Visiting Ash Lawn Highland
Mr Chiots and I took the opportunity to visit Ash Lawn Highland when were in Charlottesville, Va. It’s right down the road from Monticello, so we spent the morning at Monticello, went in to Charlottesville for lunch and headed out to Ash Lawn Highland in the afternoon. Ash Lawn Highland is the home of James Monroe, the 5th president of the U.S. It’s much more understated than Monticello and almost seems more real. Perhaps it’s because it is less commercialized and not as busy. During our visit, there were only 10 of us touring the home and gardens. Since the tours are smaller, more involved and much more informative. You feel less like you are in a cattle drive and more like you’re a guest.
One of the things I really loved about Ash Lawn Highland was, of course, the vegetable garden. It’s much much smaller than the one at Monticello, and therefore much more real. It’s quite beautiful, definitely something that would be attainable to the average home gardener. The gardens are much more in the cottage garden style, which is what I love. The white picket fences and flower borders around the vegetable garden were stunningly simple.
Right outside the kitchen, there was a small herb garden, a fairly traditional thing. It was filled with all kinds of herbs from sage to basil and I even spotted some ‘Egyptian Walking’ Onions, which may have been given to them by Thomas Jefferson (I’ve read he grew them at Monticello). They also have some fig trees by the house, which most likely came from Thomas Jefferson as well.
There was a barn and even a few cows, chickens and peacocks on the property. It certainly helped make the gardens seem more like they would have been back when Monroe was in residence.
The house itself was very traditional and rather small, only 3 small rooms originally; a parlor, a dining room, and a bedroom. It did have another 2 rooms added later on. A front few rooms were added in the years after they sold the property. It couldn’t be more different than Monticello, in look, size, and layout.
The slave cottages were located around a courtyard behind the house. They mentioned on the tour that even Thomas Jefferson talked about how better slave quarters couldn’t be found than the ones at Ash Lawn Highland, and I think he’s right, they were very beautiful. So nice, in fact that the Monroe’s converted a few of them to guest quarters since the main house was so small.
This style of buildings is what I really love; wooden siding painted a crisp white, stone chimneys, brick walkways, white picket fences, bountiful flower gardens and big trees. I dream of someday having a little cottage house like this on a few acres with a nice kitchen garden surrounded with a white picket fence, and of course a few chickens and maybe even a goat running around the yard. This is my dream house and gardens, which is probably why I liked it so much.
If you even find yourself at Monticello, I’d highly recommend taking an extra hour or so to make the trip over to Ash Lawn Highland, I do not think you’ll regret it.
What style/color of house do you like the most?
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Quote of the Day: M.F.K. Fisher
“The smell of good bread baking,
like the sound of lightly flowing water,
is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight”
— M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating
We’ve certainly been enjoying a lot of freshly baked ciabatta bread, made with freshly ground flour. I think this is my favorite kind of bread, great any way you want to eat it crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside – MMMMMM.
What’s your favorite kind of bread?
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On My Windowsill
I’m enjoying seeing big beefsteak tomatoes sitting on my kitchen windowsill just waiting to be sliced up for a meal.
This is a lovely ‘White Beauty’ tomato, we’re also eating ‘Sub-Arctic’, ‘Chianti Rose’, and ‘Cherokee Purple’. No ripe ‘Brandywine’ tomatoes yet, I can’t wait for one of those, I think it will still be a few weeks. We enjoy them sliced, drizzled with a little olive oil and topped with some freshly ground salt (Himalayan pink salt at the moment).
What’s your favorite way to eat fresh tomatoes?
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Bringing Monticello Home
I’ve been wanting to get a terracotta cloche for quite a while now. I don’t know why I like them so much, I think they’re quite beautiful in the garden and useful for blanching and protecting plants. They’re not readily available here in the U.S. so they’re difficult to find. While searching on-line I saw that they were available for purchase at Monticello and I had every intention of buying one.
I’d saved up some money, but when I was standing in the gift shop looking at the $125 price tag I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m a very frugal person, so spending that much money on one item to sit in the garden seemed ridiculous, no matter how much I love them. Especially given the fact that our gardens are surrounded by huge trees that frequently drop branches. My luck I’d take it home, put it in the garden and we’d get a summer storm that would knock a big branch out of a tree right on top of it.
