The Botanical Garden

Hidden between the upper garden and the north lane, in the shelter of the salt house and the spinning house, lies the little enclosed piece of ground where Washington probably spent more time gardening on his own than anywhere else at Mount Vernon. He called it "my Little garden," or "my Botanick garden."

The first mention of it occurs in 1785 when on June 13 he "Sowed the following Nuts and Seeds, in the inclosure I had prepared for a Nursery, viz." and then listed ten different experiments, methodically "planted and sowed in Drills 12 inches apart."

They included plants that would later be set out in the landscape, such as common privet (Ligustrum vulgare), which are still there, and household items he previously had had to purchase, such as what he called "Bird pepper" and "Cayan pepper" (Capsicum sp.) Others of these plants we don't see at Mount Vernon today, such as Pride of China or China berry tree (Melia azedarach), which is too tender for Mount Vernon's climate but thrives all over the more southern South.

He also planted seeds of the brightly colored tropical "flower fence," pride-of-Barbados (Caesalpina pulcherrima), "used in the West Indies ... as an inclosure to Gardens." Washington, like all intrepid, truly interested gardeners, had a real affinity for plants that were too tender for his climate. Washington might also have been remembering his trip to Barbados with his half-brother, Lawrence, in 1751 " ... the beautiful prospects which on every side presented to our view The fields of Cain, Corn, Fruit Trees &ca. in a delightful Green."

journey to barbados

Foreign governments, friends, admirers, and even strangers supplied him with a steady stream of seeds, slips, bulbs, and cuttings from all over the world. Andre Michaux, botanist to King Louis XVI of France, sent seeds and plants of the pyramidal cypress and other evergreens. William Washington, a relative living in South Carolina, sent southern magnolia that adapted beautifully to Mount Vernon.

Hands-on Gardening

When he was home, Washington himself did the sowing in the botanical garden. He marked the planting locations, often with notched sticks as substitutes for labels (number of notches duly noted in his diary for translation), watered and mulched, and he kept track on paper of the successes and failures, as he did for all his projects.

In his long absences, whether as commander in chief or president, his correspondence with his superintendent was filled with anxious notes saying, "Tell the Gar­dener he must plant the hiccory nuts in drills" or asking, "Does the last, and present years planting of Honey locust seed come up well, and is there any appearance of the Cedar berries, Furze seed, Lucern, &ca., &ca., coming up, and answering expectation?"

Occasionally there would be an outburst, as on February 1793:

Under cover of this letter you will receive ... the white bent grass .... If the Acct. of it be just, it must be a valuable grass; I therefore desire it may be sowed in drills, and to the best advantage for the purpose of seed. These things which are intended for experiments ... shd. never be put in fields or meadows ... for there (if not forgot) they are neglected. ... This has been the case of the Choricum (from Mr.Young) and a grass which sold for two Guineas a quart in England .... And the same, or some other fate equally as bad has attended a great many curious seeds which have been given to, and sent home by me at different times but of which I have heard nothing more.