History Blooms at Monticello - Duchesse de Nemours Peony

Duchesse de Nemours Peony (Paeonia lactiflora cv.)

Both European and Asian peonies have been cultivated since ancient times. Those native to central China and Siberia (varieties of Paeonia lactiflora) were first introduced to the West by the 18th century and by 1784 breeding with the European peony was occurring in France and Britain. Because peonies are such long-lived plants, many 19th-century cultivars are still available. 

Thomas Jefferson noted “Piony” in a list of hardy perennials as early as 1771. The extremely fragrant and unusual ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ was introduced by 1856, although some believe it was earlier. Joseph Breck described it as “quite a novelty” in 1851. Peonies are deer resistant, and their flowers attract butterflies.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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Garden Design - Trees-Avenues & Rows of Trees

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1767. Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) miniature of the home of Dr. Henry Stevenson. Baltimore, Maryland. Maryland Historical Society. See more complete image below.

By the mid-18th-century, plantation owners up & down the Atlantic Coast often employed larger avenues of trees as well as their smaller alleys when designing their gardens and grounds. Garden planners designed avenues as wide, straight roadways approaching plantation houses or public buildings lined with single or double rows of trees and often cutting through a lawn of grass. They often used rows of trees spreading from the side of the house outward into the landscape to draw the eye toward the dwelling; to separate the entrance facade from the more private rear garden and work yards; and to form a living wall.

The word avenue had expanded to include any broad roadway bordered or marked by trees or other objects at regular intervals.

English garden writers had referred to avenues, while colonization of America was just a twinkle in the eye of the mother country. John Evelyn wrote disapprovingly in his diary in the summer 1654, "The avenue was ungraceful." In 1664, he advised, "That this may yet be no prejudice to the meaner capacities let them read for avenue, the principal walk to the front of the house, or seat." 

English garden reformer John Worlidge wrote in his 1669 Systema Agriculturæ of, "Avenues, Ways or Passages, or Rows or Walks of Trees."

Planners left avenues wide enough for a horse or carriage to pass, and some were much wider with many being the width of the house. Avenues leading to the entrance facade of a dwelling were wider than subsidiary intersecting ones and often were wide enough that the entire facade of the house was visible from the far end.

Often a 200' long avenue was about 14-15' wide, a 600' avenue was about 30-36' wide, and a 1200' long avenue was about 42-48' wide. Gardeners occasionally manipulated the perspective of even these broad avenues as well, so that the apparent size of an avenue was lengthened by gradually narrowing the width of the avenue towards the far end.

In Williamsburg, Virginia, William Byrd noted in 1733, "This famous town consists of Col. Spotswood's enchanted castle...There had also been a chapel about a bow-shot from the colonel's house, at the end of an avenue of cherry trees."

In the Virginia Council Journal it was recorded on December 15, 1737, for Williamsburg, Ordered that there be paid to Mr Philip Finch the sum of ten pounds for laying and planting the Avenue to the Governors House.

In May, 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote from Charleston, "I...cant say one word on the other seats I saw in this ramble, except the Count's large double row of Oaks on each side of the Avenue that leads to the house--which seemed designed by nature for pious meditation and friendly converse."

Growing an avenue of trees took special planning and many years. Often the avenue of trees was planted years before the house was built on the property. On June 18, 1753, William Murray wrote to John Murray Esquire of Murraywhaithe in Charleston, "By all means mention the fine Improvements of your garden & the fine avenues you've raised near the spot where you'r to build your new house."

Often, avenues extended into the countryside & terminated with impressive vistas. In 1762 Hannah Callender wrote of William Peters’ Belmont near Philadelphia, “A broad walk of English cherry trees leads down to the river….One avenue gives a fine prospect of the city…Another avenue looks to the obelisk.” Avenues of cherry trees were common on plantations in Pennsylvania at that time.

Twenty years later, commercial nurserymen promoted grown trees for sale to the Charleston public. On January 1, 1778, an advertisement in the South Carolina and American General Gazette offered, "For sale...Magnolia or Laurels fit for Avenues...any height from three feet to twenty."

Schoolmaster Philip Vickers Fithian wrote in his journal in 1773 of Nomini Hall in Virginia, Due east of the Great House are two Rows of tall, flourishing, beautiful, Poplars...these Rows are something wider than the House & are about 300 yards Long...These Rows of Poplars form an extremely pleasant avenue, & at the Road, through them, the House appears most romantic.

George Mason's son John described Gunston Hall in Virginia, From the front entrance...there was...an avenue of cherry trees, reaching to the gate...On the north front by which was the principal approach, was an extensive lawn kept closely pastured, through the midst of which ran a spacious avenue, girded by long double ranges of that hardy and stagely cherry tree, the common black-heart, raised from stone, and so the more fair and uniform in their growth, commencing at about two hundred feet from the house and extending thence for about twelve hundred feet; the carriage way being in the centre, and the footways on either side between the two rows, forming each a double range of trees, and under their shade....But what was remarkable and most imposing to be so aligned as to counteract the deception in our vision which in looking down long parallel lines makes them seem to approach as they recede; advantage was taken of the circumstance and another very pleasant delusion was effected. A common centre was established exactly in the middle of the outer doorway of the mansion on that front from which were made to diverge at a certain angle the four line son which these trees were planted, the plantation not commencing but at a considerable distance therefrom (about 200 ft...) and so carefully and accurately had they been planted, and trained and dressed in accordance with each other, as they progressed in their growth, that form the point described as taken for the common centre, and when they had got to a great size only the first four trees were visible...And in truth to the eye placed at only about two feet to the right or left of the first position there was presented as if by magic four long and apparently close walls of wood made up of the bodies of trees and above as many of rich foliage constituted by their boughs stretching as seemed to an immeasurable distance.

