Over two hundred and sixty-five years ago, General Washington was completing his greenhouse in the flower garden at Mount Vernon. He was vitally interested in obtaining suitable plant material to furnish it.
Many of the gentlemen of Colonial America did not consider their respective estates complete until a greenhouse was available for the Winter storage of oranges, lemons, and exotic tropical plants, which were grown in boxes along the paths or planted in the beds of the adjacent garden areas during the long Summer months in Virginia.
Structural Comparisons
Early greenhouses differ greatly from the greenhouse of today. The structures were usually built of brick or brick plastered with ornamental stucco. The inside walls were usually “stuccoed” or plastered.
Roof areas were gabled or hipped and completely shingled, while the eave was usually one-and-a-half to two times the height of a “story.” One side faced South, with as many windows as could be included without sacrificing the sturdy structural requirements of the period.
Windows ranged from the floor to the ceiling and were equipped with a double-hung sash that could be raised or towered as the weather changed.
Heating Methods
The method of heating these early greenhouses is now being used slightly differently. The greenhouses were usually built with a solid masonry wall to the North and beyond that wall. Still, under the same roof, the “undertaker” (as the master builder was called) usually constructed one or two, or more, storage rooms.
One of these rooms contained a fire pit, and flues from this fire pit extended under the floor to the front wall, along the front wall to the corners, and then returned to vertical flues and chimneys on the corners of the inside wall.
This was a method of heating by radiation. Since the heat and smoke warmed the masonry arches of the flues under the floor, the warm masonry radiated beat to the soil beds or the pot and tub plants.
In shallower greenhouses that had less distance from the North wall to the glazed wall, the flues were frequently built in a horizontal pattern within the North wall of the structure.
The storage rooms on the Northside of the structure served to insulate the solid masonry wall from direct contact with the cold, outside air.
When floor flues were used, the remaining area under the floor was arched to provide drainage into the spaces beneath, insulate the bottom from the ground temperature, and offer a convenient opportunity to connect additional heating flues if such other radiation became necessary.
The sash windows on the South or front side of the greenhouse were sometimes equipped with interior shutters which could be closed during periods of extreme cold. In addition, the space between the shutters and the sash could also be stuffed with straw to provide further insulation against the cold.
The ceilings of the greenhouses were vaulted or arched to provide maximum convection as the sun penetrated the glass.
Watering Was Laborsome
Watering was a problem in these greenhouses. It had to be brought in from a well located as close as water could be found and tempered in the greenhouse before the plants were refreshed.
The larger potted and tubbed plants were set on the floor, while the smaller plants were set upon movable “tressels” at various heights with attention to the availability of the plants. Gardeners needed access around the staged tressels for tending and watering the collection of plants.
A Plain and Stately Structure
General Washington’s greenhouse, described as a simple and stately structure, was essentially completed by the Fall of 1789. Bricks were burned or fired near the site, and the framing and woodwork were cut and fabricated by the people on the estate.
The South facade carried a pediment with an oxeye window, while the cornice was embellished with woodblocks. Pilasters flanked the main window, and the building was equipped with one door at each end. Nearly three hundred panes of glass were purchased and issued for the sash.
Collecting Plants
As the greenhouse neared completion, General Washington endeavored to obtain the services of a gardener who could successfully execute his expanding garden program. He found such a man during September and solicited a few plants which had been offered to him by an old friend. Mrs. Margaret Carroll of Mount Clare. Miry-land.
This collection contained shaddocks, orange trees, lemon trees, aloes, knotted marjoram, and one fine balm-scented shrub, probably Cedronella eanarierisis (triphylia). From this nucleus, the greenhouse collection grew.
Seeds, bulbs, and plants were Forwarded worldwide in tribute to the famous leader. After a hazardous voyage on the Baltimore packet, Italian myrtle, palmetto royal, opopanaxes, and oleanders arrived from South Carolina’s General William Moultrie.
An extensive collection of plants was forwarded from Kingston Jamaica in 1795, was lost at sea. This collection was sent by order of the trustees of the “Botanic Gardens” at Leguanea and Bath. Bread-Fruit trees were included in the list which was forwarded describing this shipment.
The gardener at Mount Vernon solicited President Washington at Philadelphia in February. 1797, to deliver one myrtle tree and several sorts of aloes and “geranium” and other good things for the greenhouse.
William Hamilton of the Woodlands, an acquaintance of General Washington, presented a plant of the upright. Italian myrtle and one of the box-leaved myrtle for Mrs. Washington early in March.
From Antigua and the Indies
In the summer of 1798, the Hon. Jas. Atliill of Antigua forwarded a shipment of plants on the Brig “Philanthropist,” Captn. Evelett. These plants did not survive, but those which did look “lively”; there is no descriptive information available concerning the survivors.
In 1799, the ship “George Barclay” brought to Philadelphia seventy-five parcels of material for General Washington. The material was forwarded from the East Indies, and the list is awe-inspiring. It is not known to whom General Washington was indebted for such a generous shipment. But we do know that he was expecting this plant material.
A Visitor Comments
It was customary to remove the plants from the greenhouse about May 20th. Some of the plants were removed from the pots and tubs; others were set upon the graveled areas within the garden. About mid-August, the plants were shifted or transplanted, as necessary, and about September 20th, they were returned to the greenhouse shelter.
The details of the greenhouse management were left entirely to the gardener. In 1799 a visitor to Mount Vernon wrote: “Plants from every part of the world seem to flourish in the neatly finished apartment, and from the arrangement of the whole.
I conclude that it is managed by a skilled hand but whose I cannot tell — neither the General nor Mrs. W — seem more interested in it than the visitors.” The surviving evidence of these details is very meager and of little value.
The Mount Vernon Ladies Association has accurately reconstructed General Washington’s greenhouse in the flower garden during the last two years. The original greenhouse had been completely destroyed by fire in December 1835. Then the walls deteriorated and crumbled during the following years.
Twenty-five years later, a utilitarian greenhouse was raised on the site since sufficient evidence was not at hand to perform an accurate reconstruction.
Since that time, sketches of the original, photographs of the ruins, and descriptive details have been recovered to provide the needed information. The result is a “plain and stately structure” which will be on exhibition for the first time this year.
44659 by Robert B. Fisher