Somewhere between Elysian Fields and Poland a blog of gardening in New Orleans

Hello My Name is Branden, welcome to my blog. I live in New Orleans, Louisiana. I regularly read garden blogs and have always thought.. why isn't there a blog talking about plants here? (ps If there is a New Orleans garden blog i apologize i didn't find you... lets talk ; )





Actually come to think of it let me preface this entire blog for its history as to say that everything on here is my opinion, not necessarily the opinion of anyone i know or anyplace i have worked. And I have lots of opinions about plants and garden design. And let me say everything about putting plants in the ground... AKA gardening.... AKA landscape design is purely a personal thing, that is what makes it so great. But the health and care of a plant... that tends to be a little less subjective.


Now talking about the name of this blog. I live in the Marigny Neighborhood towards the bywater section. For those who don't live here that is down river from the french quarter (the oldest part of the city). And i do live between the streets of Elysian fields (loosely "heaven" in Greek mythology) and Poland not hell, but not a plants view of paradise). And I thought this might sum up gardening in New Orleans as somewhere between heaven and Hell, for plants.








My Neighborhood sign

The three stripes on the left represent the wards of the French Quarter and the yellow triangle down river is my section of the Marigny. I live about 5 blocks from the Mississippi River.

As i said earlier i live in the Marigny neighborhood, or Foubourg Marigny if your getting all technical. I live in a shot gun style house. Which is about the most typical style of home you see in New Orleans. The other place you see them in this same style, layout and amount is Hatti.
Shotgun houses get their name possibly because if you were to fire a shot in the front door it would go through and out the backdoor since rooms and doors tend to line up. Shotgun houses tend to come in three styles - singles, doubles or the more rare sidehall shotgun.

single

Double shotguns, in a row. Typically they front the street with no land in between.

My down the street neighbors sidehall shotgun, this style you don't have to walk through rooms to get to the back of the house.

Of these three styles i live in a double shotgun which i am converting to a single family home. It was built around the mid 1830's and then added on to. And then in 1921 it got plumbing so they slapped bathrooms on the back side. My house sits on a typical sized lot for the creole side of the city. (The average is 30 by 100) Long and narrow, and my house fills most of that leaving three feet between each house and a 30' by 15' sized backyard and beyond that a shed that dates to the 1830's as well. Just about everyone here has this "shed" in their back yard. they run the width of the yard and are around five feet deep, typically coated in old rusted corrugated tin. I lovingly call these ubiquitous sheds "shack in the back's". I will talk more about my shack in another post.

I worked for awhile at "American Aquatic Gardens" on Elysian Fields. It was there that the idea (or maybe it was a seed ) got planted in my mind. If you have never been to American Aquatic Gardens you should check it out (locals or tourists). Rich the owner is a wonderful man and one of the top waterlily growers in the country. Many of those varieties you see there you might not find anywhere else in America. Even if not to buy it is a tranquil hidden gem tucked into the Marigny neighborhood and you should go if nothing else than to listen to the hundreds of fountains and watch all those dragonflies do their thing. (i will do a post on AAG eventually as well). While i was at American aquatic gardens i started making big oversized labels for all the plants explaining how to grow them, what to expect and some "fun fact" about them, i also was in charge of growing out the waterlilies. I hope to write about the plants that you will find growing around here in the same style as i did for those over sized labels at Amer. Aqua Gardens.

So this is it, my first Garden blog. ; )
thanks for reading
I look forward to sharing the plants and gardens of New Orleans, as well as my own little bit of paradise in the city.
See you soon

-Branden

ps i apologize for spelling and punctuation.... I got a A in art and science and a C in English