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Tuesday, June 23, 2020

U.S. Postal Service Celebrates Beauty of American Gardens

For more than 100 years, the U.S. Postal Service has been issuing special stamps to commemorate positive contributions to America’s history, culture, environment and way of life. To our delight here at Swan, it’s now chosen to celebrate the natural beauty of our country’s gardens with the American Gardens Forever stamp collection.


This beautiful stamp collection, designed by U.S. Postal Service art director Ethel Kessler and shot by photographer Allen Rokach, features an evocative area from 10 of the most extraordinary public gardens in the United States. These include:

1. Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park in Florida;

2. Biltmore Estate Gardens in North Carolina;

3. Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York;

4. Chicago Botanic Garden in Illinois;

5. Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Maine;

6. Dumbarton Oaks Garden in Washington, D.C.;

7. Norfolk Botanical Garden in Virginia;

8. Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Ohio;

9. The Huntington Botanical Gardens in California; and

10. Winterthur Garden in Delaware.

To describe just a few, the stamp for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden highlights its semiformal Osborne Garden. Featuring an Italianate design that evokes the Art Moderne period of the 1930s when it was built, the Osborne Garden is at its most colorful and dynamic in spring. This is when wisteria-draped pergolas frame its central emerald lawn, and cherry trees, crab apple trees and azaleas bloom in succession. Architectural features include two sets of elegant, fluted stone columns and curved, acoustic “whispering” benches.

The Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden is the subject of the stamp honoring the Chicago Botanic Garden. This garden was designed by Dr. Koichi Kawana, who pioneered the design of traditional Japanese gardens that utilize plants native to the area of the garden. In this case, hardy Midwestern plants such as Scotch pine trees are pruned and trained to control their size and scale, and thus give the illusion of age. Also featured is a “snow-viewing lantern,” customarily placed near the water.

The Winterthur Garden is the vision of founder Henry Francis du Pont, who carefully orchestrated a naturalistic garden. One of the few remaining wild gardens in America, the Winterthur Garden features a reflecting pool designed by renowned American landscape architect Marian Cruger Coffin.

The stamp for The Huntington Botanical Gardens, meanwhile, gives us a glimpse of the Desert Garden, the oldest, largest and most diverse collection of cacti and succulents from around the world. Similarly, the stamp for the Norfolk Botanical Garden shows off the Bicentennial Rose Garden, one of the largest rose gardens on the East Coast. It contains more than 2,155 rose plants representing 299 varieties. At the height of their bloom, there can be as many as 250,000 roses in the garden.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, a love of gardening that stretches back to the earliest years of our country when George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers planted some of America’s most iconic colonial-era gardens, helped inspire the American Gardens Forever stamp collection.

“From the 19th century to today, landscape designers have continued that tradition. Conceived for many years—for food or pleasure, as places of education and scientific study, as an expression of the owners’ artistic sensibilities, as spaces for the public to commune with nature, or simply for the love of gardening—American gardens capture our imagination and satisfy a yearning for beauty and order,” the U.S. Postal Service said in a press release.

The 10 gardens featured in the American Gardens Forever stamp collection were chosen  primarily on which gardens the photographer had already shot and how well the images worked together visually to tell a story. The stamp collection is available for purchase here.

Looking ahead, the U.S. Postal Service will debut its Fruits and Vegetables Forever stamp collection on July 17, 2020. This collection features 10 stunning portraits of fruits and vegetables that capture the classic beauty of still-life paintings.

So tell us: What do you think of the American Gardens Forever stamp collection? Has it inspired you to visit these magnificent gardens (many now have limited openings as restrictions lift from the coronavirus pandemic), or perhaps grow some of the plants and flowers you see in your own backyard paradise? Remember, Swan has an extensive line of residential garden hoses and accessories to help make all of your garden dreams possible. Shop for them today at https://www.swanhose.com/residential-s/1864.htm.