Gardens and Grounds Department at Monticello

Monticello's gardens and grounds were nourished generously by a society of Virginian, American, African, and international gardeners and botanists, who forwarded Jefferson countless seeds, bulbs, and grafting wood.

As sites for tours and workshops, the gardens themselves are a significant part of the museum's collections. Specific landscape elements either recreated or existing since Jefferson's time include (among others):

• the Winding Flower walk and twenty Oval Flower Beds
• the Grove (eighteen acres of ornamental forest expressing, in many ways, Jefferson's vision of the ideal American garden)
• the Vegetable Garden Terrace and the Garden Pavilion
• the Fruit Garden comprising the South Orchard,  SW and NE Vineyards, Nursery, and Berry Squares, Submural Beds.
• the North orchard (a replanting of 125 specimen cider apple trees based on interpretive research)

The Foundation's Department of Gardens and Grounds and its Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants research, collect, cultivate (in Monticello's gardens and surrounding nurseries), and distribute hundred of plants that have either a direct connection to Jefferson and Monticello or to the historic gardens of North America.  Its educational programs include:

• Gardens and Grounds Tours
• Historic Landscape Institute
• Saturdays in the Garden (see our Calendar of Events page)
• Heritage Harvest Festival