[Sansevierias] when greenhouses were GREENHOUSES!!!!

Gardening Indoors - The Conservatory in 19th-Century Europe

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 09:30 AM PST

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Berthe Morisot (French painter, 1841-1895) Young Girl in a Greenhouse

At the beginning of the 19th-century, using the 
word conservatory as another term for a 
greenhouse had begun to change. The conservatory 
was evolving into a social gathering place for the privileged.

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Edouard Manet (French Realist, Impressionist 
painter, 1832-1883) In the Conservatory

In 1782, Europe Magazine noted that "The idea of 
a Conservatory opening by a folding door into his 
saloon, is too fine to be left unfinished."

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Edouard Manet (French Realist, Impressionist 
painter, 1832-1883) Madame Manet in the Conservatory 1879

In England, Humphrey Repton (Scottish botanist & 
garden designer, 1752-1818) gave a plan well 
adapted for this new, more social purpose. At one 
end of this design an aviary (1) is surrounded by 
a conservatory (2), and joined to a glass passage 
for flowers (3), which leads successively through 
an orangery (4), lobby (5), music-room (6), 
library (7), print and picture-room (8), 
breakfast-room (9), anti-room (10), dining-room 
(11), hall (12), and peach and green-house.

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Eduard Gaertner (German artist, 1801 1877) Family 
of Mr. Westfal in the Conservatory 1836
John Claudius Loudon (Scottish-born botanist & 
garden designer, 1783-1843) wrote in his 1822 
Encyclopedia of Gardening, "The conservatory is a 
term generally applied by gardeners to 
plant-houses, in which the plants are grown in a 
bed or border without the use of pots. They are 
sometimes placed in the pleasure-ground along 
with the other hot-houses ; but more frequently 
attached to the mansion. The principles of their 
construction is in all respects the same as for 
the green-house, with the single difference of a 
pit or bed of earth being substituted for the stage."

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Frances (Jones) Bannerman (Canadian-born artist, 1855-1944), The Conservatory

In 1824, Sir Walter Scott wrote in his historical 
novel Redgauntlet, "The present proprietor had 
rendered it (the parlor) more cheerful by opening 
one end into a small conservatory...I have never 
seen this before." The transition was well underway.

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John Atkinson Grimshaw (English artist, 1836-1893) Il Pensoroso

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James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French artist, 1836 
1902) In the Greenhouse 1867-69

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James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French artist, 1836 1902) The Bunch of Lilacs 1875

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James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French artist, 1836 1902) In the Conservatory

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James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French artist, 
1836–1902) Portrait in the Conservatory

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Jane Maria Bowkett (British painter, 1837-1891) Young Lady in a Conservatory

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Lilla Cabot Perry (American artist, 1848-1933) In the Conservatory 1915

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Louise Abbema (French painter, 1853-1927) Luncheon in the Conservatory 1877

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Lovis Corinth (German Painter, 1858-1925) Woman 
with Lilies in a Conservatory 1911

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Mary Cassatt (American artist, 1844-1926) Mother and Child in the Conservatory

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Mihaly Munkacsy (Hungarian-born artist, 1844-1900) In the Conservatory

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Paul Cezanne (French artist, 1839-1906) Madame Cezanne in a Conservatory

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William Quiller Orchardson (Scottish artist, 
1832-1910) In the Conservatory 1894

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Olga Boznanska (Polish Impressionist painter, 1865-1945) Oranzerii

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H. R. Miller (British artist) Family Portrait in a Conservatory 1850

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Harry E. J. Browne (British artist) Tea in the Conservatory

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Benjamin Haughton (British artist, 1865 1924) Woman in Conservatory with Roses



Gardening Indoors - George Washington's Greenhouse

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 08:09 AM PST

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1790s Christian Gullager (1759-1826). George Washington (1732-1799).

One of the most intriguing greenhouse stories 
involves Virginian George Washington & Margaret Tilghman Carroll  of Maryland.

In her 1770 description of the gardens Charles 
Carroll the Barrister's home called Mount Clare 
in Baltimore, Maryland, visiting Virginia widow 
Mary Ambler mentioned, "there is a Green House 
with a good many Orange & Lemon Trees just ready 
to bear." Widow & mother Mary Ambler had traveled 
to Baltimore from Belvoir in Fauquier County, 
Virginia, with her 2 children to be inoculated against smallpox.