Bernard M'Mahon wrote in 1806, Straight rows of the most beautiful trees, forming long avenues ...were in great estimation, considered as great ornaments, and no considerable estate and eminent pleasure-ground were without several of them.

See: The Recollections of John Mason: George Mason's Son Remembers His Father and Life at Gunston Hall (2003, Terry K. Dunn, ed., EPM Publications, Marshall, Va.). 

Plants in Early American Gardens - Bee Balm (for Oswego & Earl Gray Tea)

Bee Balm (Monarda didyma)

This vigorous native perennial was recognized as a desirable ornamental and kitchen garden plant by the early 18th century, and seed was sent by John Bartram to England in 1744. It was reported that by 1760 there was “plenty in covent garden market” in London. 

Early American settlers, especially the Shakers in upstate New York, made a tea from the leaves, hence the name Oswego tea, which is now Earl Gray. Bernard McMahon listed “Crimson Monarda” in his 1804 broadside, and bee balm was cited as a garden worthy plant by many 19th century American garden writers, including A. J. Downing, Peter Henderson, Joseph Breck, and Robert Buist. Deer tend to avoid this plant’s fragrant foliage.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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Garden Design - Trees-Bower

In an 18th century pleasure ground or garden, a bower was a shelter or covered place in a garden, overarched with branches of trees, shrubs, or other plants. A bower made with boughs of trees or vines bent and twined together served as a shady recess from the sun.

William Shakespeare referred to a 1596 bower in 1 Henry IV, "Ditties...Sung by a faire Queene in a Summers Bowre."

In 1667, John Milton wrote, "Where the unpierc't shade Imbound the noontide Bowrs."
Richard Bradley warned in his Dictionary in 1727, "Care must be had that you do not confound the Word Bower with Arbour, because the first is always built long and arch'd, whereas the second is either round or square at Bottom, and has a sort of Dome or Ceiling at the Top."

In 1776, while traveling in western North Carolina and perhaps a little homesick, William Bartram wrote of "companies of young, innocent Cherokee virgins, some busily gathering the rich fragrant fruit, others having already filled their baskets, lay reclined under the shade of floriferous and fragrant native bowers of Magnolia, Azalea, Philadelphus, perfumed Calycanthus, sweet Yellow Jessamine and cerulian Glycine frutescens."

In the new republic of the United States of America in 1787, Manasseh Cutler described Gray's Garden near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "At every end, side, and corner, there were summer-houses, arbors covered with vines or flowers or shady bowers encircled with trees and flowering shrubs, each of which was formed in a different taste."

The Viginia Argus advertised a house for sale in the summer of 1799, in Bowling Green, Virginia:
"Valuable Property FOR SALE at the Bowling Green, near Richmond, that much frequented Tavern and public Garden...The garden is very extensive...with Summer Houses, and bowers for the accomodation of company."

When planning the landscaping for Monticello in 1804, Thomas Jefferson declared, "The kitchen garden is not the place for ornaments...bowers and treillages suit that better."

In his 1806 Gardener's Calendar, Philadelphian Bernard M'Mahon described where to place buildings in the garden, "Various light ornamental buildings and erections are introduced as ornaments to particular departments; such as temples, bowers, banqueting houses...and other edifices ...usually erected...in openings between the division of the ground, and contiguous to the terminations of grand walks."

In Salem, North Carolina, Juliana Margaret Conner descriped an 1827 visit to the Moravian community, "Afterwards walked into the garden...we saw what I conceived to be a curiosity and in itself extremely beautiful. It was a large summer house formed of eight cedar trees planted in a circle, the tops whilst young were chained together in the center forming a cone. The immense brances were all cut, so that there was not a leaf, the outside is beautifully trimmed perfectly even and very thick within, were seats placed around and doors or openings were cut, through the branches, it had been planted 40 years."

Garden to Table - Home-Made Two Cowslip Wines (or Virginia Bluebells)

 

John Greenwood (American artist, 1727-1792) Sea Captains Carousing, 1758.  Detail

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines Cordials & Liqueurs 1909 by Helen S. Wright

COWSLIP WINE
To three gallons of water put seven pounds of sugar; stir it well together, and beat the whites of ten eggs very well, and mix with the liquor, and make it boil as fast as possible. Skim it well, and let it continue boiling two hours; then strain it through a hair sieve, and set it a cooling, and when it is cold as wort should be, put a small quantity of yeast to it on a toast, or in a dish. Let it stand all night working; then bruise one-half peck of cowslips, put them into your vessel, and your liquor upon them, adding three ounces of syrup of lemons. Cut a turf of grass and lay on the bung; let it stand a fortnight, and then bottle it. Put your tap into your vessel before you put your wine in, that you may not shake it.

COWSLIP OR CLARY WINE, NO. 2
The best method of making these wines is to put in the pips dry, when the fermentation of the wine has subsided. This method is preferred for two reasons: first, it may be performed at any time of the year when lemons are cheapest, and when other wine is making; second, all waste of the pips is avoided. Being light, they are sure to work over if put in the cask while the wine is in a state of fermentation. Boil fourteen pounds of good moist sugar with five gallons of water, and one ounce of hops. Shave thin the rinds of eight lemons or Seville oranges, or part of each; they must be put in the boil the last quarter of an hour, or the boiling liquor poured over them. Squeeze the juice to be added when cool, and rinse the pulp in the hot liquor, and keep it filled up, either with wine or new beer, as long as it works over; then paste brown paper, and leave it for four, six, or eight months. The quantity of flowers is one quart of flowers to each gallon of wine. Let them be gathered on a fine, dry day, and carefully picked from every bit of stalk and green. Spread them thinly on trays, sheets, or papers, and turn them often. When thoroughly dry put them in paper bags, until the wine is ready to receive them. Put them in at the bung-hole; stir them down two or three times a day, till all the cowslips have sunk; at the same time add isinglass. Then paste over again with paper. In six months the wine will be fit to bottle, but will be improved by keeping longer in the cask. The pips shrink into a very small compass in drying; the quantity allowed is of fresh-gathered flowers. Observe, also, that wine well boiled, and refined with hops and isinglass, is just as good used from the cask as if bottled, which is a great saving of time and hazard. Wine made on the above principles has been often praised by connoisseurs, and supposed to have been bottled half a day. 