Instead of buying a cloche, I settled on purchasing a few plants. They’re a much better purchase anyways, I’ll be able to propagate them for gifts or for additional plants. It’s also a great way to have a little piece of Monticello at home. Most of the plants I bought will be houseplants during the winter and outdoor potted plants during the summer. What varieties of plants did I purchase?
A dwarf weeping lantana, a buttery yellow one just like the one seen in this flower bed. It is not a hardy plant, so I’ll be overwintering it in the house. I’ve overwintered regular lantana in the house successfully so this shouldn’t be a problem.
I also purchased a fig tree of the variety ‘Brunswick’ which is only hardy to a zone 6b. I may be able to wrap it and successfully overwinter it outside, but I think I’ll put it in the basement this winter. I’ll take starts next spring and then try overwintering it outside when I have more than one plant. I have a ‘Hardy Chicago’ fig that I successfully overwintered in the basement this past year. It’s quite large now after only one summer of good growth, perhaps next year I’ll get a few figs from it.
I also purchased two small variegated lemon trees (one for my mom) and a key lime tree, which will become a houseplants in the winter and spend their summers outside on the back porch. I’ve been wanting to get a nice potted citrus for a while and they were well priced at Monticello. Let’s hope they survive and I’ll be harvesting fresh citrus in a few years!
We bought these plants only a few days into our trip, so we had to spend a few days traveling with plants. I kept telling Mr Chiots people probably wondered what we were doing. If anyone asked, I was going to say that we always traveled with plants to help clean the air of the hotel room. The funny thing is we actually met a guy at our hotel that was traveling with a HUGE potted dumb cane plant. We mentioned to him that we thought we were the only ones with plants in our room and both got a good laugh.
I love buying or getting starts of plants as souvenirs, so much better to have a plant in the garden than something to dust inside!
Do you ever buy or get starts of plants when you travel?
Here’s a slideshow of the Vegetable Gardens from my visit,
and a slideshow of the House and Ornamental Gardens from my visit.
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Monticello, the House and Ornamental Gardens
Monticello is much more than the vegetables gardens that I showed you yesterday, although these were my favorite part. Thomas Jefferson designed and built the house, tearing parts of it down and rebuilding it over and over again to suit his changing tastes. He wrote “Architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements.”
If you haven’t read much about him, I’d highly recommend it. He was an interesting fellow, perhaps one of the last few true Renaissance men, interesting in just about everything. He had a huge influences on many aspects of life as we know it now, bringing new ideas in the areas of architecture and gardening. He kept meticulous records of everything he did, from the daily weather to what was planted in the garden and how much he harvested. His notes and experiments helped understand the idea of gardening zones and plants that survived and thrived in different climates.
Thomas Jefferson said of himself that he was not an inventor, simply an adapter. You can see his adaptations of all kinds of things around the house. From the weathervane on the front porch roof that allowed him to see the direction of the wind without going outside if if was raining to the rain catchment system to gather water from the terraces.
When Mr Chiots and I visited Monticello, we looked around the vegetable gardens first, then we took the “Behind the Scenes” tour. After that we did the regular house tour and walked around the grounds a little more. We didn’t do the Plantation Tour or the Garden Tour, we simply ran out of steam. Here’s a slide show of some of the other interesting things about Monticello, from the Chinese railings, to the cat doors in the closets on the third floor and the ornamental gardens that surround the roundabout at the front of the house. Here’s another slide show of the rest of the Monticello, the house and the ornamental gardens. To view in full screen click on the icon in the top left hand corner, click the same icon to exit full screen mode.
[flashgallery folder=”Visiting_monticello”]
If you’d like to read up on Thomas Jefferson and Monticello I’d highly recommend these books: Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is a great book, in depth with lots of photos of the house and the gardens, not too wordy though so as to lose your attention. The Gardens of Monticello is a small book that focuses on the gardens of Monticello, a quick read if you don’t have much time. If you’re interested in an in depth read about the farm and gardens of Monticello I’d recommend The Garden and Farm Books of Thomas Jefferson. If you’re more of a documentary type, both Thomas Jefferson by Ken Burns and Thomas Jefferson – A View From the Mountain are good.
I have to admit, Thomas Jefferson is probably one of my most favorite historical persons to read about. I find him quite fascinating in all aspects of his life.
Do you enjoy reading about historical persons such as Thomas Jefferson? who’s your favorite?
Here’s a slideshow of the Vegetable Gardens from my visit.