At Mount Clare, as in many 18th century 
households, the wife supervised the greenhouse 
activities, while the husband oversaw the design 
of the gardens and grounds. Margaret Tilghman 
Carroll (1743-1817) was renowned for her orange & 
lemon trees. After her husband Charles Carroll 
(1723-1783) died in 1783, she devoted much of her 
time to growing plants in her greenhouse.

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1765 John Hesselius (1728-1778). Margaret 
Tilghman Carroll Mrs Charles Carroll the Barrister.

In addition to her greenhouse, Margaret Carroll 
also had a 39' by 24' brick structure at Mount 
Clare, which she called a Stove House, with an 
intricate hot air heating system for growing 
plants, such as pineapples, indoors year round.

Her reputation & skill as a horticulturalist had 
impressed George Washington (1732-1799) who wrote 
a letter to her cousin Col. Tench Tilghman in 
August of 1784,  "I shall essay the finishing of 
my greenhouse this fall, but find that neither 
myself, nor any person about me is so well 
skilled in the internal constructions as to 
proceed without a probability at least of running 
into errors. Shall I for this reason, ask the 
favor of you to give me a short description of 
the Green-house at Mrs. Carrolls? I am persuaded, 
now that I planned mine on too contracted a 
scale. My house is (of Brick) 40 feet by 24, in the outer dimensions."

It is believed that Washington built his 
greenhouse copying Margaret Carrolls' building, 
which no longer exists. And in April the 
following spring Washington noted in his diary, 
"Planted and sowed in boxes placed in front of the Green House."

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Greenhouse at Mount Vernon

In 1788, Lt. John Enys (1757-1818) stopped at 
Mount Vernon noting that, "The front by which we 
entered had a Gras plot before it with a road 
round it for Carriages planted on each side with 
a number of different kinds of Trees among the 
rest some Weeping Willows which seem to flourish 
very well. One the one side of this stands the 
Garden, green house &c." Enys had come to America 
during the Revolution and recorded his notes 
after he returned to England and retired from the British army.

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Greenhouse at Mount Vernon

Early in 1789, Congregational clergyman & 
geographer Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826) was also 
impressed with Washington's garden & described 
Mount Vernon in his American Geography, "the 
green-house, school-house, offices and servants 
halls, when seen from the land side, bears a 
resemblance to a rural village --especially as 
the lands in that side are laid out somewhat in 
the form of English gardens, in meadows and grass 
grounds, ornamented with little copices, circular clumps and single trees."

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Greenhouse at Mount Vernon

Wishing to make a present of some of her prized 
greenhouse specimens to George Washington, 
including one grafted tree that produced both 
lemons and oranges, on 29 October 1789, Margaret 
Carroll sent by boat 20 pots of lemon & orange 
trees plus 5 boxes of assorted other greenhouse 
plants to Washington at the harbor in Alexandria.

Apparently Margaret Carroll had spoken about the 
financial possibilities of erecting greenhouses & 
stovehouses to George Washington; because the 
gift of Mount Clare's mistress was in response to 
a letter that Washington had sent her from New York, on September 16th 1789.

"Madam,
A Person having been lately sent to me from 
Europe in the capacity of a Gardner, who 
professes a knowledge in the culture of rare 
plants and care of a Green-House, I am desirous 
to profit of the very obliging offer you were pleased some time ago to make me.

"In availing myself of your goodness I am far 
from desiring that it should induce any 
inconvenience to yourself­but, reconciling your 
disposition to oblige, with your convenience, I 
shall be happy to receive such aids as you can 
well spare, and as will not impair your collection.

"Trusting that this will be the rule of your 
bounty, I have requested General Williams to give 
you notice, when an opportunity offers to 
transport the trees or plants in the freshest 
state to Mount Vernon, and to pay any expence 
which may be incurred in fitting them for 
transportation, and to receive them from your Gardner for that purpose.

"I have the honor to be, most respectfully, 
Madam, Your obliged and obedient Servant,
G. Washington"

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Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Margaret 
Tilghman (Mrs Charles Carroll the Barrister) This 
painting depicts Margaret Carroll standing next 
to the closed or lidded Lidded Campana Urn on a 
Classical Pedestal which stood on the grounds at Mount Clare in Baltimore.

Several years later, in 1792, French visitor 
Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) 
wrote, "I hastened to arrive at Mount 
Vernon...after having passed over two hills, you 
discover a country house of an elegant and 
majestic simplicity. It is preceded by 
grass-plats; on the one side of the avenue are 
the stables, on the other the green-house, and 
houses of a number of negro mechanics." Brissot 
was a vocal supporter of the 1789 French Revolution.

