Favorite Visiting Gardens

[pieces o nine]

Back in Wiscaaaaahnsin, I spent many happy hours visiting the gardens (and changing art exhibits in the house proper) at the Paine Art Center & Gardens.



  iirc, this used to be called the Moon Garden (all white flowers and very pale green foliage)

Here is a very nice slideshow with 30 images.

[Opsa]

Oh, how lovely. I'd love to go there.

My faves so far have been Dunbarton Oaks in Georgetown (Washington DC), Reynolda in North Carolina and the fabulous Brookgreen gardens in Myrtle Beach South Carolina.

[pieces o nine]

^ Very nice! 
Are they open year 'round, or are they summer-only gardens?

[Opsa]

I believe that each of them is open year 'round, but I may be mistaken.

I just love those old estates that have been left to the public. It's so much fun to walk around and imagine what it must have been like to live there. Brookgreen was especially fun since it was full of sculptures, most of them having to do with mythology. I imagined the original owners to be wealthy beatniks. What could be better than being a wealthy beatnik?

Was the Paine Art Center originally someone's home?

[pieces o nine]

Was the Paine Art Center originally someone's home?

Funny you should ask...

The mansion was originally built as a home for the Paine's but workers of the lumber company threatened to bomb the building should they move in. The Paines returned to the project in 1946 and established a non-profit organization to own and manage the estate for public benefit. Nathan Paine died in 1947 at the age of 77. Jessie oversaw remaining work on the estate, and the property opened to the public in 1948. Until Jessie's death in 1973 at the age of 100, she served as the museum's president while residing in La Jolla, California. The Paines never lived in the house.

Paine Lumber Company was *the* economic powerhouse of the day, and the Paines  amassed their fortunes by perpetrating every abuse of the time against immigrant labor at the mill. To this day, the merest sniff of an allusion to the possibility of a hint that one is interested in studying the  [*drops voice to horrified whisper*]  S-T-R-I-K-E   [*recovers composure, with difficulty*]  will get most seekers -- no matter what academic credentials they may have -- politely, obliquely, and permanently BANNED! from the small but comprehensive research library at the Paine. They will never state the reason plainly, but believe me, *everyone* knows why!   

A century later, I lived in one of the Craftsman-styled workers homes in the neighborhood from which the fed-up "vicious foreigners" and "perfect viragoes" poured into the streets to oppose the "Republican [slave] Masters." They were prepared to stand up to the Gatling guns brought in to support the bayonet-wielding National Guard, brought in to put them down if they actually massed a demonstration at the Paine mill. My forebears were not part of that story, but I'd always felt a kinship with those striking workers and their families. We know what the next generation still thought of the Paines (and vice versa!), based on their ability to keep them from ever residing in that house with a threat of violence. I wonder what they would think of the community treasure it has become.

  Let us enjoy a lovely ale while savoring that unexpected trip into history, and then return to our regularly scheduled Garden Visits...

[Roland Deschain]

If the punishment for wanting to learn history is permanent bannination, then you lie about the reason you want to research, and publish your research as far and wide as possible to name and shame the individuals still perpetrating the crime after over a century. This would include drastically altering their Wikipedia page, drastically improving its grammar, and ensuring future generations stop wondering why "..workers of the lumber company threatened to bomb the building should they move in."

Here are a few of my favourite visiting gardens, a couple of them older than the US.

Hampton Court









Palace of Versailles



Hidcote - LINK

[pieces o nine]

Good suggestions, all, Roland.    

Very nice garden pics, but this one:

looks suspiciously like the formal 'sunken' garden at the Paine. Are you *quite* certain that yours is older than the US itself?    


The hidcote maze image you posted looks like a jyint computer chip!
We have corn mazes in the Midwest too, although most are smaller, I think. Now I must axe, are these the Children of the Corn?  


[edit to fix picture link]

[Opsa]

Awww...

We have corn mazes here in the eastern US as well. There's one place about an hour from here that has one that big. One year it were of a poirate theme, too! Really fun. There were clues based on the flags of some of our favorite poirates.

[Roland Deschain]

Maize mazes are amazing. It's been a while since I visited one, but that pirate theme sounds very intriguing. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhh!

Strangely enough, one thing i've always wanted to own is a maze, or maybe a labyrinth. Yeah, a labyrinth with lots of monsters, traps, and a bog of despair would be awesome, and a castle full of goblins in the middle of it. Oh man, now I have to go and unintentionally watch David Bowie's rather prominent bulge again.

[Aggie]

a bog of despair

How long do you have to leave the bog between cleanings to classify as a 'bog of despair'?

[Opsa]

Whatever you do, don't let it become a pit of eternal stench.

[Roland Deschain]

How long do you have to leave the bog between cleanings to classify as a 'bog of despair'?

Long enough for it to be a depressingly large job.