Gardens
In 1921, the Blisses hired landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand to design the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, and for almost thirty years Mildred Bliss collaborated closely with Farrand. Together they transformed the existing farmlands surrounding the house into terraced garden rooms and vistas, creating a garden landscape that progressed from formal and elegant stepped terraces, in the near vicinity of the house, to a more recreational and practical middle zone of pools, tennis court, orchards, vegetable beds, and cutting gardens, and concluding at the far reaches of the property with a rustic wilderness of meadows and stream. Within the garden rooms, Bliss and Farrand used a careful selection of plant materials and garden ornaments to define the rooms’ character and use. Since that time, other architects working with Mildred Bliss—most notably Ruth Havey and Alden Hopkins—changed certain elements of the Farrand design. The gardens at Dumbarton Oaks were first opened to the public in 1939. The Dumbarton Oaks Park is a 27 acre naturalistic streamside valley park, maintained as a part of Rock Creek Park.
Read more about this topic: Dumbarton Oaks
Famous quotes containing the word gardens:
“If I could put my woods in song,
And tell what’s there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“These are the Gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
And fresh as the young earth, ere man had sinned—”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“Typical of Iowa towns, whether they have 200 or 20,000 inhabitants, is the church supper, often utilized to raise money for paying off church debts. The older and more conservative members argue that the “House of the Lord” should not be made into a restaurant; nevertheless, all members contribute time and effort, and the products of their gardens and larders.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)