1700s Children with Flowers by American artists - Symbols or Real?

1730 Gerardus Duyckinck (Colonial American artist, 1695-1746) Girl in Blue Dress

 1730s Charles Bridges (Colonial American artist, 1670-1747) Girls of the Grymes Family

 1750 John Singleton Copley (American, artist, 1738–1815) Elizabeth Greenleaf

1755 John Singleton Copley (American artist, 1738-1815). The Gore Children

Plants in Early American Gardens - Snail Flower

Snail Flower (Vigna caracalla)

In 1792, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Benjamin Hawkins, “The most beautiful bean in the world is the caracalla bean which, though in England a greenhouse plant, will grow in the open air in Virginia and Carolina.” Imported from tropical South America, it was being grown in American gardens by the 1830s, when Robert Buist wrote in The American Flower Garden Directory, “Snail-Flower is a very curious blooming plant, with flowers … all spirally twisted, in great profusion when the plant is grown well.” This spectacular flower was popular in florists’ corsages by the late 19th-century.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

History Blooms at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

Peggy Cornett at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello tells us that

In 1811 Thomas Jefferson recorded the planting of “Lathyrus odoratus. Sweet scented pea" in an oval flower bed at Monticello. Painted Lady Sweet Pea is a highly scented, pink and white bicolor variety, which was in cultivation by the 1730s and popular in American gardens through the 19C.

Plant Lists - 1786 Offered for Sale in Alexandria, VA

Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser.  Alexandria, April 13, 1786
Peter Crouwells and Co. Gardeners and Florists, in Philadelphia, Who in have frequently advertised in the Philadelphia newspapers, acquaint the public, that they have for sale here, and extensive variety of the most rare bulbous flowers, roots and seed, which have ever appeared in the country before.

Southern Garden History Plant Lists

Flowers & Vegetables

Hyacinths, 600 sorts [Hyacinthus orientalis cvs.]
Jonquilles, 26 sorts [Narcissus cvs.]
double narcissus, 40 sorts [Narcissus cvs.]
tulips, 400 sorts [Tulipa cvs.]
monthly rose trees of all colors, 30 sorts [Rosa sp.]
double jessamines, 12 sorts [?Gelsemium sempervirens cvs., Jasminum officinale cvs.]
double carnations, 72 sorts [Dianthus caryophyllus cvs.]
pinks of all sorts [Dianthus cvs.]
double ranunculus, 400 sorts [Ranunculus asiatics cvs.]
double anemones or wind flowers, 600 sorts [Anemone cvs.]
flower seeds, 300 sorts
colliflowers of different sorts [Brassica oleracea]
lettuce, 17 different sorts [Lactuca sativa].
imperial loaf lettuce [L. sativa ‘Imperial Loaf’]
Roman lettuce [L. sativa ‘Roman],
Silesia lettuce [L. sativa ‘Silesia’]
spotted Aleppo [L. sativa ‘Spotted Aleppo’]
capuchin lettuce [L. sativa]
Lombardine loaf lettuce [L. sativa ‘Lombardine’]
white curled endive [Cichorium endiva ‘White Curled]
green curled endive [C. endiva ‘Green Curled’]
broad leaved endive [C. endiva ‘Broad-leaved’]
loaf spinach [Spinacia oleracea]
large new sort of cabbage spinach [S. oleracea],
double parsley [Petroselinum crispum var. crispum]
Hamburg parsley [P. crispum ‘Hamburg’]
Double pepper grass and cresses [Lepidum sativum]
Chervil [Anthriscus cerefolium]
Serfeuil [?]
salsify sorrel [?]
Best orange carrot [Daucus carota]
Red and yellow beets [Beta vulgaris]
Artichokes [Cynara scolymus]
Melons [Cucumis melo]
Cucumbers [Cucumis sativus]
Asparagus of 4 sorts [Asparagus officinale]

He has also very elegant artificial flowers and feathers of all colours lately imported from France, suitable for the ladies. Those ladies and gentlemen who want to any of the above articles, will please to apply immediately at his lodgings at Mr. JOHN GRETTER’s, King-street, as he intends to set off for Baltimore in a few days. He has a catalogue of the names and colours of all his flowers. Alexandria, April 6, 1786

Plants in Early American Gardens - Spice Viburnum

Spice Viburnum (Viburnum carlesii)

William Richard Carles, the British Vice-Consul in Korea from 1883-85, discovered this remarkably fragrant Viburnum during one of his excursions into unknown territories and sent dried specimens to Kew in 1885. Nine years later the species was named in his honor and the first living plant was sent to England in 1901. The French nursery firm, Lemoine, was first to propagate and distribute this desirable shrub on a wide scale. British hybridizers crossed the Spice Viburnum with V. fragrans to develop the popular V. x burkwoodii.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

History Blooms at Monticello

Peggy Cornett at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello tells us that

The hardy annual Larkspur, Consolida ajacis, re-seeds abundantly in the Monticello Flower Gardens. Jefferson noted Larkspur blooming at Shadwell in July 1767, thought it suitable for naturalizing at Monticello "in the open ground on the west" in 1771, and sowed seed around his Roundabout flower border on April 8, 1810.

Larkspur, Consolida ajacis

Memories & Mountain Laurel & Peter Kalm 1716-1779

Memorial Day always brings 3 things to my mind.  - The peonies that my mother & I gathered to place on the graves of loved ones, when I was a child. - The incredible bravery of my great grandfather & his 2 brothers who left the South to go to Illinois to enlist in the Civil War to fight for the Union. - And, way up here in the woods where we live, the mountain laurel always bloom on Memorial Day.  The amazing blooms line the lane up to our house, and they define the area between the grass & the woods surrounding our house.  A soft, sweet, beautiful reminder of the meaning of the day.

The American mountain laurel was named Kalmia latifolia during the 1700s, when America was still just a collection of colonies.  The plant was first recorded in America in 1624, soon after the English began to settle along the Atlantic coast.  The genus Kalmia was named by Carolus Linneaus himself, for his student Pehr (Peter) Kalm, who sailed across the Atlantic to travel through the countryside collecting plant samples to send back to Sweden. In Kalm’s account of Mountain Laurel, he calls the plant the “spoon tree.”