ALL IN A GARDEN GREEN

BASNCR presents a juried exhibition of our member's works at the Horticulture Center in Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA.

In 1828 English writer Frances Trollope (1779-1863) began a four-year journey around the then United States. Her travels took her up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, across the Allegheny Mountains, and along the east coast from Washington DC to Niagara Falls. In her book "Domestic Manners of the Americans" (1832) she frequently noted the plants she encountered. From The Spanish moss and palmettos of New Orleans, to the mountain laurels of Pennsylvania, to the redbuds, dogwoods, and azaleas around Washington DC, she found this country's flora a constant delight. Dazzled by the number of plants new to her that she couldn't name, her advice to her countryment was "Let no one visit America without having first studied botany."

Given that she spent many weeks at houses near Green Spring Gardens, this venue is an ideal spot to display paintings of the kinds of plants that Frances Trollope might have encountered on her American adventure.