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Summary
Summary
This New York Times bestseller shares the rich history of the White House grounds, revealing how the story of the garden is also the story of America.
The 18-acres surrounding the White House have been an unwitting witness to history--kings and queens have dined there, bills and treaties have been signed, and presidents have landed and retreated. Throughout it all, the grounds have remained not only beautiful, but also a powerful reflection of American trends. In All the Presidents' Gardens bestselling author Marta McDowell tells the untold history of the White House grounds with historical and contemporary photographs, vintage seeds catalogs, and rare glimpses into Presidential pastimes. History buffs will revel in the fascinating tidbits about Lincoln's goats, Ike's putting green, Jackie's iconic roses, Amy Carter's tree house, and Trump's controversial renovations. Gardeners will enjoy the information on the plants whose favor has come and gone over the years and the gardeners who have been responsible for it all. As one head gardener put it, "What's great about the job is that our trees, our plants, our shrubs, know nothing about politics."
Author Notes
Marta McDowell 's writing has appeared in The New York Times , Woman's Day, Country Gardening , and elsewhere. Her previous books include Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, All the Presidents' Gardens, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life , and Unearthing The Secret Garden . She consults for public gardens and private clients, writes and lectures on gardening topics, and teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design. She lives, writes, and gardens in Chatham, New Jersey.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The land surrounding the White House is "one of the oldest continually cultivated patches on the North American continent," explains McDowell (Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life) in her delightful dig through White House gardens. She plots their history from the Washington administration to the Obamas, skipping the presidents and first ladies who made few changes. Her descriptions of the grounds and evolving garden tastes are complemented with a colorful array of illustrations. McDowell fills the book with juicy tidbits: the last cow to graze on the White House lawn (1912) was named Pauline Wayne; Herbert Hoover wanted "the help" to seem invisible, so they hid behind hedges when he passed by. In between stories of glass conservatories and golf greens, McDowell digresses interestingly to cemeteries and extension services; however, her factual style too often descends to the cutesy, which is overkill in an already lighthearted treatment of the subject. Color illus. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This volume covers the White House history via the gardens, the presidents, the First Ladies, the gardeners, and the many people who influenced the changes that have occurred over the last 200-plus years. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, while in England, visited many gardens together and brought ideas to the White House gardens as well as their own. History is often best learned from stories, and there are plenty of anecdotes here. Almost all presidents or their First Ladies put their individual stamps on the grounds. The Rose Garden became an extra room for sensitive discussions when Jimmy Carter was in residence. Though raising vegetables for the table diminished over the years since James Madison developed an extensive vegetable garden (early presidents entertained using their own money and resources in those days), Mrs. Obama now uses part of the grounds for encouraging local fruits and vegetables. The writing is conversational and inviting, as one might find when visiting a garden with someone who knows it well. The chapters group presidents by the social mores, fashions, and world events of periods that cover a variety of time spans. Photographs, line drawings, paintings, maps, and other documents add to the interesting stories. Short biographies of the 14 head gardeners, a lengthy chart of the plants in the gardens, and two bibliographies add to this delightful and elucidating work.--Scarth, Linda Copyright 2016 Booklist
Choice Review
This work is an impressionistic history of White House landscapes rather than an account of the gardens owned by individual Presidents, as the title suggests. The book is a pleasant read, filled with interesting anecdotes. A number of its illustrations are enlightening, but the work is interspersed with some questionable inclusions, which appear to serve as space fillers. A few presidents and/or First Ladies took an active interest in the White House grounds; as many did not, there are gaps within the narrative. The best and most inclusive sections are those that deal with the property during the second half of the 19th century--especially with the executive mansion's long-lost greenhouses. The narrative does short-change discussions surrounding the freedom and victory gardens of World Wars I and II, respectively. Throughout the rest of the work, the author diligently explains the White House grounds as part of the times they reflect. To this end, the lists of plants grown over the years at the White House are valuable. Well indexed and adequately researched, this volume is aimed at the hobbyist reader but will also be of interest to garden historians and landscape architects. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; professionals and general readers. --Irwin Richman, Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg Campus
Library Journal Review