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines is a cookbook for those who want to make their own wines & liqueurs from available ingredients, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, & shrubs from local gardens, farms, & orchards. It includes ingredients & instructions for making & fermenting spirits, from wine & ale to sherry, brandy, cordials, & even beer. 

Colonial Era Cookbooks

1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London) 

1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)

1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)

1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)

1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)

Helpful Secondary Sources

America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972

Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown   Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996 

Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown  ABC-CLIO  Westport, United States

Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver

Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Virginia Bluebells or Mountain Cowslips

Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)

On April 16, 1766, in one of his earliest observations in his Garden Book, Thomas Jefferson noted, “the bluish colored, funnel-formed flower in the low grounds in bloom.” Also called Virginia or mountain cowslip and Roanoke bells in the 18th century, this is one of our most desirable native perennial flowers. It was introduced to Britain by 1700 and Williamsburg’s John Custis sent roots to his patron Peter Collinson in the 1730s. It is easy to grow in most shady gardens and the emerging tufts of blue-green foliage are a harbinger of spring. Do not allow dormant roots to dry out.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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Plants in Early American Gardens - Feathered Hyacinth

Feathered Hyacinth (Muscari comosum 'Plumosum')

Feathered Hyacinth, which is native to the Mediterranean region, has been in cultivation since 1612. Jefferson noted it blooming on April 25, 1767 at his boyhood home, Shadwell. Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon forwarded bulbs to Jefferson in 1812 for planting along the flower borders at Monticello. Today the Tassel Hyacinth (Muscari comosum), the species form, is naturalized throughout the gardens and south orchard at Monticello.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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Plants in Early American Gardens - Rose Geranium

Rose Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens)

The P. graveolens species, native to southern Africa, was introduced to England in 1774 and has long been used to produce geranium oil. At least eight species of sweet-scented geraniums were introduced to America from southern Africa between 1770 and 1820. Rose, nutmeg, and oak-leaf geraniums were among the earliest imports. Jean Skipwith of Prestwould in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, listed “rose geranium” among her houseplants in papers that have been dated between 1785 and 1805. This geranium lends a lovely rose scent to potpourri and the edible leaves can be used in jams, jellies, cakes, puddings and more.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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Garden History - Trees-Grove

A grove is a small woods or cluster of trees either occuring naturally & intentionally left in the landscape or purposefully planted in the pleasure grounds around a dwelling in the 18th century. Often a grove consisted of large trees whose branches shaded the ground below affoding shade or forming avenues or walks. Groves produced food attracting songbirds to delight visitors.

Some groves of trees were planted for remembrance honoring a passed friend or relative. Groves were often seen as solemn, whether intentionally planted as a memorial or not.

Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote in a letter in 1742, from Charleston, South Carolina, "You may wonder how I could in this gay season think of planting a Cedar grove, which rather reflects an Autumnal gloom and solemnity than the freshness and gayty of spring. But so it is...I intend then to connect in my grove the solemnity (not the solidity) of summer or autumn with the cheerfulness and pleasures of spring, for it shall be filled with all kind of flowers, as well wild as Garden flowers, with seats of Camomoil and here and there a fruit tree--oranges, nectrons, Plumbs."

In June of 1743, Isaac Norris II at Fairhill near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was planning on, "...opening my woods into groves, enlarging my fishponds and beautifying my springs."

A 1761 house-for-sale ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette touted, "A small Grove of Pine Trees before the Garden, from which you are entertained with a most beautiful Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, and of the River, for 4 or 5 Miles downwards; so that no Ship can pass or repass, but by hailing her. you may easily know from whence she came, or wither she is going."

George Ogilivie wrote of the 1770s grounds at Alexander Garden's Otranto near Charleston, South Carolina,
"There midst the grove, with unassuming guise
But rural neatness, see the mansion rise!"

At the beginning of the American Revolution, General George Washington wrote a letter in August 19 1776, to Lund Washington, who remained at his home Mount Vernon in Virginia, "I mean to have groves of Trees at each end of the dwelling House ...these Trees to be Planted without any order to regularity (but pretty thick, as they can at any time be thin'd) and to consist that at the North end, of locusts altogether. and that at the South, of all the clever kind of Trees (especially flowering ones) that can be got, such as Crab apple, Poplar, Dogwood, Sasafras, Laurel, Willow...to be interspersed here and there with every greens such as Holly, Pine, and Cedar, also Ivy; to these may be added the Wild flowering Shrubs of the larger kind, such as the fringe Trees."

Washington was back at Mount Vernon, after the war had concluded and before he assumed the presidency. In March of 1785, he wrote in his diary, "Transplanted in the groves at the ends of the House...9 live Oak, 11 Yew or Hemlock, 10 Aspen, 4 Magnolia, 2 Elm, 2 Papaw, 2 Lilacs, 3 Fringe, 1 Swamp berry."

Reverend Manasseh Cutler wrote in 1787 of the trees on the mall in Philadelphia, "The trees are yet small, but most judiciously arranged. The...small groves in the squares have a most delightful effect."

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, wrote in 1790 of the grounds at Bush Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "A beautiful grove behind the house, through which there is a spacious gravel walk, guarded by a number of marble statues."

When visiting the Moravian settlement of Salem, North Carolina in May of 1791, William Loughton Smith noted, "The church yard is on a hill above the town, surrounded by shady groves."

In 1791, Rev. William Bentley wrote of the garden of Joseph Barrell, a Boston merchant, "His garden is beyond any example I have seen. A young grove is growing the background, in the middle of which is a pond, decorated with four ships at anchor, and a marble figure in the centre."

