Newport in Flower

Newport in Flower

Newport's "Blue Garden," on the cover, was one of the most celebrated creations of the Golden Age of American Gardens. Within these pages, twenty-seven other gardens record Newport's creative talents during this period of the 1920s and '30s. Some property names will be recognizable even today. Hammersmith Farm, summer home of Jacqueline Kennedy; Harbour Court, now the New York Yacht Club; the Elms, Chateau-Sur-Mer and Green Animals, holdings of The Preservation Society of Newport County, which welcome thousands of visitors a year.

Meticulously hand-painted on glass lantern slides, a now long-gone technology, the images in Newport in Flower offer inspiration for today's gardeners. The rose arbor at Leroy King, the lily pond at Harbour Court, the hydrangea border at Vernon Court all speak to the ongoing fascination with gardens. The book's slides are a small representation of the 3,000 garden and design images housed at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Gardens.

This new edition of Harriet Jackson Phelps' classic contains her original text, invaluable for its social history, and slide selections (distinguished by their rounded corners.) A 21st-century perspective is provided through new photographs accompanying many of the slides, taken by Mick Hales, a well-known garden photographer. Though the gardens are, understandably, not as robust as they were seventy-five years ago, many of the original grounds are still intact, a resounding endorsement of land stewardship and preservation.

Newport in Flower features the Smithsonian's handpainted glass plate slides of Newport's estate gardens in the 1920's. The book has been updated to include photos of the gardens as they appear today. Hardcover, 164 pages.

Hardcover | 164 pages.