MIA DELIRIUM @miadelirium - Tumblr Blog

deliriumsrealm

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH10jpyaN3E)

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A small catalog of friends you may encounter in the undergrowth

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Beautiful things are fragile.

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fairynests

ghostlywriterr

Quinta da Regaleira, Portugal.

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enchantedliving

For the winter issue of Faerie Magazine (out next month), Paul Himmelein explores the history and art of making plants grow all year round, no matter what the weather outside, and takes us back to a time when growing (and eating!) an orange in winter was the height of luxury. We asked Paul to tell us why he was drawn to this topic–why it enchanted him enough to compel him to spend weeks researching and writing about it–and his answer is below:

For someone living in a temperate climate there are not many experiences as magical as walking into a conservatory at a botanical garden on a wintery day. It is as if, in an instant, we have traversed half the globe to arrive in a jungle, or desert, or tropical paradise. Immediately upon entering the palace of glass we feel the heaviness of the humidity or heat of an arid atmosphere. We see brightly colored citrus fruits hanging like ornaments from branches, blazing blossoms in reds and fuchsias. It is like an Eden out of place. But it was the romance of the orangery that captured my imagination, so much so, that I made it a primary location in the novel I’m writing that takes place in the eighteenth century. I was fascinated that there were buildings named for the protection of a single type of tree. I read that orangeries were designed as small palaces and the inhabitants were treated and tended to like princes for the pleasure of princes. Growing up in the north east of the United States, the orange tree seemed very exotic in my mind and when I learned that botanically speaking they were considered berries, this fruit seemed even stranger. In the Dictionnaire raisonné universal d’histoire naturelle (1764), M. Valmont de Bomare describes the orange tree as “the ornament of our most beautiful gardens, being cultivated in containers and protected in glasshouses from the severe winter weather.” I had grown up visiting the Brooklyn and Bronx botanical gardens but had never set foot in a true orangery, certainly not one from the eighteenth century. When I planned a trip to France for research, the orangery at Versailles was my first stop. Unfortunately, the orangery was off limits to the public! After days of inquiring at the palace and chamber of commerce of the town of Versailles and being given telephone numbers that brought me back to the dead-end places where I began my inquiries, I eventually got hold of the chief gardener’s phone number, all this with my mostly forgotten high school French. Joël Cottin spoke no English but was gracious enough to give me a private tour and let me take all the photos I wanted.

It was early September and the sun was still quite warm. The great orangery was empty inside and seemed cathedral like with its high arched ceilings. It was much more imposing than I had thought. The doors are so massive there are smaller doors set within them that the gardeners use. For a time in the early nineteenth century it was used as a prison and carvings in the walls from prisoners can still be seen. In a sense, the orange trees are prisoners from October to April when there are inmates of the orangery. But since it was still the final weeks of summer, the trees were scattered everywhere. Their heads were pruned into perfect spheres and were arranged around the parterre or terrace of the orangery, they were placed in various gardens, around fountains, along paths, some in huge silver urns were taken inside the palace to decorate the Galerie des Glaces, the famous hall of mirrors. Monsieur Cottin told me that back in the time of Louis the XIV and XV and even during Marie Antoinette’s days the cavernous orangery hosted grand fêtes throughout the summer: banquets, masquerades, and other entertainments that usually concluded with a grand displays of fireworks. My imagination was only inflamed after that visit and I became obsessed with what rendezvous or seduction or scandalous deed could happen within such an exotic setting. In my piece on “Flora Under Glass: Greenhouses, Orangeries, Winter Gardens, and Wardian Cases,” in this Winter’s Faerie Magazine, you’ll read that French author Émile Zola was also inspired to write of the seducing qualities of the conservatory.