George Washington's tree plantings had grown enough by 1796, that Benjamin Henry Latrobe wrote of them on his visit to Mount Vernon, Virginia, "The house becomes visible between two groves of trees at about a mile's distance." Just after George Washington's death, Mount Vernon was described in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1800. "On either wing is a thick grove of different flowering forest trees. Parallel with them, on the land side, are two spacious gardens, into which one is led by two serpentine gravel walks, planted with weeping willows and shady shrubs."

In 1798, Timothy Dwight wrote of Boston, Massachusettes, "Boston, enjoys a superiority to all other great towns on this continent...the gardening superior to what is found in most other places; the orchards, groves, and forests, numerous and thrifty."

In a house for sale ad in the Federal Gazette in 1800, the grounds of Adrian Valeck's country seat in Baltimore, Maryland, were described, "Behind the garden in a grove and shrubbery or bosquet planted with a great variety of the finest forest trees, oderiferous & other flowering shrubs etc."

When Manasseh Cutler visited the Woodlands in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in November of 1803, he wrote, "We then walked over the pleasure grounds...lawns of green grass, frequently mowed, and at different distances numerous copse of trees, interspersed with artificial groves, which are of trees collected from all parts of the world."
Grove of Trees at Monticello.

In 1803, Alexander Hamilton's garden contained, "A few dogwood trees, not large, scattered along the margin of the grove would be very pleasant."

In 1807, Thomas Jefferson made notes for his Virginia home of Monticello, "The canvas at large must be a Grove, of the largest trees, (poplar, oak, elm, maple, ash, hickory, chestnut, Linden, Weymouth pine, sycamore) trimmed very high, so as to give the appearance of open ground, yet not so far apart but that they may cover the ground with close shade."

Artist Charles Willson Peale wrote to his son Rembrandt Peale in 1810 from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "I am often pleased with the solemn groves skirting my meadows in majestic silence and cool appearance."

New Yorker John Nicholson emphasized the practical use of a grove in The Farmer's Assistant in 1820, "These are both ornamental and useful. To plant heights of ground, the sides and tops of which are generally not very good for tillage or pasture, adds much to the beauty of a landscape; and is at the same time highly useful, as it regards the quantities of firewood which may be produced from such spots...Sugarmaple-trees, planted round the borders of meadows, and some straggling ones in them, are very pleasant and profitable, as they do no injury to the growth of the grass. Wherever trees can be planted in pastures and along fences, without doing injury to the growths of the adjoining fields by their shade, this part of rural economy ought never to be omited."

Plants in Early American Gardens - French Lavender

French Lavender (Lavandula stoechas)

French or Spanish Lavender (also once known as Stickadove Lavender) is native to the Mediterranean coastline of Europe. British herbalist John Gerard noted in 1633 that the apothecaries used it as a cure for headaches and chest colds and he recommended that the plants be protected during winter or put into pots or tubs and brought indoors. In fact, north of Zone 8, this lavender species should be maintained in an unheated room or porch during the winter months. Jefferson cultivated the hardier English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia).

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Reading in the Garden

1720 Anne Pollard. Anonymous colonial era American Limner.  The background of this painting is so dark, I cannot tell if she is inside or outside, perhaps in one of those dark storms.

1750 Joseph Badger (American Colonial Era artist, 1798-1765) Mrs. Nathaniel Brown (Anna Porter Brown)

1750-1760 Joseph Badger (American Colonial Era artist, 1798-1765)Mrs. John Edwards (Abigail Fowle)

1755 Benjamin West (American colonial era artist, 1738-1820). Mrs George Ross Anne Lawler

1764 John Singleton Copley (American Colonial Era artist, 1738-1815) detail Mary Greene Mrs Dan Hubbard

1764 John Singleton Copley (American Colonial Era artist, 1738-1815) Sarah Prince Gill

1767 James Claypoole, Jr. (American Colonial Era artist, 1743-1814) Ann Galloway Mrs Joseph Pemberton

1789 Ralph Earl (American artist, 1751-1801) Esther Boardman

1793 James Peale (American artist, 1749-1831) Ramsey Polk Family in Cecil County MD

1798 William Clarke (American painter, fl. 1785-1806) ) Mrs William Frazer  (Mary Reah) (1783-1816) of Delaware

Plants in Early American Gardens - Pheasant's Eye Daffodil

Pheasant's Eye Daffodil (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus)

This species of daffodil grows wild in mountain meadows from France into Greece. It has been grown in Britain since Roman times and in this country since the 1600s. Though various forms were illustrated in seventeenth-century British herbals, the variety recurvus, or old Pheasant’s Eye, was not known until the early 1800s. Pheasant’s Eye is a late-blooming daffodil that naturalizes well in lawns and meadows.

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Primary Source - 1734 Gardener Dead

Philadelphia, July 11. The Weather has been so excessive hot for a Week past, that a great Number of People have fainted and fallen into Convulsions, and several have died...Tuesday one Jacob Lee, a Gardiner, being overcome with the Heat as he was at work clipping of a Hedge, fell down and expired soon after.

Pennsylvania Gazette

July 11, 1734.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Bare Root Sourwood

Bare Root Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum)

This very attractive native tree normally grows on slopes and ridges and along the edges of forests. It is common in woodlands from Pennsylvania southward through the mountains into western Florida and west into Louisiana, Tennessee, and Indiana. Also known as lily-of-the-valley tree, its flowers are extremely attractive to bees, and sourwood honey is a specialty in regions where the tree is common. Sourwood was introduced into cultivation by the 1750s and illustrated by North American plant explorer and botanist Mark Catesby. Philip Miller first successfully grew it in the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. Known in the 18th century as Andromeda arborea, Thomas Jefferson requested that plants of this species be sent to him in Paris while he was serving as Minister to France: twice in 1786, and again in 1788, specifically for his friend, Madame de Tessé.

