Du Pont gardens of the Brandywine Valley / photographs by Larry Lederman ; text by Marta McDowell ; foreword by Charles A. Birnbaum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McDowell, Marta, author.

Birnbaum, Charles A., author of introduction, etc.

Contributor:

Lederman, Larry, photographer.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Brandywine Creek Valley.

Du Pont family--Homes and haunts--Brandywine Creek Valley (Pa. and Del.).

Du Pont family.

Du Pont family--Homes and haunts--Brandywine Creek Valley (Pa. and Del.)--Pictorial works.

Gardens--Brandywine Creek Valley (Pa. and Del.).

Gardens.

Gardens--Brandywine Creek Valley (Pa. and Del.)--Pictorial works.

Homes.

Genre:

Pictorial works

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

238 pages : color illustrations ; 25 x 27 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : The Monacelli Press, a division of Phaidon Press Inc., 2023.

Summary:

Du Pont Gardens of the Brandywine Valley celebrates the landscape legacy of the du Pont family, renowned as innovative industrialists, generous philanthropists, pioneering preservationists and collectors of American decorative arts, and--central to this story--heralded as "the first family of American horticulture." Fourteen members of the du Pont family arrived in America from France in January 1800. Led by Éleuthère Irenée du Pont, they settled in the Brandywine Valley, a beautiful rolling landscape nestled between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware. There, over multiple generations, the du Ponts created magnificent landscapes and gardens that complement the verdant lands of the Brandywine. Five of their estates--Hagley Museum and Library, Nemours Estate, Mt. Cuba Center, Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, and Longwood Gardens--are open to the public, each a showplace of formal plantings juxtaposed with carefully nurtured natural woodland. Larry Lederman's photographs capture the beauty and spirit of each place--the exuberant fountains and horticultural displays at Longwood, the naturalized woodland at Winterthur, the Beaux-Arts elegance of Nemours, the tantalizing fragments of the Crowninshield Garden at Hagley, and the picturesque native plant gardens and scenic trails at Mt. Cuba. Marta McDowell, a garden writer who combines a deep knowledge of garden design and horticulture with a penchant for social history, relates the stories of these gardens, both their history and their commitment to the future through strategies for sustainable management and growth.--Book jacket.

Contents:

Preface / Larry Lederman

The Du Pont landscape legacy / Charles A. Birnbaum

The Du Pont heritage : horticulture and stewardship

Gardens lost and found : Hagley Museum and Library

A collector's garden : Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library

"A day in old France" : the gardens of Nemours Estate

Plants of the Piedmont : Mt. Cuba Center

Epic landscapes : Longwood Gardens.

ISBN:

9781580936033

1580936032

OCLC:

1381793018

Publisher Number:

99995079497