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| Thomas Jefferson |
One of the best sources for learning about his gardening activities is “Thomas Jefferson’s Flower Garden atMonticello,” a book published by University Press of Virginia in 1971. It has the dirt on what he was thinking and doing around his yard over a number of years.
The book’s foreword starts with “the flower garden at Monticello is different from other flower gardens ofVirginia … on seeing the garden for the first time, the visitor is surprised at the absence of boxwood. This shrub, which plays such an important part in restored gardens of Virginia, appears not to have been used at all by Jefferson at Monticello.”
Boxwoods at Monticello were not mentioned in Jefferson’s garden book, nor were they written about in his letters and notes. He saw them all over Williamsburg and other places, but he apparently planted none of his own.
Sweet alyssum, zinnia and crape myrtle were also quite common in Virginiagardens of the time, but they were not used by him, either. On the other hand, Jefferson’s gardens served as a laboratory for experimenting with various plants from all over the world.
Monticello had its deer herds, for example, and so Jefferson’s workers planted a barrier of thorny bushes around the fruits and vegetables to keep animals from eating his crops. On a surprising note, the book includes a letter written in 1782 by the Marquis de Chastellux, who was impressed by deer after visitingJefferson.
About Jefferson’s deer he said, “they soon became very tame … he enjoys feeding them with Indian corn, of which they are very fond and which they eat out of his hand.”
Here are some garden-related quotes from Jefferson. The first comes from the book and the others come from Monticello’s website.
1811: “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden … I am still devoted to the garden.
But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”
1800: “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture; especially a bread grain. Next in value to bread is oil.”
1793: “When the earth is rich it bids defiance to droughts, yields in abundance and of the best quality.”
1790: “There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”
1786: “Heliotrope. To be sowed in the spring. A delicious flower, but I suspect it must be planted in boxes and kept in the house in the winter. The smell rewards the care.”
1785: “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.
They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.”
