History Blooms at Monticello - The Lewis & Clark Legacy

Gaillardia aristata. Peggy Cornett at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello tells us that

At the west end of Monticello’s Winding Flower Walk several showy species associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition are on display: Blanket Flower, Snow-on-the-Mountain, and Narrow-leaved Coneflower. As the Corps of Discovery crossed the Continental Divide Meriwether Lewis first collected Gaillardia aristata in the dry hills of the Rocky Mountains.

Photo by Peggy Cornett who writes in the Twinleaf Journal of January 2003

The Horticultural Potential of Lewis & Clark Plants

Their three-year journey led Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, & the Corps of Discovery through the central prairies, high plains, the arid Rockies, windswept deserts, & seasonally moist, temperate West Coast regions of North America. The diverse climatic & geographic environments they encountered obviously had immensely disparate growing conditions from the woodlands, swamps, fields, & savannahs of the East. Recognizing this, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon in 1807, at the conclusion of the mission, "Capt. Lewis has brought a considerable number of seeds of plants peculiar to the countries he has visited." At the time, it was difficult to recognize or sort out the plants that might prove easily amenable to gardens from those requiring very specific & difficult to reproduce environmental conditions. Although Jefferson, McMahon, William Hamilton & many others were enormously interested in cultivating these rare new introductions, determining which would thrive in cultivation required years of experimentation & trial & error.

Some plants with ornamental potential were distributed & entered the nursery trade early on, such as Lewis's prairie flax (Linum perenne lewisii), which McMahon was offering by 1815. Other showy flowers like the annual & perennial blanket flowers (Gaillardia sp.) were familiar asters that soon emerged as garden favorites. But, widespread production & marketing of the Lewis & Clark plants occurred gradually over time &, in some cases, it required that the plants be "rediscovered" by other intrepid explorers with more influential connections.

One such naturalist was a journeyman printer from Liverpool, England, Thomas Nuttall, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1808 at the age of 22. His interest in books & plants soon led him to Professor Benjamin Smith Barton of the University of Pennsylvania, who became his friend, tutor, & patron. Barton also saw in Nuttall someone capable of re-collecting many of the Lewis & Clark specimens no longer in his possession. In 1811 Nuttall joined the Astorian Expedition, which was planned to follow the Lewis & Clark Expedition's path to the Pacific. Nuttall headquartered at Fort Mandan & made numerous excursions up the Missouri River, where he encountered many of the original Lewis & Clark species. He was able to send a large shipment to Barton & returned to England just before the outbreak of the War of 1812. The plants & seeds he took with him were distributed to the Liverpool Botanic Garden & marketed through a dealer in American plants. Nuttall's shipment included the camas (Camassia quamash), or quamash as it was known to the Nez Perces, which was first collected by Lewis & Clark June 11, 1806 in Idaho as the explorers followed the Lolo Trail. Like the Native Americans, the men of the Expedition relied on the root for sustenance & Frederick Pursh would later note that the plant was "an agreeable food to Governor Lewis's party." An illustration of this attractive lily, first published in Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1813, as Scilla esculenta, was made from Nuttall's specimens that were being sold through John Fraser's Nursery in Sloane Square, London. Eventually, many plants collected by Nuttall also were offered for sale at the Linnaean Botanic Garden in Flushing, Long Island, New York.

The Scottish gardener David Douglas was another significant plant explorer who followed a similar track westward. He had served on the staff of the Glasgow Botanic Garden before becoming the foremost plant hunter of the Royal Botanical Society. Unlike the strict pioneer botanists, Douglas was more skilled as a horticulturist. He first went to Oregon Country in 1825 & explored the upper reaches of the Columbia River & parts of the Canadian wilderness. His western travels crossed & crisscrossed the route that Lewis & Clark had taken 20 years before. In 1827 he returned to London with seeds of dozens of distinct species previously known only to botanists, making available to everyone many now-familiar garden plants including California poppy, elegant Clarkia, musk or monkey flower, & blue-pod lupines. Douglas found Gaillardia aristata, first collected by Lewis in the dry hills of the Rocky Mountains, in similar regions from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. Intermixed with the typical species, Douglas saw many with a dwarf habit no more than 10 to 12 inches in height. Seeds of this form were collected in abundance & liberally distributed through the Horticultural Society at Kew. Douglas also brought choice North American woody shrubs to gardeners around the world, such as the evergreen Oregon grape-holly (Mahonia aquifolium, honoring Bernard McMahon) & the flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum). Before his untimely death in Hawaii in 1834, when he fell into a pit trap & was gored by a similarly ensnared bull, Douglas had sent some 500 species to William Hooker at Kew Gardens.

