Thomas Jefferson loved gardening.  

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth ... but though an old man, I am but a young gardener," he wrote to a friend from his Poplar Forest retreat in 1811.

Three notable physical features of Jefferson's elaborate ornamental design for his retreat remain: the sunken lawn behind the house, and two mounds flanking the house.  Also remaining are some trees from Jefferson's time and plants believed to be descendants of those planted by Jefferson.

Archaeologists have pieced together information about the landscape that eventually will help in planning for its restoration and interpretation to the public.

From letters, we know that Jefferson centered his house within a landscaped garden of approximately five acres, encircled by a road 540 yards round.  An additional area outside of the road also appears to have contained ornamental plantings.

Behind the house, on the south side, he created a sunken lawn lined with flowering shrubs such as lilacs and althaea, and two clumps of trees and shrubs to provide shade to the house and portico.

On either side of the house, there would have been double rows of paper mulberry trees connecting the building to the mounds.  The mounds in turn were ornamented with willow and aspen trees, and later planted with flowering bushes.

In front of the house was a carriage circle, the center of which is believed to have been a bed of roses.  Jefferson designed oval shrub beds and additional clumps of native and imported trees and shrubs set closer to the house.

Paper mulberry trees set 20 feet apart lined both sides of the road around the house.  Tulip poplar trees in front of the house may be the last remnants of groves of trees that Jefferson chose to leave in place while designing his landscape.  Tree-ring dating of two tulip poplars that recently died confirmed that they were as old as or older than the house itself.

Many of the same types of trees and shrubs that Jefferson specified in his planting memos still surround the house today.  These include European and paper mulberry trees, Kentucky coffee trees, privet, lilac and rosebushes, and native locusts, red buds, and dogwoods.

Jefferson's design illustrates his affinity for blending old practices to create something new.  For instance, it is likely that the ornamented mounds sprang from two sources.  One was the Renaissance architect Palladio who included pavilions in his villa designs.  At Poplar Forest, Jefferson substituted the mounds for the pavilions.

A second source was the English gardens Jefferson saw on a side trip that he took when he served as minister to France.  There he saw plain mounds used to survey the formal gardens.

The remaining physical features represent the hard work of one man that we know of, and probably others.  Jefferson had instructed his overseer to ask the slave workers for volunteers to excavate the sunken lawn for one bit per cubic yard (about 12 ½ cents for a wheelbarrow of dirt).  Document indicate that one slave, Phill Hubbard, volunteered for the job.  The dirt he removed to create the bowling green, plus the dirt excavated from the cellar was used to create the mounds.

Another Poplar Forest slave, Nace, served Jefferson as gardener.  It was his job to care for the kitchen garden. He probably also oversaw the nursery, where trees and shrubs from Monticello and other places were temporarily planted until they could be set out on the grounds, and tended the ornamental plants.