It is our pleasure to invite you to be our guests at Garden Club of Virginia's headquarters, Kent-Valentine House in Richmond, for a day of informative speakers, timely topics, networking and camaraderie. All gardeners, horticulturists and maintenance staff from GCV's Historic Sites are welcome.

The day will begin with a talk by Will Rieley, GCV Landscape Architect, on the importance of historic landscape preservation. Next, Robert Saunders of Saunders Brothers Nursery will be speaking about the pathogen Cylindrocladiu pseudonaviculatum, better known as boxwood blight. Boxwood blight was found in Carroll County in 2011. In the fall of 2013 it was seen in Chesterfield County, Fairfax County, and the City of Richmond. What are the symptoms of this disease? How does the fungus spread? What are the best methods for control and prevention? Chris Fields-Johnson of Bartlett Trees will lead a discussion of biochar. What is it? What are the environmental benefits of biochar? How is it used as a soil enhancer? And finally, you will see a brief presentation of GCV's restoration sites. Lunch will be included in the day's events.
 

An email invitation will be sent in early January. We encourage early registration, as space is limited to 80 participants.

Jean Gilpin

Winchester-Clarke Garden Club

Mary Washington Garden Photo by Roger Foley

Wander down a quiet side street in Fredericksburg, Virginia and you will find the Mary Washington House and Garden. This simple cottage was purchased by George Washington for his aging mother in 1772.

Mary spent the majority of her adult life at Ferry Farm, located across the Rappahannock River. With a revolution brewing, it was time to move into town, closer to family. She lived here for the last 17 years of her life until 1789. The original house sat on two half-acre lots, allowing space for a garden and a few domestic animals. The APVA purchased the property in 1890 to prevent it from being removed to the Chicago Exposition. Only one half-acre lot and several additions to the house remained when The Mary Washington Branch of the APVA lovingly began its watch over Mary's house. Today, a non-profit organization, The Washington Heritage Museums, continues the careful maintenance of this property.

In 1968, the Garden Club of Virginia answered the appeal to restore the garden at the Mary Washington House. From local deed books and George Washington's diary, the ownership and significance of the property were verified. Ralph E. Griswold, the chosen landscape architect, designed a lovely colonial cottage garden. There is a section behind the original kitchen house where vegetables, herbs and fruit trees grow. A brick walk edged with very old boxwood divides the working area of the garden from a grassy square surrounded by newer boxwood and beds of 18th-century perennials. The beauty of the garden lies in its functionality and simplicity of design.

Today you can imagine Mary Washington stepping from her comfortable back porch to welcome guests for tea in the garden or to walk over to her daughter Betty Washington Lewis' home (now known as Kenmore) to visit the grandchildren and share a letter from George. The Mary Washington House and Garden remains a special place honoring a distinctive lady, the mother of our first president.
 

Kitty Lee Wafle

The Rappahannock Valley Garden Club

This is a question posed on our questionnaire by one of the attendees at the last maintenance workshop. A key decision point regarding whether to undertake a building or landscape restoration is to determine whether sufficient information exists to justify the effort. This means exhausting all reasonable resources for finding documentation. Sometimes evidence is present in surprising places. For gardens or landscapes, parts of which survived into the age of photography, a thorough search of photographs can yield valuable information. A routine family snapshot may show remnants of a landscape that has since vanished. Recent techniques like computer-aided reverse-perspective analysis can also be a great aid in precisely locating elements that are recorded on old photographs. A thorough search of written materials that describe a landscape or garden should also be undertaken. Assembling fragments of information from various sources can give much greater validity to a restoration. 
 

If such research reveals little or nothing about a landscape, physical evidence can often tell a lot. Subtle changes in landform can sometimes identify the location of landscape features. Non-disruptive sub-surface investigations ranging from simple probing to sophisticated remote sensing techniques can reveal subsurface conditions that tell a great deal about the history of a site. Where the cost and possible rewards justify it, a full archaeological excavation can yield data that is not available in any other way.

General knowledge of the period both in terms of how a landscape of the era might have been laid out and what plants might have been used can add substantially to the fleshing-out of a restoration plan; however, a general knowledge of a period, including the literature of the era in question, are not generally a sufficient basis for a physical restoration. Where adequate information is not complete enough to justify a full-scale restoration, a conjectural "restoration" in the form of drawings, a physical model, or digital model, is often a good way to illustrate a conjectural layout.

Did you know that the GCV Garden Maintenance Manual has an entire section on the "Care of the Built Landscape"? In caring for historic gardens, one must not only pay close attention to the well-being of the plants, trees, and shrubs, but also to the many elements that make up the hardscape of a garden. This all-important section provides step-by-step solutions to such problems associated with repairing cracks in asphalt, patching potholes, weeds in the pavement, snow removal, as well as the care of metal and painted structures.

For example, metal structures should be washed with Murphy's Oil Solution every six months and for mortarless paving, dry fine sand needs to be swept into the joints of the brick or stone every year. As for treated surfaces, the entire structure should be treated at least twice a year (April and October) with penetrating oil. This section goes on to say, "saturate the wood with two full coats of oil as manufactured by Cabot, Thompson or Olympic for tropical hardwood, and Sikken's penetrating oil for pressure treated wood, cedar and redwood. Most importantly, never use varnish or polyurethane, and with the care of decking, never use salt in winter as a de-icer."

The "Care of the Built Landscape" section of the GCV Garden Maintenance Manual can be found on pages 51 to 59. It is a very comprehensive guide to the care and maintenance of walkways, bridges, structures, paving, and masonry walls, with easy to understand tips and solutions that are most helpful.

Whether it is caring for a historic landscape or a small backyard garden, the GCV Garden Maintenance Manual is an excellent resource and guide. Using the manual helps in the Restoration Committee's overriding goal, "...to keep the built elements in good repair, to keep the plants healthy and vigorous and to accommodate visitors without compromising authenticity." 

The Petersburg Garden Club  

19th Annual Historic Landscape Institute

"Preserving Jefferson's Gardens and Landscapes"

June 14-19, 2015

This one-week course uses the gardens and landscapes of Monticello and the University of Virginia as an outdoor classroom for the study of historic landscape preservation. Lectures, workshops, fieldtrips, and practical working experiences will provide an introduction to the fields of landscape history, garden restoration, and historical horticulture. Fee charged; registration required. Call (434) 984-9816 or click here. 

Colonial Williamsburg Garden Conference

April 10-12, 2015

Speakers include Rick Darke, Doug Tallamy and Peggy Cornett.

Thank you to Roxanne Brouse of Rieley and Associates for providing images.

Newsletter Editors: Candy Crosby, Albemarle Garden Club and Ann Gordon Evans, The Huntington Garden Club

Copy Editor: Judy Perry, The Elizabeth River Garden Club

Technical Support: Nina Mustard, The Williamsburg Garden Club and Ann Heller, Garden Club of Virginia