Gardening

Since the first appearance of oranges at the Franciscan missions in the early 19th century, citrus agriculture has been an inextricable part of California's heritage. From the 1870s to the 1960s, oranges and lemons were dominant features of the Southern California landscape. The Washington navel orange, introduced by homesteader Eliza Tibbets at Riverside in the 1870s, precipitated the rise of a citrus belt stretching from Pasadena (in the San Gabriel Valley) to Redlands (in San Bernardino County). Valencia oranges dominated Orange County south of Los Angeles, while lemons thrived in coastal settlements such as Santa Paula. With the arrival of transcontinental railroads in the citrus heartland by the 1880s, Californians had access to markets across the United States. This was followed by the subsequent establishment of an impressive central organization in the form of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, and oranges became the state's most lucrative crop. Observers did not exaggerate when they dubbed the southern portion of the Golden State an orange empire.

The original manual of the Camp Fire Girls, an organization among whose founders were Dr. & Mrs. Luther Halsey Gulick, was published in 1912. The motto of the Camp Fire Girls, WoHeLo, was also the name of the Gulick's summer camp on Lake Sebago, ME. It stood for work, health, love. The primary purpose of Camp Fire, said Dr. Gulick, is to promote service to others, team work, and opportunities for a well rounded life.

The Cleveland Public School's tract garden program was one of the most successful and innovative programs of the school system.

The organization and beauty of the gardens attracted horticulture educators from all over the United States, South America, and as far away as Japan. From its humble beginnings in 1904 as a project to beautify vacant lots in Cleveland, it grew into an educational tool that taught thousands of children the respect for nature and its bounty. At the tract gardens' height, the amount of land under cultivation in the middle of the Cleveland urban landscape approached 100 acres. By 1970, there were 27 horticultural centers servicing all Cleveland schools. Centers were located next to schools, in housing estates, at fairgrounds, at a home for the aged, and on museum property. A few of the centers are now neighborhood gardens. The photographs in Cleveland School Gardens show that the Cleveland Public Schools knew the importance of being ""green"" 100 years before it was politically fashionable.

Lombard has been called the "Lilac Village" since the late 1920s when William R. Plum, affectionately known as the "Colonel," bestowed his world-renowned lilac collection to the village for use as its first public park. Colonel Plum's 2.5-acre estate was known as Lilacia and began in 1911 after a trip to the Lemoine Lilac Gardens in France. By the time Plum passed away in 1927, he had amassed over 200 varieties of lilacs and had the largest collection of French hybrids in the world. Jens Jensen, the famous landscape architect, designed a public space out of Plum's lilac collection with winding paths of native limestone, tulips by the thousands, and a lily pond in the park. The first community-wide Lilac Festival was held in May of 1930, unveiling Jensen's Lilacia and including a Lilac Queen and Court, a pageant, parade, and wide variety of events and festivities celebrating the village's new park.

Historic landscapes have often been ignored in historic preservation. In 1987, Dr. Charles L.W. Leider asked design professionals and the public to nominate significant historic cultural landscapes in Oklahoma. As a result of this effort, 47 significant historic landscapes were identified. Students in Dr. Leider's historic preservation course at Oklahoma State University (OSU) conducted an inventory and analysis of these sites and, over a 25-year period, selected and completed 18 case studies as measured and interpreted drawings, including Villa Philbrook, 101 Ranch, Oklahoma Civic Center, and Utica Square in Tulsa. All of the case studies have been recorded with the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) of the US National Park Service and placed in the US Library of Congress as well as being presented in this book.

A guide to the trees of six of the estates currently open to the public and owned by the Preservation Society of Newport, Rhode Island.

Whether it’s homemade chicken pot pie, a steak from Baker’s Café or a frozen custard at Meyer’s Lake, the food of Stark County has made mouths water for generations.

The region’s unique soil nurtured a boom in agriculture, and growers like K.W. Zellers & Son Farms still make a living off the land today. Mom-and-pop grocery stores such as Flory’s and Lemmon’s served their neighborhoods. Long-gone restaurants like Mergus and Topp’s Chalet created delicious dishes and cherished memories. Families like the Millers and Swaldos have created nationally recognized destinations out of simple starts. Join authors Kim Kenney and Barb Abbott as they trace Stark County’s food history.

Decades after the Homestead Act, many settlers had tried and failed to establish roots in the high plains of Wyoming. Altitude, wind, dry conditions, and lack of winter snow cover desiccated plants, making it especially hard for trees to survive. In 1929, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) constructed a field station to research plants that could tolerate Cheyenne's harsh climate. From 1930 to 1974, many varieties of small fruits, vegetables, shrubs, and trees were tested. Plants from similar climates around the world, some as far away as China and Siberia, were also tested at the station. When the focus shifted in 1974 to grasslands research, much of the horticultural plant stock was removed or lost. Thanks to the efforts of concerned citizens, a 62-acre block of historic trees was renamed the High Plains Arboretum and opened to the public in 2008. The arboretum is now owned by the City of Cheyenne, with preservation efforts contributed by the Urban Forestry Division and the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

In this sequel to her 2007 best-seller A Garden Lover's Cape Cod, one of New England's foremost gardeners photographs and analyzes her favorite public and private gardens on Martha's Vineyard.

In 1911, two neighbors in their 40s helped start one of the first garden clubs in America, in Bedford, NY. Two years later they were notable early members of the Garden Club of America. After joining the groups, these originals - in affiliations and personality - wakened their underutilized potential and discovered how women, one good friend at a time, can unite to change their town and country.

Eloise Luquer's exquisite wildflower watercolors and her fostering of nature trails and preservation earned her the title "The Audubon of Wildflowers." Delia Marble empowered the Bedford Agricultural Training Camp for Women - the first such prep site for WWI farmerettes in the nation. Together and with other allies, the small-town spinsters made an impactful difference in culture and environmental history.

Author Judy Culbreth reveals the remarkable lives of two Bedford garden club originals.