Often, these western North American species fared better in England that they did in the eastern United States. The elegant clarkia or "elkhorn flower," named for Captain William Clark by the German botanist Frederick Pursh, became widely popular in 19th-century British gardens. Accounts of London exhibitions in which clarkias received first-class certificates appeared in American magazines of the 1860s. After traveling to Britain, James Vick of Rochester, New York wrote enviously of "immense fields ablaze with bright colors, acres each of pink, red, white, purple, lilac," which he encountered in a country village of Essex. Although, like most seeds men, he offered a broad selection of both single & double cultivars, he readily admitted, "The Clarkia is the most effective annual in the hands of the English florist. It suffers with us in hot dry weather." In hot, humid climates, clarkia has been found to perform best when sown in the fall so that it blooms as the season cools.

Snow-on-the-mountain, Euphorbia marginata, which was new to science when collected by Lewis & Clark in 1806, soon became a common annual in 19th-century seed catalogues. Although its natural distribution is along the west side of the Missouri River in North Dakota, it proved adaptable to a wide range of soil types & growing conditions & likely escaped from cultivation into farmlands from Minnesota to Texas & New Mexico. Still other adaptable western species like the Western Jacob's ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum) & even Lewis's prairie flax, the North American subspecies of the common European blue flax, never managed to captivate American nurserymen, even though they grow with equal vigor & beauty. Catalogues generally offered only the traditional garden-variety counterparts, probably because it was easier to acquire these perennials from seed sources abroad.

Present-day ecological concerns must temper our rush to obtain certain species, especially those threatened by over-zealous collectors. The prairie coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia), for example, has a long history of medicinal use by Native Indians but now our modern-day infatuation with herbal remedies has led to its near devastation by widespread digging of wild plants.

The concepts of endangered species, diminution of resources, environmental degradation, even extinction were not part of the mindset of that moment in our history two hundred years ago. It was still a time to document & collect, to observe & understand. As Jefferson predicted in 1804, on the eve of the venture, "We shall delineate with correctness the great arteries of this great country: those who come after us will fill up the canvas we begin."

Now, we can reflect upon the pristine landscape stretching out beyond the horizon that was viewed with awe & wonder by the men of the Corps of Discovery. While we know they endured near starvation & exhaustion, sickness, scorching heat, arduous winters, monumental hardships, & profound uncertainty about the road ahead, we can still envy their experiences & take pleasure in their discoveries just as certainly as did Jefferson, who never traveled beyond the mountains of Virginia. Jefferson's destiny was to remain behind & wait with excited anticipation for the seeds, plants & roots the corps would return. In the ensuing years he would pursue the study of this new & sometimes peculiar flora from western lands, content in the belief that "Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight."

18C American Landscape - Yards

18C American Landscape

Plants in Early American Gardens - Rose Mallow

Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

Rose Mallow is an herbaceous perennial native to low, marshy sites in eastern North America. John Bartram sent seeds to England in the mid-1700s and Thomas Jefferson mentioned a number of hibiscus and mallows, including “Hibiscus moschentos,” in his only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781). The mid-summer flowers are 5-8” in diameter with pink (sometimes white) petals and often a reddish-purple eye.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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1710 Formal Gardens - Real or Imagined - in Colonial American Portraits

1710 Justus Engelhardt Kuhn (Colonial American artist, fl 1707-1717) Eleanor Darnall 1704-1796

1710 Justus Engelhardt Kuhn (Colonial American artist, fl 1707-1717) Eleanor Darnall 1704-1796

1710 Justus Engelhardt Kuhn (Colonial American artist, fl 1707-1717)  Henry Darnall III

1710 Justus Engelhardt Kuhn (Colonial American artist, fl 1707-1717)  Henry Darnall III

Plants in Early American Gardens - Lamb's Ears

 Lamb's Ears (Stachys byzantine)

