Winterthur Garden

Most of the gardens at Winterthur are woodland gardens (my earlier post about the museum is here). Henry Francis Du Pont was a naturalist gardener. He did include some exotic plants…but otherwise his garden exemplifies all the principles of woodland gardening.

The plants are arranged in natural settings.

There are plants in every nook and cranny.

Patches of light spotlight different plants during the day. There are lots of different textures and types of plants.

There are pergolas as destinations within the garden…and paths that go from meadow to forest to wetland.

Most of the garden is green and brown but the eye catches on white

And red

And orange.

I was not looking for animals but two appeared very obviously - a chipmunk

And a spider.

I noticed a violet with a double seed pod.

Closer to the museum/mansion - there was a lotus in the koi pond that used to be the swimming pool!

There is more lawn as understory closer to the mansion…still a lot of big trees.

Winterthur Museum

Last weekend toured the Winterthur Museum and Gardens; I’ll post about the gardens later…today the post focuses on my impressions of the museum of American Decorative Arts. The museum holds the collection of Henry Francis Du Pont and is housed in the mansion - extended by du Pont to hold hisgrowing collection before it became a museum in the 1950s - when even the rooms where the family had lived were converted to museum spaces.

The initial impression of the museum is that the light is dim. One of the reasons for that is the large number of old fabrics displayed. Here are some examples taken in the part where photography is allowed: a child’s dress,

Bedding (showing the straw stuffed mattress at the bottom and featherbed on top)

Carpets,

And in an upright grand piano.

Some pictures I took to prompt Zentangle designs in the upcoming weeks: a gate

A comb (It took long teeth to hold very long hair!),

Patterns of wood inlay on chests

And chairbacks,

The transom over the front door.

The biggest surprise of the day for me was noticing that the silverware patterns are mixed for place settings (i.e. all the knives on the table were the same pattern…but the forks were a different pattern). Now I find myself looking at every museum dining room display (there will be another in tomorrow’s post).