Colonial Gardens. Part 4.1 Monticello

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This stone wall and mass of flowers were the first things I saw at Monticello. Right then, I knew I was about to see something special.

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"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." Thomas Jefferson, 1811
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It took 40 years for Jefferson to design, construct and remodel his house. Inside and out, he incorporated design elements from famous buildings of antiquity. Do you see a dome? It was the first dome on an American house.*

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This is one of the L-shaped terraces that serve as extensions of the main floor. By incorporating these open-air living spaces Jefferson related his house to the landscape.
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"There were walks, and borders, and flowers, that I have never seen or heard of anywhere else. Some of them were in bloom from early in the spring until late in the winter"- Monticello Overseer Edmund Bacon

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Twenty oval-shaped flower beds were laid out and planted at the four corners of the house.

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The serpentine design of the flower walk and the oval island beds reflect Jefferson's interest in the informal style of landscape design.
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I loved reading a book that I bought at Monticello, "The Gardens of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello"by Peter J. Hatch. According to this book,
nowdays, they plant flower gardens three times a year. In spring and summer, there are tulips, sweet William, Canterbury bells, foxglove, old rose species, sweet pea, larkspur, stock, poppies, calendula, zinnia, geranium, heliotrope, marigolds, snapdragons. These species plants reflect the undeveloped flower that Jefferson would have cultivated. They have low proportion of flowers to foliage, leggy and some have simple, single flowers. The effect is more like a wildflower garden as the plants grow up and set seed, which is then collected and packaged for distribution.

Some ornamental species grown in the early 19th century were quite evolved: the flowers were doubled, their petals might be striped, fringed, or mottled. The restored gardens include some cultivars of columbine, sweet pea, primrose, clove pink and wallflower which were known in the early 1800s. When a flower grown by Jefferson was highly developed but unavailable today, modern cultivars that resemble the earlier variety are grown. This is the case with hyacinths, tulips, anemones and china asters.
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Peter J. Hatch writes in his book: "The flower gardens virtually disappeared after Jefferson's death in 1826 but were restored by The Garden Club of Virginia between 1939 and 1941." I am taking my hat to those ladies! "Researches found Jefferson's sketches of the beds and borders, and deciphered the depression of the winding flower walk by shining the headlights of their automobiles across the West Lawn at night". I found it facinated that " ... perennial bulbs continued to flourish along the border 115 years after Jefferson's death and so outlined its location"!*

Next part of my Colonial Gardens series will be devoted to the Kitchen Garden of Monticello.

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Credits: T. Jefferson. Monticello. A Guide for Visitors; The Gardens of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello by Peter J. Hatch. Peter J. Hatch is a Director of Gardens and Grounds since 1977.

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My previous Colonial Gardens posts are here: Part 1 - Jamestown , Part 2 - Yorktown, Colonial Gardens. Part 3 - Williamsburg.

Copyright 2010 TatyanaS