Lamb's Ears (Stachys byzantina)

This mat-forming, perennial herb is native to the Middle East from the Caucasus to Iran and has been cultivated since the late 18th century. Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon listed it as “Stachys lanata, Woolly Stachys” in The American Gardener’s Calendar, 1806. Although Lamb’s Ears is a member of the mint family and related to the Common European Betony (Stachys officinalis), it appears to have been grown as an ornamental plant rather than for medicinal purposes. New Jersey nurseryman Peter Henderson noted in his Handbook of Plants, 1890, that this species was the only one of special merit for the garden, and was “used to a considerable extent in the formation of white lines for ribbon borders or massing” in Victorian flower beds.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Asparagus

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Asparagus

Asparagus....Grow a young shoot; are to be propagated either from the seed or roots. The seed are contained in those things which look like red berries. These are to be gathered from the most flourishing stalks, and laid in a tub for about three weeks to ferment. This will rot the husks, which will swim upon being rubbed between the hands, and having water poured upon them, but the seed will go to the bottom. Pour the water off gently, and the husks will be carried along with it. This being done two or three times, the seed will become perfectly clean. They are then to be laid on a mat or dish, and exposed to the sun to dry. When that is done, they may be put into a hag and pricked out in February or March, in beds about a foot asunder every way, anil never to be transplanted. But if they are to he transplanted, they may he sown as thick as you do Cabbage. If you propagate from the roots, those of a year old are most eligible, though if two, they will succeed very well. In planting them out, they should he placed about four inches under the surface of the ground, with the bud erect, against the side of the earth perpendicularly cut, so that the extremity of the roots may touch each other. This will put them about a foot asunder; the best time for transplanting them is when they begin to shoot, but before they appear above ground. The principal thing to be regarded with these plants, is the bed in which they are to be placed. A great apparatus was formerly made use of, but now seems *On all hands to be disregarded. Nothing more is necessary than to make your beds perfectly rich and light, that the head may not be obstructed in its growth upwards. Two feet of mould and dung is depth sufficient for any plant. They are to be kept clean from weeds, and nothing sown upon the beds. The fourth year from the seed they may be cut moderately, but it is better to wait till the fifth. About October the haum should be cut down, and the beds covered with rotten dung about six inches, part of which may he taken off in February or March, and the remainder forked up in the«beds, which will not only assist the roots, but raise the beds in some small degree yearly, which is an advantage. A spade is a very prejudicial instrument to them. Cut with a blunt pointed knife (some use a saw) and separate the earth from the plant, and cut it so as not to endanger the head of another that may be shooting up. There are joints in the roots of the Sparrow grass like the Wire grass, from every one of which a head is produced. Butchers' dung is what it delights in. I would recommend your beds to be about four feet wide, that the grass may be cut without treading on the beds, which often hardens the earth so much that the grass cannot come up, and must of course perish. In these beds I would have three rows; for the roots ought to have a sufficient quantity of earth on all sides. Beds thus managed, Miller says, will last ten or twelve years; Bradly says twenty, and I am inclined to join with the latter.

Garden to Table - Apple Tansey Recipe in 1742

Londoner Eliza Smith wrote in the beginning of her 1727 book on being a complete housewife that ladies might use the information in her book for their "private families, or such publick-spirited gentlewomen as would be beneficent to their poor neighbours."  

An early recipe for Apple Tansey appears in The Compleat Housewife: Or, Accomplished Gentelwoman’s Companion, a cookbook written by Eliza Smith.

The Compleat Housewife, or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion, originally published in London, England, in 1727, is considered the 1st cookbook published in the British American colonies.  The Compleat Housewife contained not only recipes, but also directions for painting rooms, removing mildew, and home remedies for treating ailments, such as smallpox.

The Compleat Housewife was published in early America for the first time in 1742, by William Parks, a Williamsburg, Virginia, printer. He printed and sold the cookbook, believing that there was a strong market for it with Virginia housewives who wished to be current with the London fashion. Parks was the founder of the Maryland Gazette, and published a number of minor books and pamphlets before printing The Compleat Housewife, which became his major book publication. The book that was published in America was the fifth London edition, which was a best seller there at that time.  During the 18C, British books including The Compleat Housewife were reprinted in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.

