Monticello Blog

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation has restored portions of the Upper and Lower Grove to resemble Jefferson’s landscaping vision more closely.

Minerva Granger was one of the enslaved women who was essential to Jefferson’s agricultural endeavors on his plantation. Along with her family and other members of the enslaved community, she planted and harvested tobacco and later wheat, which Jefferson sold on Atlantic markets.

Just as the intoxicatingly fragrant hyacinth blossoms begin to fade, another colorful charmer pulls back the curtain and takes the stage: the tulip.

Jefferson’s “Belles of the Day” Begin

Last week archaeologists began test excavations at an early-19th-century stone house at Tufton, one of the four quarter farms that comprised Monticello Plantation.

Our staff installed a CoolBot walk-in refrigerator at the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants (CHP), which affords us more space for seed storage and allows for better seed control under a constant temperature and humidity threshold (cold and dry conditions are preferred for most of the CHP and Monticello seed lines).

In Jefferson’s time apples were especially valued for the making of cider.

Sometimes a good tree gets planted in what turns out to be a bad location. That’s exactly what an engineer recently discovered near Monticello’s South Wing.

The restoration of the Stone Stable on Mulberry Row has begun. The stable is one of two Jefferson-era buildings on Mulberry Row that will be restored as part of a larger effort to return the mountaintop to its appearance during Jefferson’s lifetime.