This flurry of activity around the greenhouses of 
Margaret Carroll and George Washington was not 
new in America. The possibilities of growing 
tender plants in greenhouses had fascinated 
Americans since the 1st half of the century in colonial America.


Gardening Indoors - The Greenhouse comes to Early America

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 07:03 AM PST

The possibility of growing tender plants in 
greenhouses had fascinated early Americans at 
least since the 1st half of the 18th-century in 
colonial America. But the price of glass in 
colonial & early America remained high until 
nearly the middle of the 19th-century, making 
greenhouses available only to those with extra disposable income.

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Back of Mount Vernon's Greenhouse

As British America was being colonized in the 
17th-century, English garden writers were 
focusing on greenhouses which needed glass to 
allow the sun to reach the growing plants. Glass 
was becoming more affordable & glass no longer 
needed to be hand-blown. In England, in 1664, 
diarist & gardener John Evelyn (1620-1706) 
advised, "Set your...Windows and Doors of the 
Green-houses and Conservatories open." And in his 
diary on 30 October 1683, he mentioned, "Greene 
houses for oranges and mirtles." Born in Surrey 
into a family that owned the monopoly on the 
manufacture of gunpowder in England, Evelyn was 
able to devote his life to intellectual pursuits. 
In addition to translating noted French gardening 
books, Evelyn was the author of Kalendarium 
Hortense. His Diary is full of references to 
gardens, & to his own famous garden at Sayes 
Court. In 1691, the London Gazette mentioned 
another "new Conservatory or Green-House" in a house-for-sale ad.

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Detail John Evelyn (1620-1706) by Hendrick van der Borcht, 1641.

In early 18th century England, J. James' 1712 
translation of Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond's 
(1679-1719) The Theory and Practice of Gardening; 
; wherein is fully handled all that relates to 
fine gardening, commonly called pleasure gardens 
explained that, "Green-houses are large Piles of 
Building like Galleries...for preserving 
Orange-Trees, and other Plants...during the 
Winter." Le Blond was a French architect & garden 
designer who became the chief architect of Saint 
Petersburg in 1716, just 3 years before his 
death. He had derived his gardening expertise 
from André Le Nôtre (1613-1700), and he 
illustrated & helped write Dezallier 
d'Argenville's (1680-1765) seminal work on the 
principles of French formal garden design. In 
England, Phillip Miller had published a plan for 
a greenhouse in his 1754 Gardener's Dictionary, 
which was owned & read in the British American colonies.

 >Much like today, the 18th century colonial 
greenhouse was a glass-windowed structure of wood 
or brick or stone in which tender plants were 
reared & preserved. Revolutionaly iron & glass 
greenhouses would appear in the first half of the 
19th-century allowing more light into the structures.

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Virginian William Byrd II (1674-1768) painted by Hans Hysing 1724

Early in 18th-century Pennsylvania, botanist John 
Bartram (1699-1777) wrote to English botanist 
Peter Collinson (1674-1768), on July 18, 1740, 
about Colonel William Byrd's (1674-1744) grounds 
at Westover in Virginia. "Colonel Byrd is very 
prodigalle...new Gates, gravel Walks, hedges, and 
cedars finely twined and a little green house 
with two or three orange trees...he hath the finest seat in Virginia."

Twenty years later, John Bartram wrote to Peter 
Collinson in 1760, "I am going to build a 
green-house. Stone is got...to put some pretty 
flowering winter shrubs, and plants for winter's 
diversion, not to be crowded with orange trees."

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Peter Collinson 1694-1768

John Bartram was much more than just a 
commentator on the homes of colonial gentry, but 
he certainly would have been intrigued by the 
possibilities of Byrd's early greenhouse. Born in 
Darby, Pennsylvania, son a Quaker farmer, Bartram 
was the most important botanist in the colonies. 
His son William Bartram (1739-1823) helped him 
collect, replant, & ship his specimens. In 1728, 
John Bartram established a botanic garden at 
Kingsessing on the west bank of the Schuylkill, 
near Philadelphia, where he collected & grew 
native plants. His correspondence with Peter 
Collinson, led to the introduction of many American trees & plants into Europe.