When he published Compleat Housewife in 1742, Parks made an attempt to have the cookbook altered to American "taste", deleting certain recipes, "the ingredients or materials for which are not to be had in this country."  In England, when Eliza Smith wrote The Compleat Housewife, she showed "her self-assurance to attack English attitudes toward food and women cooks." In the book's preface, Smith chides the male culinary writers of her time. She claimed that they concealed their best recipes from the public. The Compleat Housewife title page describes the book as a “collection of several hundred of the most approved receipts, in cookery, pastry, confectionery, preserving, pickles, cakes, creams, jellies, made wines, cordials. And also bills of fare for every month of the year. To which is added, a collection of nearly two hundred family receipts of medicines; viz. drinks, syrups, salves, ointments, and many other things of sovereign and approved efficacy in most distempers, pains, aches, wounds, sores, etc. never before made publick in these parts; fit either for private families, or such publick-spirited gentlewomen as would be beneficent to their poor neighbours."

Here is the 18C recipe as it appears in the manuscript:
 To make an Apple Tansey,
Take three pippins, slice them round in thin slices, and fry them with butter; then beat four eggs, with six spoonfuls of cream, a little rosewater, nutmeg, and sugar; stir them together, and pour it over the apples; let it fry a little, and turn it with a pye-plate. Garnish with lemon and sugar strew’d over it.

Plants in Early American Gardens - American Mountainash

American Mountainash (Sorbus americana)

The natural range of this North American species is from Newfoundland to Manitoba, south to Michigan and the southern Appalachians to Georgia. First introduced to Europe in 1782, John Bartram’s 1783 Broadside included Sorbus americana as a tree found in “moist rich Soil in rocky Mountains.” Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon listed it as “American Service Tree” in his 1804 Catalogue of American Seeds. In 1867, New York writer Robert Copeland commented that the American mountain ash was best planted in masses. Also known as Dogberry, the bitter fruits (or Rowan berries) are edible to birds and other wildlife.

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Forgotten Weather Words & Early American Gardens

Olaus Magnus(1490-1557) - History of the Nordic Peoples Published in 1555 On different Effects of Thunderstorms and Lightnings

Forgotten Weather Words By Paul Anthoy Jones 6, 2015 on mentalfloss.com

Seems like we are becoming more aware of the recent extremes in weather lately.  Weather surely determines the growth & success of the majority of outdoor gardens, historic & modern-day.  I remembered an article from mentalfloss.com, that I read a few years ago, & tried to imagine which of these "forgotten weather words" might have made their way to the New World colonies along with our European ancestors.

BLENKY
To blenky means “to snow very lightly.” It’s probably derived from blenks, an earlier 18C word for ashes or cinders. (BWS See: Boston Gazette Monday, Mar 18, 1782 Boston, MA Issue: 1438 Page: 4)

BOWS OF PROMISE
Rainbows were nicknamed "bows of promise" in Victorian English, in allusion to the story in the Book of Genesis. (BWS See: Salem Observer Saturday, Sep 13, 1828 Salem, MA Vol: VI Issue: 37 Page: 2)

DROUTH
This is an old Irish-English word for the perfect weather conditions in which to dry clothes. Probably related to an identical Scots word for an insatiable thirst drouth was borrowed into American English in the 19C, where it eventually became another name for a drought. (BWS See: Charleston Courier Monday, Aug 20, 1810 Charleston, SC Vol: VIII Issue: 2356 Page: 2)

FLENCHES
If the weather flenches, then it looks like it might improve later on, but never actually does. (BWS See: Columbian Centinel Saturday, May 03, 1794 Boston, MA Vol: XXI Issue: 16 Page: 4)

FOXY
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, if the weather is foxy then it’s “misleadingly bright”—or, in other words, sunny & clear, but freezing cold.

