The Old Fashioned Garden

In 1905, the Old Fashioned Garden was constructed with a grapevine-covered arbor at the center of the boxwood-edged beds. The beds, called parterres, were filled with both perennial and annual flowers and tall grasses. While this type of garden included some exotic varieties, it primarily showcased plants that would have been familiar to earlier generations of Americans and their European ancestors. It was inspired by Colonial-era gardens such as those at Mount Vernon, which in turn were based on European Gardens of the Renaissance. A book called Old Time Gardens, published in 1901, popularized this nostalgic idea.