#gardens
so i had my eyes checked today. ive had horrible vision since…. elementary school. mostly a combination of genertics (thanks dad) and a LOT of reading, computer usage, etc. (and i mean lots.)
but something i learned today is that due to my absolutely abysmal vision, i have a higher chance of retinal detachment, which is about as fun as it sounds. (treatment rate is about 95% but still… i dont want it…) how much of a higher chance, you may ask? 1 in 20 as opposed to the typical 1 in 300 chance! which sucks! so i want to talk about measures for reducing eye strain and consequentially, letting people keep better vision.
large print: its associated with old people who can’t read the small print, but why not just help people from getting bad eyes in the first place by making everything available in large, easy to read fonts. e readers also let ppl do this, but then there’s the fact that screens cause more eye strain so… idk
audio: i love that @solarpunkpress is already doing this but people dont need to read as much when they can listen to things. obviously not as good for academic texts etc but still. imagine solarpunk audio gardens, where people go to listen to audiobooks of short stories or poetry or w/e, in a garden with flowers, tables, maybe a café. they could also be designed to be especially friendly to the visually impaired, taking advantage of scent in garden design idk
thats the extent of my ideas feel free to comment, add, etc
I’m doing a set of park designs for my final in one of my classes and I’m definitely running with the idea of audio gardens. –Watson
cool! you’re at hampshire right? tell me what you come up with!
Yeah! It’s for my Green Cities class, which is all about the architecture of parks. I’m going to design a proposed set of new public parks for my home town. (It’ll be pretty ambitious for a town that probably doesn’t want to build new parks anyway, but I have every intention of sending it to the local planning people when I’m done, regardless.)
I’m really excited about this project, because it’s going to be a lot of fun, and really interesting, to try and develop an idea of a whole system of parks for a complete community, that meets as many needs as possible. It feels like a very solarpunk project to me – and even if it ends up not being (because I have to be at least a little realistic about technology, budgets, and what I could persuade even an imaginary town council to agree to) I think it’ll still be a really good learning experience for the details of those problems.
Building green spaces that are specifically optimized for use by blind or visually impaired people, and green spaces that are built with use of personal technology in mind, are two big areas of function that I hadn’t really thought about yet.
cool!
A fountain at the Vizcaya museum and gardens in Miami #museums #frogs #fountains #miami #vizcaya #florida #gardens (at Vizcaya Museum & Gardens)
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One of the statues at Vizcaya Museum in Miami #vizcaya #miami #statues #florida #blackandwhite #museums #gardens #photooftheday (at Vizcaya Museum & Gardens)
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lc-a+ - chloe and the wigwams by Johnny Wilson
Via Flickr:
lomo lc-a+ with lomo xpro chrome 100
summer shower in our gardens
Elizabeth Rickard
Munich Palace Views at Nymphenburg Palace. The last photo I took. #munich #munchen #germany #deutschland #nymphenburg #palace #gardens #travel #mytravels (at Munich, Germany)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuOqOZJH7A0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1kwpi9u3zc22s
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Snail-shaped grass mounds, twisting DNA helix sculptures and undulating waves of rhododendrons make up The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, a thirty-acre garden designed by architecture theorist Charles Jencks and his late wife, Maggie Keswick.
Located at their private residence, Portrack House, near Dumfries, Scotland, the garden’s design is guided by the fundamentals of modern physics and, according to Jencks, brings out the basic elements that underlie the cosmos. From 1989 until Keswick’s death in 1995, Jencks and his wife, an expert on Chinese gardens, met with horticulturists and scientists in order to design a landscape that would bridge the worlds of art, nature and science.
Perhaps viewed as an unconventional approach to landscaping, the garden features a dizzying display of geometric fractals that all illuminate - or at least are inspired by - concepts of black holes, string theory, and the “Big Bang.” The garden features five major areas connected by a number of man-made lakes, bridges and other architectural works, including large white staircases and terraces that zigzag down a green hillside, representing the story of the creation of the universe. (Source)
This looks like it came out of Alice in Wonderland
I thought it was mini golf
AAAAAH, SIXPENCEEE POSTED SOMETHING THATS IN MY TOWN. FUCKING YAAAAAAAAAAS.
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Abdita Vestigia- Marcela Bolívar
Not only does it stink, but part of this orchid resembles wriggling maggots. A great gift!
This specimen of Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis, charmingly nicknamed “Bucky,” once nearly shut down a @smithsoniangardens greenhouse for DAYS because of its stench.
When it was first donated to us, few people outside Asia had seen the species, though it is recorded in early writings as smelling like “a thousand dead elephants rotting in the sun.”
Bucky’s species (originally from Papua New Guinea) targets female carrion flies as pollinators, with a flower head that has a cluster of 15 to 20 meat-colored flowers covered with fleshy projections. If that weren’t enough, it evolved to have a fragrance that matches its appearance.
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Carrot top of the morning to you.
In the Victorian era, whimsical seed cards like this one were all the rage, inspiring people to buy seeds and collect the cards that came with them.
Along with being collectors’ items, seed and nursery cards document the history of U.S. agricultural business and advertising. They tell a story about how American gardening has been shaped by history, social attitudes, the environment and innovation.
What story do you think this gentleman would tell?
Dig into history in our new exhibition “Cultivating America’s Gardens” from @smithsonianlibraries and@smithsoniangardens, open through August 2018 at our National Museum of American History.
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