GLEAMY
If, on the other hand, the weather is gleamy then it’s intermittently sunny, or as one 19C glossary put it, “fitful & uncertain.” (BWS See: Hampshire Gazette Wednesday, Aug 20, 1806 Northampton, MA Page: 1)

HEN-SCARTINS
This is an old northern English word for long, thin streaks of cloud traditionally supposed to forecast a rain. It literally means “chicken scratches.”

MARE’S TAILS
Mare's tails are cirrus clouds—long, thin wisps of cloud very high up in the sky—that are traditionally said to “point” toward fine weather.

MOKEY
Moke is an old northern English word for the mesh part of a fishing net, from which is derived the word mokey, describing dull, dark, or hazy weather conditions.

MOONBROCH
This is an old word from the far north of Scotland for a hazy halo of cloud around the moon at night that was supposedly a sign of bad weather to come.

PIKELS
Pikels are heavy drops or sheets of rain. The word pikel itself is an old Lancashire dialect name for a pitchfork, while the local saying “to rain pikels with the tines downwards” means to rain very heavily indeed.

SMUIR & BLIND SMUIR
This is an old Scots word meaning “choke” or “smother,” which by extension also came to be used to refer to thick, stiflingly hot weather. A blind smuir, oppositely, is a snow drift.

SUGAR-WEATHER
Sugar-weather is a 19C Canadian word for a period of warm days & cold nights—the perfect weather conditions to start the sap flowing in maple trees.

SWULLOCKING
This is an old southeast English word meaning “sultry” or “humid.” If the sky looks swullocking, then it looks like there’s a thunderstorm on its way.

THUNDER-HEAD
Herman Melville used the old English word thunder-head in Moby-Dick (1851). It refers to a thick, rounded mass of cloud on the horizon, usually indicating that a storm is on its way.

TWIRLBLAST & TWIRLWIND
Both twirlblast & twirlwind are old 18C names for tornados.

YOWE-TREMMLE—literally an “ewe-tremble”—is an old Scottish dialect word for a week of unusually cold or rainy weather beginning in the final few days in June that is literally cold enough to make the season’s freshly-sheared sheep “tremmle,” or shiver.

Plants in Early American Gardens - New England Aster

New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)

North American asters ranked as the premier native plant introduced into Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. British patron Peter Collinson wrote to Philadelphia plant collector and nurseryman John Bartram, “…your country in inexhaustible in asters,” and Lady Jean Skipwith included “asters of various kinds” in her southern Virginia garden during the late 1700s. New England Aster was included on the 1806 list of Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon and in the 1818 catalog of the William Prince Nursery on Long Island, New York. This species remains a choice perennial in today’s flower border as it is attractive to butterflies and makes a good cut flower.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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History Blooms at Monticello -

Peggy Cornett at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello tells us that 

Cabbage abounds in the Monticello vegetable garden. Throughout his lifetime Jefferson cultivated eighteen varieties including French, Milan, Savoy, Ox-heart, Roman, Scotch, Sugarloaf, York, and Winter. Cabbage was the second most commonly purchased vegetable bought by the Jefferson family from the gardens of Monticello’s enslaved African Americans.

Garden History - Batty Langley 1696-1751

Batty Langley Written by Mike Rendell

I love this blog posting by Mike Rendell about Battly Langley who wrote of English gardens in the 1st half of the 18C.  In fact, his entire blog, Georgian Gentleman, is fascinating!  Batty Langley's books often appeared in colonial British American libraries in the 18C.

Batty Langley, print made by J. Carwitham, 1741

"Many know of Capability Brown, some know of Humphry Repton, but one name largely overlooked is Batty Langley. Batty was baptised at Twickenham on 14th September 1696, the son of Daniel & Elizabeth Langley. His father was a jobbing gardener who seems to have been working for a David Batty, so the name may have been given to the baby in tribute to this patron. Batty Langley grew up in his father’s footsteps, keen on gardening but determined to spread his wings rather than pottering around with a spade & pruning knife.

"At the age of 23 Batty married, but his wife Anne died after producing 4 children from 7 years of marriage. He remarried & went on to sire another 10 children, to whom he bequeathed such fanciful names as Euclid, Vitruvius & Archimedes…

New Principles of Gardening, or, the laying out and planting parterres, groves, wildernesses, labyrinths, avenues, parks, c. London A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, 1728.

