Jefferson's love of a garden was an inheritance and a habit. The first page of his garden book, kept by him with amazing regularity for more than fifty years, and to be seen today, shows him, a young lawyer, hardly out of his courses, and in the country only for vacations, following closely the progress of a garden at his boyhood home.
| "Shadwell | |
| 1766 | |
| Mar. 30 | Purple hyacinth begins to bloom. |
| 6 | Narcissus and Puckoon open. |
| 13 | Puckoon flowers fallen. |
| 16 | A bluish colored funnel formed flower in low grounds in bloom. |
| 30 | purple flag bloomed, Hyacinth and Narcissus gone. |
| 4 | wild honeysuckle in our woods open—also the Dwarf flags and violet. |
| 7 | blue flowers in low grounds vanish. |
| 11 | The purple flag, Dwarf flag, violet & wild Honeysuckle still in bloom. |
| went journey to Maryland, Pennsylva, New York, so observations cease." | |
Observations, however, were continued, when hyacinths and narcissus bloomed in March, the spring following. Globe amaranth, auricular, balsam, the sensitive plant and the tricolor were sown in early April, lilac, Spanish broom and umbrella laurel, suckers of roses and seed of althea and the flower of the prince's feather were also planted then. April 10th Sweet William began to open, two weeks later feathered hyacinth was in bloom, and a single pink blooming and the grand procession of color for May and June
[6]
