America’s 250th birthday is just around the corner and you can celebrate it in your garden. Did you know that many of our founding fathers, including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, had gardens on their estates and were deeply invested in the various plants and flowers they grew? This makes sense when one considers how a thriving, self-sufficient landscape reflects the thriving, free society they hoped to create.
While we can only speculate as to the content and arrangement of our founders’ flowers, history has recorded the types beautiful summer flowers available to the new nation. Unlike some of our greenhouse exotics today, flowers of the past were hardy, hardy plants that could overcome problems in their growing environment in a way that mirrored the American sands.
What better way to celebrate our nation’s historic courage and perseverance in the face of challenges than to add some of these amazing plants to your own landscape? We’ve compiled a short list of 8 blooming beauties that our founders might well have included in their own gardens.
1. Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
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We are talking about a plant with deep roots in the American experiment! THE cardinal flower it is a North American native, tough, durable perennial with bright red flowers selected by Thomas Jefferson for his personal garden at Monticello in 1807. Long before that, Native Americans used the plant for medicinal purposes.
Today there are dozens of varieties of this plant with different colored flowers. Plant in USDA zones 3-9 in a sunny location and moist, well-drained soil. Plants require little maintenance. They grow quickly and reseed
2. Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus)
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THE sweet pea is another plant that has been around for centuries. It is an elegant plant with a wonderful scent that is said to have arrived in England as early as 1699. One can only assume that its graceful beauty, called the queen of annuals, made its way to the colonies and gardens of our founders.
Elegant, graceful and fragrant, sweet peas are vines that can reach up to 8 feet in full sun and well-drained soils. Vintage sweet pea plants offer vibrant colors and strong fragrance, making your landscape feel like country garden. Modern varieties offer a wider variety of shades, but some lack the traditional aroma.
3. Rooster (Celosia cristata)
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Cockscomb is another of the plants we know for sure that Thomas Jefferson planted in his garden. This is because he noted the planting of Cockscomb seed in 1767, describing it as “a flower like the Prince’s feather”.
Today, the cockscomb is a popular garden flower, still famous for its unique ‘feather’ form. The flowers are bright and long lasting on the plant and also as fresh or dried flowers. Plant honeysuckle in sunny areas and moist, well-drained soils. You will find cockerels with flowers in purple, blue, white, pink or lavender. Coclscomb in the genus Celosia is an annual, while a sister variety in the Delphinium the genus is perennial.
4. Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
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This showy plant with pink-purple tubular flowers grows wild on my mountain in France. But foxglove seeds also reached the colonies as early as 1735. The plant was listed as ordered for Jefferson’s home at Monticello.
Foxglove not a diminutive plant, sometimes growing to 5 feet (2 meters) tall. It is lovely and hardy, growing in USDA zones 4-10 anywhere there is drainage and some sun. It is toxic and can cause serious injury if touched with bare hands or swallowed.
5. Twin leaf (Jeffersonia diphylla)
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Twinleaf is a rare woodland wildflower native to North America. Rumored by family members to be in Jefferson Gardens, it was named in honor of the founding father in 1792.
Twinleaf is a North American perennial with small white flowers that appear on stems in early spring, before the leaves have expanded. The unusual capped seeds ripen in early June and often go completely dormant in the summer.
Twinleaf prefers shade and makes a great groundcover in a suitable location. It offers lush green leaves and flowers, small white flowers that open in early spring before the leaves. Easy to grow, dicots are not for the faint of heart as they can take up to 8 years to flower from seed.
6. Marigolds (Tagetes species)
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Most of us know marigoldsstaples in the flower garden with their vibrant, colorful flowers. But did you know they were planted in Thomas Jefferson’s Montecello in the early 1800s? Originally from South America, they slowly made their way to the Americas through northern Africa and Europe.
These members of the sunflower family have evolved over time into double garden forms, but Jefferson planted the species form, with single, yellow flowers. Hardy in USDA zone 9 and above, they are generally grown as hardy, hardy annuals.
7. Hollyhock (Alcea rosea)
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Much of our knowledge of the flowers planted in our nation’s early days comes from the efforts of Thomas Jefferson. In 1782 Garden Book created a chart of flower blooming months that showed Hollyhocks blooming at Monticello from mid-June to July.
Today there are many types holly trees commercially available. They are known as cold hardy, adaptable flowering plants, available in almost most colors of the rainbow. These can reach 8 feet (3 meters) in height if planted in a sunny location. Use on the back of borders or against fencing for best effect.
8. Larkspur
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It is dolphin one of the toughest annuals out there? Even so, it is one of the plants traditionally used in cottage gardens and attracts pollinators to your yard with its delicate blooms. The foliage can only be called lacy, held aloft on showy, spiky stems.
This annual was brought to America from the Old World and quickly made a home in USDA hardiness zones 2-9. It is extremely hardy and replants every year by self-seeding. Soon after our nation was born, Jefferson planted it at Monticello. Larkspur prefers full sun exposure and can reach 7 feet (2 meters).
