natives, like a Cecile Brunner in a planter…you will have no end to willing photographic subjects…and you might get to liking Snapseed again as well as saving money on water fees!
Cecile Brunner
And with great anticipation of getting to try a new feature of the Snapseed app (it now includes a function called Transform, which allows you to tweak perspective both vertical and horizontal…so all those tall buildings in a big city…no leaning towers except in Pisa! In a few short weeks we will be off to soak in the architecture of one of the most interesting cities…for now, from an old photo, here is what it can do…
Took a morning walk with a new iPhone app I had just purchased. It is called Priime and it is free, but, of course, if want the full complement of filters and lenses, you would have to purchase them once you are in the app. I liked what it did, so I did.
and I discovered that my neighborhood school has an answer to the “love-lock bridges” of Paris which are being crumbled by the weight of all the locks.
Looks to me to be ceramic hearts by first graders…oh, the love…
I also used Priime on some new things in my garden…my new Meyer Lemon…
and more colors of Douglas Iris that are popping out…
Sometime during the weeks of gate-painting, the garden went from dull winter-ness to lush spring green. I would not be able to pinpoint the exact day and time I noticed it, but there it was one morning and I could mutter, “Yeah, we’re back.” It could have been that I started noticing buds of flowers or tiny green leaves on bare branches and I was prepped for the full display. In any event, we are back and doing well, now…
A few weeks ago, after reading this article in the SF Chronicle, we knew it was time to visit the UC Botanical Garden. Julia Morgan had designed a building on the campus that was a women’s social club in the beginning but then had other uses over the years. It needed to be moved out-of-the-way of construction projects. It had been cut in four pieces and trucked up the winding, narrow road to the garden. Eventually the structure will function as a wedding venue in the garden.
The bonus on our trip to see the Julia Morgan architecture was that at the time it held an art show of botanical art displayed in the setting. (The only negative, which wasn’t really a negative, was that Julia Morgan had a way with light and it infused the spot. The day was very sunny and all the art was behind glass. I cropped my pictures very close so that I could eliminate as many reflections as possible but I was not totally successful.) The interior is sheathed in redwood with a massive brick fireplace.
The new setting and the buildings’ details:
I overheard a docent say that when the building had been jacked-up for the move, this fire-place screen, designed by Julia Morgan, had been found under the building. So it was restored for further use…
The art:
Forest Floor Watercolor Betsy Rogers-Knox
American Mountain Ash Watercolor Sharron O’Neil
Beautyberry Graphite on paper Maryann Roper
Foxglove Colored pencil Rhonda Nass
Sassafras and Spicebush Swallowtail Watercolor Wendy Cortesi
Such excellent artists, beautiful plants, and a nice variety of techniques. We also walked the California Natives section and were treated to a Silk Tassel and a poppy…
Lois Reynolds Mead 