Plants in Early American Gardens - Blue Mist Flower

Blue Mist Flower (Conoclinium coelestinum)

This handsome North American member of the Aster family occurs naturally in low moist ground, moist wooded slopes, savannahs, and along streams from New Jersey to Minnesota and the West Indies. The species is listed in the British Botanical Magazine in 1730 and appears in Philadelphia nurseryman John Bartram’s broadside catalogue in 1793. Also known as Hardy Ageratum, this species resembles the cultivated annual Ageratum houstonianum, from Mexico. In 1851, New England garden writer Joseph Breck called it “the most beautiful” Eupatorium. Its late-season blooms attract bees and swallowtail butterflies.

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Plants in Early American Gardens - Bare Root Bloodtwig Dogwood

 Bare Root Bloodtwig Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)

Bare Root Bloodtwig Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)

This long-cultivated European native shrub, commonly found in English hedgerows, was included in Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s “Catalogue of Hardy Deciduous Trees and Shrubs” in 1806.

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Garden to Table - Vegetables from Mary Randolph 1762-1828 - Gaspacho

GASPACHO--SPANISH

PUT some soft biscuit or toasted bread in the bottom of a sallad bowl, put in a layer of sliced tomatos with the skin taken off, and one of sliced cucumbers, sprinkled with pepper, salt, and chopped onion; do this until the bowl is full; stew some tomatos quite soft, strain the juice, mix in some mustard, oil, and water, and pour over it; make it two hours before it is eaten.

A Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell 1737 Amoris Pomum Love Apple p 133

Plants in Early American Gardens - Cross Vine

Cross Vine (Bignonia capreolata)

This handsome, North American vine is found from Southern Ontario throughout the Eastern United States. 18th-century naturalist and painter Mark Catesby illustrated the Cross Vine in his Natural History of the Carolinas, Florida and the Bahama Islands. Bignonia commemorates Louis XIV’s librarian, Abbé Bignon (1662-1743) and is named Cross Vine for the marking within the stem in cross section. The spring flowers attract northward-migrating hummingbirds.

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Garden to Table - Vegetable from Mary Randolph 1762-1828 - CAPER SAUCE

CAPER SAUCE

Is made by mixing a sufficient quantity of capers, and adding them to the melted butter, with a little of the liquor from the capers; where capers cannot be obtained, pickled nasturtiums make a very good substitute, or even green pickle minced and put with the butter..

Otto Wilhelm Thomé (1840-1925) Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz  1885

Freshly picked capers