"Batty Langley received a commission to do some design work for Thomas Vernon at Twickenham Park. There he encountered a large sandpit & managed to convert “this perfect nuisance” into “a very agreeable beautiful” spiral garden, using hornbeam hedges. It was the start of a fascination with shapes & serpentine mazes which led him in 1728 to publish his oeuvre “New Principles of Gardening; or The Laying out & Planting Parterres, Groves Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues Parks etc”

"The sub-title gave claim to the fact that the methods described in the book were more ‘Grand & Rural’ than anything before, listing “Experimental Directions for raising the several kinds of fruit trees, Forest Trees, Ever Greens & Flowering shrubs with which gardens are adorn’d.”

New Principles of Gardening is profusely illustrated with 28 copperplate engravings.

"The book contained very little new, but the illustrations were influential in bringing to people’s attention the use of shapes & winding vistas – he wanted gardens to lead the visitor through the design, rather than have everything in full view. There should be surprises around each corner or, as he put in the introduction: ‘Nor is there any Thing more shocking than a stiff regular Garden; where after we have seen one quarter thereof, the very same is repeated in all the remaining Parts, so that we are tired, instead of being further entertain’d with something new as expected.’

"In other words it marked a move away from the rigidly, geometrical knot gardens favoured by the Elizabethan & Stuart gardeners, even if the world was not yet ready for the picturesque gardens of Capability Brown. Batty loved mazes, but often introduced swirls & patterns far removed from the traditional honeycomb designs.

Inspired by the gardens at Versailles Langley occasionally suggested improvements to their design

"In some ways his ideas were right at the start of the rococo movement; the problem was that this self-publicist thought that he was now the arbiter of taste in all areas of everyday life. He brought out books on carpentry & furniture design, prompting Horace Walpole to utter “All that his books achieved, has been to teach carpenters to massacre that venerable species, & to give occasion to those who know nothing of the matter, & who mistake his clumsy efforts for real imitations, to censure the productions of our ancestors, whose bold & beautiful fabrics Sir Christopher Wren viewed & reviewed with astonishment, & never mentioned without esteem.”

"He submitted a design for a new Mansion House in London in 1735, only to have it described in the ‘St. James’s Evening Post’ as ‘a curious grotesque temple, in a taste entirely new…’ Undeterred, he pursued his ideas of “arti-natural” gardens, linked with what is now termed “Batty Langley Gothic” architecture. He felt that his writhing shapes & flowing designs were ‘exceeding beautiful in building, as in ceilings, parquetting, painting, paving, &c.’

"He published numerous tomes on building techniques, & on architecture under such inspiring titles as ‘The Builders Compleat Assistant’ (1738); ‘The City & Country Builder’s & Workman’s Treasury of Designs’ (1740); ‘The Builder’s Jewel, or the Youth’s Instructor & Workman’s Remembrancer’ (1741); ‘Ancient Architecture, restored & improved, by a great variety of Grand & Useful Designs’ & in 1748 ‘A Survey of Westminster Bridge, as ’tis now Sinking into Ruin.’

"In general though, he was ridiculed for his designs for buildings. But for his gardening book he deserves to be remembered. ‘Arti-natural’ may not have been revolutionary but at least Langley encouraged trees to have a natural form rather than being pollarded out of existence. Look at a serpentine shape or a paisley design, & remember Batty Langley with affection.

"He died at his Soho home in London in 1751."

Plants in Early American Gardens - Bridal Wreath Spirea

Bare Root Bridal Wreath Spirea (Spiraea prunifolia)

This especially floriferous Spirea, introduced from its native China by plant hunter Robert Fortune in 1844, has long been admired for its profusion of double white flowers borne on bare branches in early spring. Its Chinese name means “Smile-laugh-flowers.” Imported to America soon after its arrival in the West, Spiraea prunifolia was praised by James Wilson of Albany, NY, in a letter to “The Horticulturist” magazine in 1849: “This charming shrub needs only to be seen, to be admired. No lover of flowers ought to be without it.” By 1870 it was considered “One of the most common and most beautiful” of spireas (Frank Scott, The Art of Beautifying Suburban Home Grounds of Small Extent).

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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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.

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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.”