Gardens

Did you know the lower or kitchen garden has been cultivated for the production of vegetables since 1760?

Enslaved gardeners, including George and Harry, tended flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees. They also maintained the landscape around the Mansion.

Visit with the animals who live at Mount Vernon, including breeds raised on the estate during Washington’s time.

Washington instructed enslaved workers to create sweeping lawns, groves of trees, walled gardens, serpentine paths, and vistas that can still be seen today.

George Washington actually spent time gardening in the Botanical Garden at Mount Vernon.

For more than 50 years the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has worked to preserve George Washington’s view across the Potomac. 

While Washington's grape-growing efforts in the early 1770s gave the locality its name, that endeavor quickly proved to be unsuccessful.

Following aristocratic British practice, George Washington had 18 acres fenced off on the slope between the Mansion and the Potomac River, to serve as “a paddock for deer”.

Dean Norton, the Director of Horticulture, discusses all of the work that goes into maintaining the historic and modern gardens and landscape at Mount Vernon.

Can you identify these flowing plants?