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Garden History - Design - Lakes

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Baltimore Country Seat Druid Hill by Francis Guy

Just south of Brooklyn and overlooking the river is a small chain of hills, on which are the country houses of many wealthy New Yorkers. Its proximity to New York leads New Yorkers to rent the houses and send their families there during the hot season. The men go to New York in the morning, and return to Brooklyn after the Stock Exchange closes. "The elevated situation of these country residences, in addition to being healthy, gives them the advantage of a charming view which includes New York and the nearby islands, principally Governor's Island, and is constantly enlivened by the passing of the boats which ply on both rivers.

Photo of Druid Hill Later in the 19th Century

Because Druid Hill did not sit directly on the harbor basin in Baltimore, an artificial lake was built on the grounds. Gentry sometimes created a man-made body of water in their pleasure grounds near their dwelling affording recreation, food, ice, and beauty.

In 1806, Rosalie Steir Calvert wrote to her father in Europe from her estate Riversdale in Prince George's County, Maryland. She had been consulting with architect artist William Birch about the design of their grounds.

Birch drew us a plan for the grounds. He thinks an artificial lake would be better on the south of the house than on the north, since the terrain is better adapted and it would be easier to make there.

Two years later she wrote to her father, Lake just finished, which looks like a large river on the southern side, gives a very beautiful effect and furnishes us at the same time with fish and ice for our ice-house.

Garden History - Ornaments - Statue

GARDEN STATUES

Surpisingly, garden statues appeared early in the British American colonies and became even more popular in the early republic. Statues stood in the gardens of the gentry and later in the century at public pleasure gardens, where patrons from all levels of society could enjoy their beauty and symbolism. And occasionally, craftsmen and artisans embellished the grounds around their house with statues as well.

One of England's earliest garden commentators, Francis Bacon, took a dim view of garden statues. Francis Bacon, (1561-1626), English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, & author, wrote in his 1625 Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall in the essay entitled Of Gardens. His essay coincided with the new North American settlements along the Atlantic coast.

Bacon felt that statues added nothing to a real garden except, perhaps, pretense. He wrote, "but it is nothing for great princes, that for the most part, taking advice with workmen, with no less cost set their things together, and sometimes add statues and such things, for state and magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a Garden."

As early as 1718, Judge Sewall in Boston, Massachusettes, complained that, "Quickly after the wind rose to a prodigious height...It blew down the southernmost of my cherubim's heads at the Street Gates." And three years later in 1721, he regretfully reported, "Took down the northwardly cherubim's head, the other being blown down...I suppose ther have stood there near thirty years."

Around 1750, artist William Dering painted young George Booth in Virginia with statues flanking the young man and at the end of the walkway in the distance. Although these are certainly fanciful statues, it is not known if they were really in the landscape at that time. Unfortunately these details are from reproductions of these portraits, so visiting the museum is the only way to really evaluate each painting.

In 1754, New England preacher Ezra Stiles reported that Andrew and James Hamilton's Bush Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had a "very elegant garden, in which are 7 statues in fine Italian marble curiously wrot." Perhaps curiously wrot is the key phrase, because a year later, when Daniel Fisher visited the same garden, he reported that "It (did not) contain anything that was curious...a few very ordinary statues. A shady walk of high trees leading from the further end of the Garden looked well enough; but the Grass above knee high, thin and spoiling for the want of the Sythe." In 1790, when Abigail Adams visited Bush Hill in Philadelphia, she noted, "A beautiful grove behind the house, through which there is a spacious gravel walk, guarded by a number of marble statues, whose genealogy I have not yet studied." Charles Willson Peale painted these statues in his portrait of Mrs Robert Morris in the 1780s.

In 1760, William Williams portrayed Deborah Richmond in a garden with statues. An illustration of this painting is in the section of this blog describing garden alcoves.

Hannah Callender visited William Peters' garden at Belmont in 1762, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She noted, "On the right you enter a labyrinth of hedge of low cedar and spruce. In the middle stands a statue of Apollo. In the garden are statues of Diana, Fame and Mercury with urns."

Around 1767, John Singleton Copley painted a fountain statue in Rebecca Boylston's portrait. Copley was known to use English prints as models for his work. And in 1783, he painted John Adams with a garden statue as well.

By 1772, statues of Roman gods Venus, Apollo, and Bacchus graced John Custis' garden in Virginia. Nearby in 1774, while visiting John Tayloe's garden in Mount Airy, Virginia, a young schoolmaster reported, "He has also a large well formed, beautiful Garden, as fine in every Respect as any I have seen in Virginia. In it stand four large beautiful Marble Statues."

Charles Willson Peale painted statues in several of his portraits. His 1770 portrait of John Beale Bordley and his 1772 painting of William Paca both pictured prominent statues not mentioned elsewhere in period records.

While statues sat in the middle of green squares, or flanked garden walks or sat on garden gates, others found more exotic positions. In 1791, Reverand William Bentley visited the garden of Boston merchant Joseph Barrell. "His garden is beyond any example I have soon. A young grove is growing in the background, in the middle of which is a pond, decorated with four ships at anchor, and a marble figure in the centre...The Squares are decorated with Marble figures as large as life." More modest statues began appearing in craftsmen's gardens as well. In 1795, in Annapolis, Maryland, silversmith William Faris noted, "In the evening Cut the Sage by the Statue."

Garden statues produced by both Amerian and European artists became more widely available in the last years of the 18th century. In 1796, Philadelphia newspaper advertised, "To be sold...Six elegant carved figures, the manufacture of an artist is this country, and made from materials of clay dug near the city, they are used for ornaments for gardens, or ballustrades, at the tops of houses or manels in the parlour, they are well burned and will stand any weather without being injured. and the represent Mars, and Minerva, Paris and Helen, A Male and Female Gardner."

