Garden Club of Virginia

The Garden Club of Virginia is responsible for some of the garden restoration that has been undertaken at Monticello. Their first restoration projects began in 1927, when the president of The Garden Club of Virginia became aware of the deterioration of trees at Monticello, some of which had been planted by Thomas Jefferson. Shortly thereafter, the Club organized a three-day garden fair as a fundraiser towards preserving the trees on the lawn. In May 1938, a request was made to the Garden Club by Stuart Gibboney to restore the gardens at Monticello according to Jefferson's original designs and plant lists. In 1939, additional fundraising money was used for this purpose. These early restoration efforts included the Winding Flower Border on the West Lawn, the fish pond, the flower beds at the corners of the house, the gravel walk on the East Front, and the Ellipse.^[1] The Garden Club of Virginia also provided funding for the analysis of archival photographs of trees within the first roundabout at Monticello in 1991 and, in 2016, provided funding for the Kitchen Road, the link between the house and Mulberry Row.^[2]