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Charles Willson Peale's 1808 William Bartram

Greenhouses in Europe filled with Bartram's Boxes 
of American plants. His plant specimens & seeds 
traveled across the Atlantic to the gardens & 
greenhouses of Philip Miller, Linnaeus, German 
botanist Dillenius (1687-1747), & Dutch botanist 
Gronovius (1686-1762); and he assisted Linnaeus' 
student Swedish Pehr Kalm (1716-1779) during his 
collecting trip to North America in 1748-1750. 
Although Bartram never visited Britain, in 1765, 
he was appointed Botanist to King George III. 
Linnaeus called him "the worlds greatest 
botanist." Bartram traveled from Lake Ontario in 
the north, to Florida in the south and the Ohio 
River in the west. His Diary of a Journey through 
the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, a trip taken 
from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766, was 
published. His son William accompanied his father 
documenting plants, animals, birds, & native 
peoples of North & South Carolina, Georgia & 
Florida. William published Travels, writings with 
his own illustrations in 1791, which impacted the 
19th century romantic movement as well as natural history.

Not far from Bartram's nursery just outside of 
Philadelphia, John Smith described the plantation 
owned by the family of William Penn at 
Springettesbury Manor in 1745, "On our way 
thither we stopped to view the proprietor's 
greeen-house, which at this season is an 
agreeable sight; the oranges, lemons and citrons 
were some green, some ripe, some in blossom." 
Springettesbury Manor had been named in honor of 
William Penn's first ie, Gulielma Maria Springett (1644 1694).
Ten years later, Daniel Fisher also described the 
Proprietor's greenhouse, "What to me surpassed 
every thing of the kind I had seen in America was 
a pretty bricked Green House, out of which was 
disposed very properly in the Pleasure Garden, a 
good many Orange, Lemon, and Citrous Trees, in 
great profusion loaded with abundance of Fruit 
and some of each sort seemingly ripe 
then."Bartram traveled South in the colonies 
through Charleston several times, where 
greenhouses were used to entice real estate buyers.

In the South Carolina Gazette, November 14, 1748, 
a house for sale advertisement noted, "TO BE 
SOLD...Dwelling-house...also a large Garden, with 
two neat Green Houses for sheltering exotic Fruit Trees, and Grape-Vines."

Exotic plants captured the fancy of colonials 
early in the century; and by the end of the 
18th-century, formal botanical gardens dotted the 
Atlantic coast. These were both outdoor and 
indoor, public and private garden areas, where 
proud collectors displayed a variety of curious 
plants for purposes of science, education, status, and art.

By 1760, Rhode Islander Abraham Redwood Jr was 
writing to his farm manager, "I desire that you 
put up in Durt one dozen of Small orange 
Trees...four young figg trees and some Guavas 
roots, to put in my greenhouse...twenty two feet 
long, Twelve feet wide, and Twelve feet high." In 
1743, Abraham Redwood purchased 140 acres 
farmland near Newport, Rhode Island, where he 
built a country estate that was considered one of 
the most beautiful botanical gardens in North 
America, which grew plants & trees imported from all over the world.

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Abraham Redwood 1709-1788

Josiah Quincy (1744-1775), who kept a journal as 
he traveled South from Boston for his health in 
1773, was also impressed with a greenhouse when 
he visited Philadelphia on May 3, 1773, and 
noted, "Dined with the celebrated Pennsylvania 
Farmer, John Dickenson Esqr, at his country seat 
about two and one-half miles from town...his 
gardens, green-house, bathing-house, grotto, 
study, fish pond...vista, through which is 
distant prospect of Delaware River."

John Dickinson (1732-1808), who was actually an 
attorney trained at Middle Temple, had married 
Mary Norris, daughter of Isaac Norris, Speaker of 
the Pennsylvania Assembly, and moved to the 
Norris estate of Fairhill, near Germantown. There 
he wrote, under the pseudonym "A Farmer,"12 essays against the Stamp Acts.

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1773 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Mary 
Norris (Mrs. John Dickinson) with their daughter Sally.

In 1787, clergyman, merchant, & lawyer Manasseh 
Cutler (1742-1823), wrote of the greenhouse at 
Gray's Tavern, in Philadelphia. "(The Greenhouse) 
is a very large stone building, three stories in 
the front and two in the rear. The one-half of 
the house is divided lengthwise, and the front 
part is appropriated to a green-house, and has no 
chamber floors. It is finished in the completest 
manner for the purpose of arranging trees and 
plants in the most beautiful order. The windows 
are enormous. I believe some of them to be twenty 
feet in length, and proportionably wide...We then 
took a view of the contents of the green-house, 
beautifully arranged in the open air on the south 
of the garden. Here were most of the trees and 
fruits that grow in the hottest climates. 
Oranges, lemons, etc., in every stage from 
blossoms to ripe fruit; pine-apples in bloom, and those were fully ripe."