By the end of the century, American gentry were coming up with ingenious places to place their ornamental statues. Many statues made it from garden to housetop roof. Margaret and Gerard Briscoe placed full sized statues perched on marble pedestals at the end of each row of apple trees in their orchard at Clover Dale in Frederick County, Maryland. Artist Charles Peale Polk painted her proudly seated before a view of her orchard with statues in 1799.

In 1801, Timothy Dexter placed statues around the wall of his house as well as on its roof in Newburyport, Massachusettes.
Garden statues were gaining in visibility in the early republic as owners of public pleasure gardens began reflecting the ideals and heros of the new nation as icons in their gardens. In 1798, at the Columbia Gardens in New York City, a visitor reported, "I have been to...the Columbia gardens...placed all around were marble busts, beautiful figures of Diana, Cupid and Venus." And soon other garden owners followed suit. A newspaper advertisement for the Mount Vernon Gardens in New York City boasted in 1800, "lately imported from Europe...nineteen statues...Socrates, Cicero, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Milton...the illustrious and immortal Washington...and miscellaneous figures from Greek mythology."

Five years later, Vauxhall Gardens in New York City advertised, "procured from Europe a choice selection of Statues and Busts, mostly from the first models of Antiquity, and worthy the attention of Amateurs...Washington, Cicero, Ajax, Antonious (in two poses, Hannibla, the Belvidere Apollo (in four sizes), Venus, Hebe (in two poses), Hamilton, Demostenes, Plenty, Hercules, Time, Ceres, Security, Modesty, Addison, Cleopatra (in two poses), Niobe, Pompey in two poses, Pope, The Medici Apollo, and Thalia."

The public settings of these gardens occasionally invited mischief. In the same year, in Charleston, South Carolina, the Botanic Garden offered, "One Hundred Dollars Reward. On Thursday Evening last, after sun-set, some evil minded person, taking advantage of the Gardener's absence, knocked at the Gate, and on being admitted treated the servant insolently for not admitting him sooner; he went directly to the Statue of Mercury, which was standing in the middle of the Garden, and threw it down, by which means it is entirely destroyed. The man was well dressed."

Maryland's Revolutionary War officer John Eager Howard's home Belvedere on a hill in Baltimore, was noted for its magnificent gardens graced with statues, much as the gardens at the papal Belvedere of Julius II boasted statues during the Italian Renaissance.

In 1802, Eliza Southgate visited Hasket Derby in Salem, Massachusettes, and dramatically reported, "From the lower gate you have a fine perspective view of the whole range, rising gradually until the sight is terminated by a hermitage...The hermitage...was scarcely perceptible at a distance; a large weeping willow swept the roof with its brances and bespoke the melancholy inhabitant. We caught a view of the little hut as we advanced thro' the opening of the trees; it was covered with bark; a small low door, slightly latched immediately opened at our touch; a venerable old man [stone statue] was seated in the center with a prayer book in one hand while the other supported his cheek, and rested on an old table which, like the hermit, seemed moulding to decay...a tattered coverlet was spread over a bed of straw...I left him impressed with veneration and fear which the mystery of his situation seemed to create."
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Plants in Early American Gardens - Karl Rosenfield Peony

Karl Rosenfield Peony (Paeonia lactiflora cv.)

Both European and Asian peonies have been cultivated since ancient times. Those native to central China and Siberia (varieties of Paeonia lactiflora) were first introduced to the West by the 18th century and by 1784 breeding with the European peony was occurring in France and Britain. Because peonies are such long-lived plants, many 19th-century cultivars are still available. Thomas Jefferson noted “Piony” in a list of hardy perennials as early as 1771. ‘Karl Rosenfield’ was introduced in 1908 by John F. Rosenfield, an American peony breeder. The brightly colored flowers attract butterflies.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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

Nurseryman - Prosper Julius A Berckmans 1830-1910–Augusta, Georgia

"Louis Mathieu Eduoard Berckmans was born in 1801 in Lierre, Belgium, a small town between Brussels and Antwerp, known for lacemaking, textiles and the crafting of musical instruments. His coming of age experience included the Napoleonic Wars, the consolidation of his country with Holland following the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the subsequent unrest and eventual secession of Belgium years later. A member of the lesser nobility, he was well-educated, spoke French and German, enjoyed and played music, and created art. Trained as a physician, he also loved the natural world and became well-known in his homeland as a talented horticulturist. 

"In the 1820s, he married the love of his life, Marie Gaudens. More than 40 years after her death he would remark to friends, “My first wife…was an angel from heaven, God bless her.” In October 1830 Marie gave birth to a son, Prosper Jules Alphonse, and died soon after. Prosper became Louis’s “dear boy,” the apple of his eye. Four years later Louis remarried Holland-born Elizabeth Charlotte Arnoldine Rubens who gave him a second son, Emile, in 1837. According to the Smithsonian, Prosper was educated in France in horticulture and at age 17 returned to his father’s estates while studying at the Botanical Gardens in Brussels. 

"At age 20, with his father’s blessing, Prosper sailed to the United States to search for a good home for the family. There he travelled extensively, including a sojourn in Georgia to examine Rome, where a colony of Belgian expatriates had already settled. In July 1851, he returned North for the arrival from Belgium of his stepmother, younger half-brother and father, who had brought horticultural specimens from the homeland. 

 "In spite of his son’s enthusiasm for Georgia, the elder Berckmans decided to settle in Plainfield, N.J., where he and Prosper began a nursery to cultivate pears and experiment with other plants. The family was well-received and met some American luminaries. New Yorker Andrew Jackson Downing, often considered the father of American landscape, and author of the 1845 Fruit and Fruit Trees of America, sought out Louis Berckmans who he declared would “be a great acquisition in the society of American fruit growers and pomologists…. We rejoice that such a man has settled among us.” Downing’s unfortunate death in July 1852 cut short what might have been a long and productive relationship. By 1856 Dr. Berckmans was prominent enough that he was asked to judge in the United States Agricultural Exhibit. In New Jersey, Prosper married New Jersey-born Mary Craig, who in 1857 gave birth to the first of three sons, Louis Alphonse. 

