Serenity in the Garden

Vegetable Garden at Monticello  Thomas Jefferson, the third president, w as an ardent plant lover and a pioneer plant distributor. He collected exotic trees and shrubs and investigated new crops to grow in the United States. He  was  instrumental in introducing many vegetables into the young American culture. For example, he smuggled rice in a tea canister from his tour in Italy and sent it to South Carolina and Georgia as a possible crop. His attempts to have farmers in those areas sow various varieties of foreign rice, were finally successful  and, in time, it became a flourishing agricultural crop. Jefferson also sent Lewis and Clark off to explore the west and asked them to gather native seeds. He corresponded with many to have them send vegetable  seeds from other parts of the globe.   Nicholas King, mapmaker for the Lewis and Clark expedition explained, “ no person has been more zealous to enrich the United States by th...

I admit it, I am a Thomas Jefferson nut.... No well known historical person has combined so many diverse talents as good ole'  T.J. (well, maybe his friend, Ben did...) Besides his leadership and writing acumen, Jefferson was a genius when it came to building design, planning and, yes, gardening. I admire his plantation retreat,  Poplar Forest , in Virginia . Here, Jefferson used a single geometric form, the octagon, for the house and a circle for the surrounding landscape.  He took advantage of the sloping terrain and built the octagonal building into the slope so that lower entrance opens directly onto the ground level and the upper level opens out to the higher ground on the other side. You can now visit the restored 'villa retreat'  - please check out the website for a fascinating history of this wonderful place. Poplar Forest, Jefferson's Private Retreat that he designed Jefferson created two artificial mounds on opposite sides of the house...

Monticello, courtesy of Monticello/Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.   I admit it, I am a Thomas Jefferson fanatic... No well known historical person has combined so many diverse talents as good ole'  T.J.  ( well, maybe his friend, Ben did...) Besides his leadership and writing acumen, Jefferson was a genius when it came to building design and, yes, gardening. 1793 Plan for  Washington, DC Jefferson took immense interest in architecture, city planning and landscape architecture. During his years as president, he assisted in the design of Washington, D.C. and his ideas for the city's layout were combined with those of Pierre L'Enfant who was hired to draw up the plans. Of course, we all know about his home on a hilltop, Monticello, in Virginia. But his finest achievement in design and site planning may be his plantation retreat, Poplar Forest , in Bedford county, Virginia.     In fact, the great historian,  ...