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Our landscapes and gardens are integral to humans, offering up an immediate opportunity for us to connect with nature. Increasingly, we are incorporating more native, local flora in our designs and plantings at OSGF, which creates better habitats for insects, wildlife and more. Read to learn more about the process of creating the Rokeby Wildlife Garden (which will be the first of many) and a few of the species that were planted.
Read MoreIt’s hard to believe but our Horticulture Apprentice, Thomas Bardoff has been with us for a full year! At the beginning of Thomas’s time, he shared his insights on our blog into the process of pruning one of the most recognizable pieces of Mrs. Mellon’s garden, the stepover cordons. Cordons, espaliers, and the ‘Mary Potter’ crabapple arbor were the embodiment of Bunny Mellon’s strong fascination with pruning techniques. Our Garden Team works diligently year-round to maintain these fixtures and in our newest blog post, Thomas shares his thoughts on a year at Oak Spring.
Read MoreWine and the grapes grown to produce it is a balanced process. As climate change continues to impact the planet, the work being done to conserve our native grapes are vital for the continued success of vineyards. In our latest blogpost, read about the history of wine grapes and how partners like the U.S. Botanical Garden are conserving them.
Read MoreIn life we are always encouraged to never judge a book by its cover, but in this instance, the book cover is all we’ll be talking about.
Read MoreJanuary 22nd is the date of the Lunar New Year for 2023. Read on to learn more about the plants of the Lunar New Year and how they play an integral role in the celebrations.
Read MoreOak Spring Garden Foundation is pleased to announce our 2023 Fellows. These fellowships are designed to support early-career practitioners, working on new projects that focus on plants, gardens, and landscapes, and the arts and culture of them.
Since 2018, we have offered our annual Stacy Lloyd III Fellowship for Bibliographic Study and our Eliza Moore Fellowship for Artistic Excellence, named in honor of OSGF founder Bunny Mellon’s children, to outstanding scholars and artists. Our Fellowship in Plant Science Research and our Fellowship in Plant Conservation Biology and have been awarded annually since 2021.
Applications for 2024 Fellowships opens February 14th, 2023.
See below to learn about each Fellow.
Phillippa Pitts is a Horowitz Foundation Fellow for American Art at Boston University. Her research questions social, political, and racial borders within American art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, highlighting the aspirations and anxieties around expansion, immigration, xenophobia, and Indigeneity that underpin such constructions.
Nazafarin Lotfi is currently a Matakyev Research Fellow at the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University. Through her multidisciplinary approach, she explores humanness in relation to nonhuman bodies and places that are defined by practices of map-making and gardening. To learn more about her work, visit her website.
Dr. Ingmar Staude is Senior Scientist of the group "Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity" at Leipzig University. Ingmar’s research focus is centered around understanding nature’s strategy to cope with anthropogenic global change using theoretical, inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches.
Anna Wyngaarden is a masters candidate at the University of Georgia. Her research focus is centered around rare plants and more specifically, rock outcrop communities in the Southeastern U.S.
The Oak Spring Garden Foundation is pleased to announce that Beverly Allen, Carol Woodin, and Jean Emmons have been selected for the Botanical Artist in Residence (BAiR) program in 2023. They will also be joined by John Pastoriza-Piñol, a 2020 deferred BAiR. We are excited to host Beverly, Carol, and Jean, and John for three-weeks this spring.
Artists selected for the Oak Spring Garden Foundation’s BAiR program receive a $1,000 individual grant and devote their time at Oak Spring to working on their botanical art, either using material from the formal garden at Oak Spring or from the broader 700-acre Oak Spring landscape. Our hope is that they may also draw inspiration from the Oak Spring Library’s collection. Artists live on-site in nicely appointed shared housing with a studio in close proximity. At the culmination of the residency, each artist has the option to sell one completed work for $1,000 to Oak Spring, and the finished piece will be accessioned into the Oak Spring Library as a contribution to the developing Oak Spring Florilegium.