"After several New Jersey winters, the South’s climate began to beckon. In 1857 Dr. Berckmans bought almost 145 acres on the south side of Washington Road and dubbed it Pearmont. To the west was the Fruitland Nursery property of Dennis Redmond who, like Dr. Berckmans, was an immigrant. Born in Ireland, Redmond had settled in Utica, N.Y. Hired by Daniel Lee, a fellow New Yorker who had moved to Augusta to become editor of the Southern Cultivator, Redmond became first a correspondent, then assistant editor, for the magazine. Both Lee and Redmond were proponents of agricultural reform in the South, including fruit cultivation, which they promoted in the pages of their publication. 

"Redmond’s property had been the orchard portion of James Coleman’s Bedford Nursery. As early as 1853 Redmond had begun advertising in The Augusta Chronicle the sale of fruit, fowls and trees from Bedford Nursery. And in 1854 he purchased 315 acres that included the Bedford orchard and gave the nursery the name Fruitland. In 1858 Louis Berckman purchased Fruitland from Redmond and combined it with Pearmont. Redmond then bought the land to the east of Pearmont naming it Vineland for the vineyards he began to cultivate there. (For an interesting analysis of Fruitland and Redmond, readers might enjoy an article by Dr. Philip Herrington, Augusta native and history professor at James Madison University, in the November 2012 issue of the Journal of Southern History.) Dr. Berckmans and Prosper’s young family moved to Augusta in 1857 with Emile following in 1858. Louis’s wife Elizabeth never joined him in Augusta, staying in Plainfield where son Emile later returned. Elizabeth, along with an Irish servant named Anna, appeared in the 1860 census living with $20,000 in real estate and $3,000 in personal property. In 1863 Emile, living in Plainfield, registered for the U.S. Army draft enacted in that year. Emile evidently remained in the North for life. In 1870 he married a New Jersey girl named Elizabeth, a fellow music teacher. In the Plainfield city directory of 1883, his occupation was still music teacher. ”

"In 1858-59 the first ads for the Descriptive Catalogue of Fruit and Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Vines, Roses, Evergreens, Hedge Plants, &c., cultivated and for sale at Fruitland Nursery in Augusta, Ga., by P. J. Berckmans & Company” began appearing. The catalog could be obtained at Berckmans or at Mr. V. LaTaste’s Grocery Store in town. By 1860 Prosper appeared in the census with real estate worth $18,000 and a personal estate valued at $8,000. In addition to his father, wife and son, the household included Joseph Tice, a laborer from Belgium; Peter Benne, a nurseryman from France; Albert Coles, a clerk from New Jersey; and Rose Kelly a servant from Ireland. They were building one of the largest and most successful nurseries in the South. 

Prosper Julius A Berckmans 1830-1910

"During the Civil War, they provided vegetables and fruits for the Confederacy and donated to the mayor’s charity for wounded soldiers. Prosper and Mary added two more sons to their family—Robert Craig, born in 1864, and Prosper Julius Alphonse Jr., born in 1866. During the Civil War they provided vegetables and fruits for the Confederacy… In 1870 Dr. Louis M.E. Berckmans left the business in the capable hands of his son and, upon the invitation of Georgia author and newspaper columnist Charles Smith, better known as Bill Arp, he moved to Rome, Ga., where he lived on Horse Leg Mountain, which he nicknamed Mt. Alto. In a fascinating article on Rome’s Belgian colony in 1977, author Bernice Couey Bishop described his contented life there. His home was a 12- by 15-foot cabin of stone and wood, which he termed his “castle,” surrounded by a wall and terraces of flowers. On the hillside he planted orchards that fed him on pears, apples, peaches, plums and cherries. Inside the cozy home, books of the classics paintings of heroes lined the walls. There he cooked for himself, mainly vegetables and fruits, rice and grits. According to the article, the sounds of his violin often reverberated through the mountainside. Du Drovided vegetables and fruits for the Confederacy… 

"Periodically he walked the four miles down the mountain to town where he occasionally accompanied some of the accomplished local pianists on his violin. His character is reflected in letters of advice to his grandsons, whom he urged to follow the example of their father Prosper for honorable careers: “not seeking for…ambitious aims but shaping your course so as to deserve the esteem of your fellow man.” Distinction, he cautioned, “too often converts to vanity…a man can be happy and more so by following a plain, honorable course than by glitter.” 

 "On a visit to his beloved family 82- year-old Louis walked from Fruitland to downtown Augusta and back on December 6, 1883; he died the next day. Prosper buried him in Summerville Cemetery where he himself would one day rest. 

"...Prosper continued to operate the nursery, within a decade shipping catalogs throughout the region, nation and world. He served his profession well, founding the Georgia State Horticultural Society in 1876 and the Richmond County Agricultural Society in 1885, serving as president of each from its establishment until his death. In 1885-1886 he collected horticultural exhibits for the United States government for the New Orleans Exposition and the following year his peers elected him president of the American Pomological Society. For a number of years he presided over the editorial board of the Farmer and Gardener. In 1893 he gave the opening address at the Horticultural Congress held at the Chicago World’s Fair. A generous man, he also donated money and plantings to organizations and institutions such as the state mental institution in Milledgeville. 

"Having become a naturalized citizen, Berckmans took his civic responsibility seriously and participated in many community activities. Having become a naturalized citizen in 1854, Berckmans took his civic responsibility seriously and participated in many community activities. In the 1870s he became president of the Cotton States Mechanical and Agricultural Fair Association and in 1888 a leading member of the board of Augusta’s National Exposition. Active in political affairs as well, he served as the manager of elections in his precinct of Richmond County, as a grand juror and as a delegate to the Congressional Convention. His sons lived and worked with him at Fruitland while growing up and acquiring their educations. He sent sons Robert and Allie (Prosper Julius Alphonse Jr.), whom the paper called “two of the brightest and most popular Augusta boys,” to the University of Georgia. They, in turn, along with older brother Louis, who became a known designer of golf courses and the gardens at Radio City Music Hall, would become active professionals and community members, carrying on their father’s work. 

