can you do a burn at the end of this month?We live in the woods, my neighbor did a burn on his land last early spring,actually,the end on this month,you should see all the native plants that have come up,we are planning on doing a burn this year,a lot of old seed,is still there,and it just might come back with a burn?

Hi, I'm making a website on vintage gardening, so I might be able to help you - my site is only half done and deals mainly with gardening from 1890-1939, but my lists of plants do include ones that were available earlier, and if you like I could copy lists and descriptions of plants and gardens from my 1856 'Breck's Book of Flowers' to the site (would end up being too many pages to put on here). Are you going to restore the garden to the formal garden that was in the artist's rendering? Because I think that would be more expensive than just a nice old-fashioned mixed annual, perennial and shrub garden...you could do the first 2 groups from seed, and it's amazing how many old-fashioned shrubs you can find on sale at your local nursery! Some references that would be good to look at would be "Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings" by Rudy J. Favretti & Joyce Putman Favretti (from the 1970's so I think it's out of print but they probably have it on Alibris), "Grandmother's Gardens - The Old-Fashioned American Garden 1865-1915" by May Brawley Hill (1995) - lots of old garden pictures, and "Restoring American Gardens - an Encyclopedia of Heirloom Garden Ornamental Plants 1640-1940" by Denise Wise Adams (2004)...

Here is a link that might be useful: Vintage Gardening

Hi Lisa , Thanks for answering me, I think probably we will not restore the gardens to the artist rendering, like you say to much money and we only have enough at this time to take care of the house, so all garden related will be donationand such.
We have pictures and the yards seem very natural and not severe and well kept. in that day and age I do not know how they would have kept it that way with help.
James J. Eldred was not a slave owner in fact very much against it. Thank you for the suggestions on books and I will try to find them. I will keep in touch and let you know how things are going. we are just starting the engineering phase not and hopefully will be done in about 2 years, so I am planning on starting on line up some plants that will not be disturbed by the contractors. but also want color around while be worked on. again thanks and will keep you informed. Carolyn

There is a certain amount of funding around for garden installation. What it hard to find is funding for garden maintenance. This is often true even at the local level. It's relatively easy to talk a local garden center into donating things to start a garden, and much harder to talk them into donating on an ongoing basis. So think long and hard before deciding what you want to do. Maintaining formal gardens is a piece of cake compared to cottage gardens. Been there, done that and I'm not going back. Not only are they much more time consuming, but they require a much more knowledgable work force.