Customer Reviews

Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book

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Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book (1766-1824) annotated by Edwin Morris Betts is a book for the historical gardener and those who like to read of and about Jefferson's beautiful gardens of Monticello and Poplar Forest. This book contains relevant extracts from Jefferson's other writings making for a very interesting read.

This "Garden Book contains the most varied entries of all of Jefferson's memorandum books. The book that began as a diary of the garden became a written repository for numerous interests of Jefferson. Jefferson's entries range from contracts with overseers, plans for building roads and fish ponds, and observations on the greatest flood in Albemarle, to comments on Mrs. Wyethe's wine and figures on the number of strawberries in a pint measure.

This book contains a lot of Jeffersonian minutiae
and also shows Jefferson's love for nature and a very intensely observant eye as it caught almost every passing detail.
The tone of the narrative changes as to the subject written about, but nevertheless, you can read the emotions and the intensity.

Jefferson began the "Garden Book" in 1766 and continued it until the autum of 1824, two years before his death. The lapses in it were due to the time Jefferson had spent away from Monticello. Even in the years in which he spent much of his time at Monticello, the entries are often irregular. Planting activities, successes and failure are all noted within these pages. That introducing new plants into cultivation was a passion with Jefferson, he note them throughout the "Garden Book."

He really enjoyed the book! He commented/discussed it with several other people. It is written much like a diary or journal, so I thought it might be a bit tedious to read, but he liked it and that's what counts :)