 "In 1897 Prosper’s wife Mary Craig died after more than 40 years of marriage. The next year Prosper, by then more than 70 years old, married 38-year-old Edith Fromm Purdy of New York, the editor of a fashion magazine. They met when he was on a visit to relatives in New York. The couple lived in Augusta and spent summers up North. In fact, in the 1900 census Prosper was enumerated with his new wife in Essex, N.J. 

 "In November 1910 Prosper J.A. Berckmans died after a long and productive life. At their first conference since the loss of their founder and long-time president, the Georgia State Horticultural Association dismissed their business agenda to pay tribute to their colleague and friend, whom one member said was the “greatest pomologist the South has ever seen.” Professor T. H. Hatten of the University of Georgia, whose campus landscape reflected Berckmans’s expertise, praised not only his “encyclopedic knowledge,” but his character: “His course was not that of the money-accumulating merchant but rather that of altruistic scientist who preferred the good of all before any considerations.” Although he was 80 when he died, Hatten said, “old age of the spirit was never his.” 

 "In 1903 Prosper had rewritten his will leaving the bulk of the estate, both in New Jersey and Georgia, to his second wife, including all the couple’s horses, carriages and personal belongings, 100 shares of stock in the company and 200 acres of Fruitland, including the dwelling house and the greenhouses of the nursery. The deed, however, was subject to the lease of the nursery portion to P.J. Berckmans and Co. Nursery until 1918. The rest of the estate, including the remaining Fruitland property was left jointly to the three sons, who already had received the largest share of the moneys from their father’s own inheritance of “patrimonial estates in Belgium” in the 1890s. The three brothers continued to run P.J. Berckmans & Company with Louis as president, Robert as vice-president and Allie as secretary-treasurer until the company lease on Edith’s portion ended in 1918 when they left the business. 

"In a few years, the new story of the estate as the Augusta National Golf Club began, with Louis and Allie both involved. It is fitting that the Augusta National keeps the name of the Berckmans family alive as a reminder of their remarkable legacy of beauty there and in landscapes throughout the world." 

This article appears in the April 2016 issue of Augusta Magazine. by Dr Lee Ann Caldwell of Augusta University

Plants in Early American Gardens - Eastern Ninebark

Bare Root Eastern Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius)

Eastern Ninebark grows from Quebec to Virginia, Tennessee, and Michigan. A member of the rose family, it resembles Spirea in character and forms a dense, fast-growing shrub for naturalistic shrub borders. Philadelphia nurserymen John Bartram and Bernard McMahon, and the Prince Nurseries on Long Island, each included this unusual native shrub in their plant lists around the turn of the 19th century.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

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

Garden History - Ornaments - Sundial

When I was a little girl traipsing through colonial revival & reconstructed 20th century colonial gardens along the Atlantic coast with my parents, I was completely captivated by the sundials measuring time by the shadow of the sun. Seems like every garden had one of those ancient mathematical contraptions.

In the Bible, the book of Isaiah mentioned, "Behold I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sundial of Ahaz."

Ancient Sundial.

Perhaps even Stonehenge was a sundial of sorts, but a tad larger and much more powerful than the sundials in the "colonial" gardens on this side of the Atlantic. Wildly intimidating experienced as a child and only a little less overwhelming viewed as an adult years later.

Once again at windy Stonehenge a few years ago.

Those I saw in the "colonial" gardens of my childhood were flat, geometric horizontal sundials, and the sun's shadow was cast by a style (a thin rod or a sharp, straight edge) onto a the flat, circular surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. As the sun moved across the sky, the shadow-edge aligned with different hour-lines on the plate.

Dad at a Virginia Sundial

They were mounted on wooden or stone bases, about 5-7 inches across, and just the right height for a curious little girl to look right down on them.

With Mother in a Garden

I was absolutely convinced that every colonial garden was supposed to have a sundial. It was required gear. But when I began researching 18th century gardens in the British American colonies, I just couldn't find many of them.

There is record of John Endecott ordering a sundial to be sent to Salem, Massachusettes from London in 1630, which William Bentley bought in 1810, donating it to the Peabody-Essex Institute in Salem.

Sundial at Mount Vernon, Virginia. Collection of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.

I remember seeing one at Mount Vernon, greened brass & octagonal (similar to one George Washington ordered in 1785) supported on a wood pedestal, which I suppose has been replaced over & over. (I think the sundial at Mount Vernon was donated to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association in 1938.) There is also a sundail on a stone pedestal at the home of George Washington's mother, reported to be original.

Mary Ball Washington (1709-1789)'s Sundial, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

And Thomas Jefferson wrote to Mr. Clay in 1811, that he was amusing himself with "an horizontal dial for the latitude of this place." There is an unusual sundial mounted at Monticello overlooking the terrace.

Sundial on Porch at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Virginia.

None of the other journals or letters that I poured over even mentioned them, and I only found one noted in an old Maryland deed.

Perhaps they were uncommon in 18th century America, because clocks were beginning to apprear with some frequency. Or perhaps many colonials carried portable, hand-held sundials with them, similar to the one Lafayette presented to George Washington. Or perhaps sundials became popular garden ornaments in America in the 19th century, which would explain their explosion in colonial revival gardens.

Or perhaps, truth be told, I missed them. I would be grateful to anyone who might point me to an 18th century American reference to a sundial.

In the meanwhile, in 1768 in Queen Anne's County Maryland, one deed did refer to: "one sun dial set on cedar post."