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Roses at Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
Jefferson ordered thirty roses which included ten different species from the William Prince Nursery of Long Island, New York, in 1791. These were planted "round the clumps of lilacs in front of the house," and should have evolved into an interesting shrubbery providing a succession of flowers through the spring months. Jane Blair Smith, a friend of the Jefferson family, recalled that "Under each low French window had been a flower bed, whose trellises were covered with yellow jassamine and climbing roses, a nest of sweets." Today, Jefferson's roses are distributed among several oval beds on the East Front lawn, where the 1791 scheme has been recreated. Although they generally bloom only once a year, in late Spring, older rose varieties are distinguished from their modern counterparts by a more graceful, shrub-like growth habit.
Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
A full selection of antique roses, as well as plants and seeds of other flowers grown by Jefferson are available at the Garden Shop at Monticello and in the "Shop" section of the Monticello Web site. The Center for Historic Plants is dedicated to the preservation of the garden plants grown in early American gardens, and has focused on herbaceous ornamentals, especially older cultivars that are disappearing from today's gardens. The Garden Shop -- online and off -- also offers choice native plants, flower seeds collected from the Monticello gardens, and a full line of books dealing with the history of plants in American gardens.