This residency program is designed to support artists who are practitioners of botanical illustration – which sits at a unique intersection of art and science and is well represented in the Oak Spring Garden Library collection. Applications for the 2024 Botanical Artists in Residence will February 14th, 2023.
To learn more about each of the artists and their work, read below.
Beverly Allen is an Australian based botanical artist. Her works are often life sized and inspired by the native flora of Australia. She is also the co-founder and president of the Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney. View her work here.
Corymbia ficifolia, watercolor on paper, 49 x 40 cm, 2018 © Beverly Allen
Carol Woodins is based in Hudson Valley, New York. She has freelanced as an artist for over 20 years, specializing more recently on orchids. View her work at Carol Woodin Botanical Art or on Instagram.
Maize Morado, Zea mays, watercolor on vellum, 16 x 18 inches, 2020 © Carol Woodin
Jean Emmons is a Botanical Illustrator based in Washington State, U.S.A. Her work is informed by light and her technique is, “based on medieval manuscript illumination on vellum.” To learn more about her work visit https://jeanemmons.com/. Follow her work on Instagram.
Iris ‘Full Tilt Boogie’, watercolor and gouache on Kelmscott vellum, 28 x 36 cm, 2022 © Jean Emmons
John Pastoriza-Piñol is a Botanical Illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. He considers himself a contemporary visual artist whose practice sits within the genre of botanical art yet rebels against its continued traditional representations. He was originally selected for our 2020 Botanical Artist in Resident program and deferred his residency due to COVID-19 complications. We are pleased to finally welcome him to Oak Spring. View his work here.
Magnolia x soulangeana, Chinese Magnolia, Watercolor on Arches, 300gsm, 23.4 x 33.1 in, 2022 ©John Pastoriza-Piñol
Learn about the Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Residents of 2023.
Read MoreOf the livestock species that have traveled in tandem with humanity’s expansion across the globe, chickens stand out for several reasons. Read a blog from our BCCF’s Landscape Manager Nick Sette about the chicken breeds we have on our farm.
Read MoreThe month of December is always a time of year for celebration, reflection, and connecting with loved ones. This holiday, learn about a few traditions celebrated around the world and the ways plants inform these traditions.
Read MoreThe soils we stand on are the foundation from where all of our foods, fibers, and materials stem from (no pun intended). It varies drastically from place to place, and the story of how your local soil was formed goes back hundreds of millions of years.
Read MorePlants, for the most part, are rooted in place. So how have species been able to travel around the world and adapt to new environments? The answer for most plants as to do with the development and dispersal of seeds.
Read MoreOur 2022 Plant Conservation Fellow, Dr. Jessamine Finch, is focused on plant conservation through applied investigations of the environmental tolerance ranges for plants and the intersection of seed ecology, ecological restoration, and climate change. Read our latest Q&A to get to know her better!
Read MoreCyclamen have existed since around the time of the philosopher Theophrastus. Read about how we are growing one of Mrs. Mellon’s favorite flowers to keep our garden and greenhouse lively during the colder months.
Read MoreThese delicious apple butter bars are a perfect fall treat. Read this recipe by Oak Spring Chef Jason Neve to see how to make them yourself!
Read MoreAriana Benson, our 2022 Eliza Moore Fellow, is a poet with an interest in this connection through the lens of black history. She spent two weeks in residence at Oak Spring in July, when she sat down with us for this Q&A.
Read MoreRead the reflections of one of our summer interns and see some of the photos that she took of our landscape and biodiversity.
Read MorePaper has been a portal for people to share prose, poetry, and art for centuries. While the subjects and works illustrated on these sheets are often most admired, the paper itself can be equally as important and astounding.
Read MoreAmerican Kestrels are in decline across their native range, for reasons that are not well understood by researchers. Read about how environmental organizations in Northern Virginia are working to build their population and learn more about them.
Read MoreA Garden Library wouldn’t be complete without a few books about insects. Check out this latest blogpost to explore several beautiful and unusual texts about all things that crawl, buzz, and flutter.
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