Visiting English agricultural writer Richard 
Parkinson (1748-1815) stopped at John O'Donnell's 
(1743-1805) estate named Canton near Baltimore, 
in 1798. Irishman John O'Donnell had grown 
wealthy by sending the first ship into China in 
1785, for trade goods to sell in America. 
Parkinson wrote that O'Donnell had, "a very 
handsome garden in great order, a most beautiful 
greenhouse and hot house...a very magnificent place for that country."

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1787 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Sarah 
Chew Elliott (Mrs. John O'Donnell) in her garden 
in front of a curving wall with urns used as finials.

In 1793 Massachusetts, Boston merchant Joseph 
Barrell (1739-1804) was ordering plants & a 
gardener from Britain for his new Pleasant Hill 
greenhouse, "I want a person that understands 
green house plants...you will send the trees by 
the same opportunity the gardener comes that he 
may attend them on the passage."

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John Singleton Copley (1738 1815) Josseph Barrell c 1767

Wishing for more land outside of Boston to try 
new gardening styles & modern farming techniques, 
Barrell purchased 211 acres of land across the 
Charles River in Charlestown, where he created a 
ferme ornée. Charles Bulfinch designed the house 
& grounds, one of his 1st commissions.

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John Singleton Copley (1738 1815) Hannah Fitch (Mrs Joseph Barrell) c 1771

In Deborrah Logan's journal, she mentioned that 
in 1799 Philadelphia,William) Logan had a Green 
house in town, as well as a good one (at 
Stenton). He had many rare and beautiful plants: 
indeed the large and fine orange and lemon trees 
which now ornament Pratt's greenhouses at Lemon 
Hill were originally of his raising."

William Logan (1717 1776) was the son of Willliam 
Penn's secretary James Logan who became a 
Philadelphia Mayor & Supreme Court Justice. 
William inherited Stenton in 1751, and used it as 
his country seat, while living in Philadelphia.

In the same year, English born seedsman and 
nursery owner William Booth of Baltimore 
advertised in the Federal Gazette and Baltimore 
Advertiser:"To Botanists, Gardeners and Florists, 
and to all other gentlemen, curious in 
ornamental, rare exotic or foreign plants and 
flowers, cultivated in the greenhouse, hot-house, 
or stove, and in the open ground. A large and 
numerous variety of such rarities is now offered 
for sale...After reserving a general and suitable 
stock, he had to spare a well assorted and great 
variety of those things comprising a beautiful 
collection, sufficient to decorate, furnish, and 
ornament a spacious or handsome greenhouse at 
once... The whole is a truly valuable collection 
such as is very rarely to be met with for sale on 
this side of the Atlantic -- indeed a moiety of 
them would comprise a very desirable and 
exclusive variety, consisting of many or most of 
the tropical fruits, and other rare and curious 
finely ornamental trees, scrubs and plants; with 
a numerous and abundant assortment of choice 
bulbous, tubrous, and fibrous rooted flowering 
and ornamental plants in mixtures... please apply 
to John Cummings, at the alms-house, Messrs. 
David and Cuthbert Landreth, gardeners and 
nursery-men... Now is as good time and proper 
season to build a green-house, and to remove plants."

Many of Booth's clients and contemporaries in the 
Chesapeake were becoming excited about collecting 
and displaying non-native varieties of plants. In 
his diary, silversmith, clockmaker, & gardener 
William Faris (1728-1804) noted in Annapolis that 
his neighbor Dr. Upton Scott (1722-1814) was, 
"fond of botany and has a number of rare plants 
and shrubs in his greenhouse and garden." The 
practical Faris used his cellar as his greenhouse.

Some gardeners & plant collectors were obsessed 
with showing off their unusual plant collections 
to visitors. In November of 1803, Manasseh Cutler 
(1722-1823) wrote to Mrs. Torrey about his visit 
to William Hamilton's (1745-1813) Woodlands, 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "We then took a turn 
to the garden and greenhouses...ornamented with 
almost all the flowers and vegetables the earth 
affords...The greenhouses which occupy a large 
space of ground, I cannot pretend to describe. 
Every part was crowded with trees and plants, 
from the hot climates, and such as I had never 
seen...He assured us, there was not a rare plant 
in Europe, Asia, Africa, from China and the 
islands in the South Sea, of which he had any 
account, which he had not procured...When we 
turned to rare and superb plants, one of the 
gardeners would be called, and sent with a 
lantern to the green house to fetch me a specimen 
to compare with it. This was done perhaps twenty times."

