The Gardener Who Came Back to Monticello

When Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, his beloved gardens at Monticello fell into ruin. The terraced vegetable beds that once held 330 varieties of vegetables became choked with weeds. The orchards he had carefully grafted — peach, apple, cherry — went unpruned and wild. For over a century, the vine rows and flower beds that Jefferson had mapped with meticulous precision in his Garden Book simply disappeared beneath neglect.…