THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407010066
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT STIFFLER, GARDENING COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
GARDENING IS an all-American hobby. It's one of our favorite ways to relax, stay fit and meditate.
But others discovered its value long before us.
Thomas Jefferson, our third president and the author of the Declaration of Independence, was one of this nation's earliest and best gardeners. He lived surrounded by flowers, vegetables and fruit at his home at Monticello.
Today, the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants is growing the plants the statesman loved. And it's making the seed and plants available to the public, so the Jefferson heritage of gardening continues.
``The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture,'' Jefferson once said. He regularly exchanged seeds with friends in the Colonies as well as around the world. He particularly enjoyed swapping seeds with friends in France, where he had lived, says Peggy Newcomb, director of the Jefferson center.
``The last years of his life were focused on his vegetable garden,'' Newcomb says.
The vegetable garden at Monticello is more than 1,000 feet long and encompasses 2 acres. Hewn from the side of the mountain, it was leveled by hand.
The garden is supported by a stone wall. At one point, the wall is more than 12 feet high, where it becomes a ``hanging garden.'' Below the wall stretches Jefferson's 8-acre orchard, with its 300 trees and vineyard.
Monticello's ``berry squares'' include plots of figs, currants, gooseberries and raspberries. Above the vegetable garden is the garden pavilion, a small cubicle Jefferson used as a retreat for viewing his garden and reading.
Salads were an important part of Jefferson's diet, Newcomb says. He recorded the planting of lettuce and radishes every two weeks through the growing season.
He also grew red orach, or ``mountain spinach,'' a tall green with red and yellow leaves; corn; endive; nasturtiums; ``tennis ball lettuce''; and the herbs clary sage and borage.
Jefferson planted sesame to make a palatable salad oil. The seed was brought from Africa, where it was called ``benne'' seed. Jefferson also tried in vain to grow olives for oil; even today olive trees will not grow on the mountaintop at Monticello.
English peas were Jefferson's favorite vegetable, although he also cherished asparagus, French artichokes and the ``new'' vegetables of tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli and cauliflower, Newcomb says.
He prized sea kale (Crambe maritima) a perennial, cabbagelike vegetable whose spring sprouts were blanched in clay pots, then cut and prepared like asparagus. It is still grown and blanched at Monticello today.
Though many gardeners think of white eggplant as new, it too was grown by Jefferson and is thriving at his former home.
Also in Jefferson's garden is a bean arbor, where hyacinth beans grow in abundance. Showy purple blooms are followed by bright rose-purple seed pods. English scarlet runner beans, with their colorful blooms, climb there as well. Nearby, hops grow from seed originally brought from England.
Peaches were Jefferson's favorite fruit and are predominant in the orchard. From them, Jefferson made peach brandy.
The red clay mountaintop soil was not considered ideal for fruit, but the determined statesman grew fruit for about 50 years. He noted in his horticultural diary in 1767 that he ``inocculated common cherry buds into stock of large kind.''
He was forever interested in new fruits, brought from Europe or cross-bred and propagated at Monticello. Trees in the orchards were often propagated from seed, resulting in unpredictable variations and few named varieties.
Red and yellow currants, red raspberries and a ``white pine'' strawberry complete the fruit orchard. There was little pruning.
The magnificent oval behind the Jefferson house remains as beautiful as ever, with its meandering walk among the flowers. There are mallow, coneflower, larkspur and pink phlox.
Jefferson enjoyed plants that were native to the area; he grew many sages and poppies, including corn poppy. He also was fond of peonies; nicotiana (flowering tobacco) cleome, or spider flower; love-in-the-mist; maltese cross; heliotrope; and straw flowers.
Newcomb says some of Jefferson's favorite moments were spent in the garden with his grandchildren. When he was away, he would send them seed.
His nephews were known to have fruit fights in the orchard, throwing rotten apples and soft peaches at one another.
Jefferson was an organic gardener; he used manure on his vegetables and hand-picked bugs and insects from them. Today, the center uses organic sprays.
Strolling through the gardens today, you can almost feel the sage of Monticello looking over your shoulder, speaking of the rewards of gardening.
Late in his life, Jefferson said: ``All my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello.''
On July 4, 1826, he died at his mountaintop home, surrounded by the gardens he loved. The home he designed is world-famous, but few people realize he was one of our finest gardeners. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos courtesy of Monticello/Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Foundation.
ROBERT STIFFLER PHOTOS
Peggy Newcomb is director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for
Historic Plants at Monticello.
This golden rain tree is believed to be the oldest in America. A
Philadelphia nurseryman sent the seed to Jefferson.
Graphic
MORE ABOUT MONTICELLO
Monticello is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 1 through Oct.
31 and from 9 a.m to 4:30 p.m. the rest of the year. Closed
Christmas Day. Thirty-minute guided tours begin every five minutes
from the east entrance. Admission: $8; senior citizens, $7;
children 6 to 11, $4; under 6, free.
For more information, write: Public Affairs, Monticello, P.O. Box
316, Charlottesville, Va. 22902. Or call (804) 984-9822 or (804)
984-9808.
The Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants operates a shop
at Monticello. Nearly 50 varieties of plants that Jefferson grew
are available by mail for $1.75 per packet plus postage. To receive
the centers' newsletter, which lists all seeds and plants available,
send $1 to the address above.
Cypress vine, balsam apple and hyacinth bean are three of
Jefferson's favorite hot-weather vines that still can be planted.
Send $1.75 per packet, plus $2.95 postage, to the address above.
by CNB