Horticulturist and landscape historian McDowell (Gardening Can Be Murder) digs into the history of the White House gardens. She notes that the 18-acre plot surrounding the White House has been continually tended since 1800, 10 years after the permanent site of the U.S. capital was selected. In this book, first published in 2016 and now available in audio, McDowell presents a chronological study of the evolution of the White House grounds, dwelling upon various presidential administrations that played pivotal roles in its development. Narrator Marni Penning furnishes a lively performance of McDowell's humorous anecdotes, such as how Eisenhower installed a putting green on the South Lawn and how Taft's milk cow Pauline last grazed on the White House lawn in 1912. Penning's conversational tone engages, although her oddly placed emphases impart a snarkiness that is at odds with McDowell's overall approach. McDowell resolutely focuses on the gardens and grounds, eschewing political discussions. This approach may appeal to some listeners, but those seeking a more nuanced discussion of the workforce that enabled the creation and continuation of the gardens will likely be disappointed. VERDICT A lighthearted survey of the White House gardens, entertaining if occasionally insubstantial.--Sarah Hashimoto
Excerpts
Excerpts
Preface The United States was too big. For a topic, that is. When my editor suggested I might write a history of American gardening, I sat at my desk. Stunned. It seemed a subject broad as a sea of grass, long and muddy as the Mississippi, elusive as a white whale that would, after a mad, obsessed chase, drag me under. Regional differences are vast. What grows happily for friends in Denver sulks, then dies, in my humid New Jersey garden. Then there are questions of influence that vary across the wide waist of the continent: the Spanish with their patio and courtyard gardens from Florida to California, the tidy colonial gardens of New England, the immense plantations of the antebellum South. And with more than five-plus centuries, depending on how you count, the players involved in American horticulture and landscape design are legion. Two people convinced me to take on this quest--one dead, one alive. The reason I study, teach, and write about garden history is because of Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959). On my first visit to the grounds of Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown in the 1980s, I was smitten with it and Farrand, its designer, one of the country's first landscape architects. It was about Beatrix Farrand that I taught my first class at the New York Botanical Garden. Some years later one of my landscape history students, Seamus Maclennan, chose the White House grounds as the topic for his final project. It was riveting, a fifteen-minute chronicle of change in one of America's most recognizable landscapes. There were victory gardens and flowerbeds, glasshouses and putting greens, all set in the context of American history. For the problem now before me, it would set bounds, but also pull in a cast of characters and a VIP setting. Before I embarked on this undertaking Seamus graciously gave me leave to use his idea, proving once again, if you want to hum along with the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune, "that if you become a teacher, by your pupils you'll be taught." Even with this approach, given the number of presidents plus first ladies, gardeners, architects, and the like, I've had to impose some economies in terms of scope. If, for example, Zachary Taylor is your favorite president, you will be disappointed. As neither he nor his wife were involved in the White House gardens, they do not appear in the narrative. "Summer White Houses" were eliminated, though I was sorely tempted by places like Warm Springs, Georgia, Franklin Roosevelt's retreat south of Atlanta, and Rancho del Cielo, Reagan's Western White House. The fourteen White House head gardeners' biographies tell an interesting story in their own right so we see them together in "First Gardeners" at the back of the book. I have defaulted to common names of plants in the body of the book. For those who prefer proper botanical nomenclature, you will find it in a back section, "All the Presidents' Plants"--a look at White House plantings over the past two centuries--and the index. If you had hoped for a complete list of plants named for presidents and first ladies, I did too. Unfortunately in most cases these cultivars have not stood the test of time, at least in terms of the marketplace. A rhododendron named 'Mrs. Grover Cleveland' might have been a big seller in the 1890s but soon disappeared from the nursery trade. Long-term White House head gardener Irvin Williams once said, "What's great about the job is that our trees, our plants, our shrubs, know nothing about politics." Despite the presidential focus of the book, I have attempted to emulate the politics of plants. Because whether gardeners lean right or left, blue or red, we are united by a love of green growing things and the land in which they grow. Excerpted from All the Presidents' Gardens: Madison's Cabbages to Kennedy's Roses, How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America by Marta McDowell All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Preface | p. 7 |
Prologue The Pursuit of Happiness | p. 11 |
Versailles on the Potomac The 1790s | p. 15 |
Founders' Grounds 1800-1809 | p. 33 |
Gentlemen's Occupation 1810s-1830s | p. 55 |
Embellishments 1840s-1880s | p. 85 |
Gilded Gardens 1880s-1900s | p. 119 |
Home Front 1910s-1940s | p. 155 |
America the Beautiful 1940s-1990s | p. 197 |
Is Green the New Red, White, and Blue? 1990s and Beyond | p. 235 |
Epilogue | p. 253 |
First Gardeners The Men Who Planted for Presidents | p. 257 |
All the Presidents' Plants Two Centuries of Shrubs, Trees, and Vines | p. 284 |
Recommended Reading | p. 286 |
Sources and Citations | p. 289 |
Acknowledgments | p. 317 |
Illustration Sources and Credits | p. 319 |
Index | p. 322 |