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Benjamin West (American-born painter, 1738 1820) 
William Hamiltonn (1745-1813) of Woodlands with His Niece

Authors Joseph Dennie & John Elihu Hall reported 
on the greenhouse at the Woodlands in their 1809 
Portfolio II, "The front, including the hot-house 
on each side, measures one hundred and forty 
feet, and it contains nearly ten thousand plants, 
out of which number may be reckoned between five 
and six thousand of different species, procured 
at much trouble and expense, from many remote 
parts of the globe, from South America, the Cape 
of Good Hope, the Brazils, Botany Bay, Japan, the 
East and West Indies, &c. &c. This collection, 
for the beauty and rich variety of its exotics, 
surpasses any thing of the kind on this 
continent; and, among many other rare productions 
to be seen, are the bread-fruit tree, cinnamon, 
allspice, pepper; mangoes, different sorts, sago, 
coffee from Bengal, Arabia, and the West-Indies, 
tea, green and bohea, mahogany, magnolias, Japan 
rose, rose apples, eherimolia, one of the most 
esteemed fruits of Mexico, bamboo, Indian god 
tree, iron tree of China, ginger, olea fragrans, 
and several varieties of the sugar cane, five 
species of which are from Otaheite. To this 
green-house, so richly stored, too much praise 
can hardly be given. The curious person views it 
with delight, and the naturalist quits it with regret."

On Christmas day in 1803, in Prince George's 
County, Maryland, Rosalie Stier Calvert 
(1795-1821) wrote to her father who had returned 
to Europe, "I am also going to have a small 
greenhouse built where you planned it--at the 
wash-house. The cellar makes a very good 
orangerie." In another letter to her father in 3 
years later, she mentioned that the cellar would 
no longer serve as the greenhouse, "We also have 
to build a small house, a smoke house, a dairy, and an orangerie."

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Gilbert Stuart (Early Americn artist, 1755-1828). 
Rosalie Stier Calvert (1778 -1821) in 1804

I can find only one other reference to an 
orangery or orangerie in early America beside 
those of Rosalie Stier Calvert, leaving me to 
suspect that the term orangery became popular in 
America in the 19th century when referring to greenhouses, old and new.

There are earlier references in England, where 
John Evelyn wrote in his diary on 4 July 1664, 
"The orangerie and aviarie handsome, and a very 
large plantation about it." Another reference 
appears in the 1705 London Gazette #4098/4, "The 
Mansion-House, called Belsize,...with...a fine Orangarie, is to Lett."

In America in 1790, Thomas Lee Shippen, 
describing Stratford Hall in Virginia, to his 
father reported, "It was with great difficulty 
that my Uncles, who accompanied me, could 
persuade me to leave the hall to look at the 
gardens, vineyards, orangeries and lawns which surround the house."

By the time Englishman John Claudius Loudon 
(1783-1843) wrote his 1822 Encyclopedia of 
Gardening, the orangery had fallen out of favor. 
He wrote, "The orangery is the green-house of the 
last century, the object of which was to preserve 
large plants of exotic evergreens during winter, 
such as the orange tribe, myrtles, sweet bays, 
pomegranates, and a few others. Geraniums, 
heaths, fuchsias, and other delicate plants 
requiring much light, were then unknown. The 
orangery was generally placed near to or 
adjoining the house, and its elevation 
corresponded in architectural design with that of 
the mansion. From this last circumstance has 
arisen a prejudice highly unfavorable to the 
culture of ornamental exotics, namely, that every 
plant-habitation attached to a mansion should be 
an architectural object, and consist of windows 
between stone piers or columns, with a regular 
cornice and entablature. By this mode of design, 
these buildings are rendered so gloomy as never 
to present a vigorous vegetation, and vivid 
glowing colors within ; and as they are thus 
unfit for the purpose for which they are 
intended, it does not appear to us...that they can possibly be in good taste."

In Maryland, Rosalie Calvert grew plants in pots 
that could be brought outside in warm weather or 
ornament the interior of Riversdale house in 
winter. In 1803, she wrote, “I have arranged all 
the orange trees and geraniums in pots along the 
north wall of the house, where they make a very 
pretty effect, and the geraniums, being shaded, 
bear many more blossoms and are growing well.”

By 1809, she had added several more types of 
potted plants, and wrote that they were “a 
marvelous source of entertainment for me 
geraniums, heliotropes, jasmines, China rose 
bushes, etc. I don’t have any aloes or any of 
those other plants whose only recommendation is 
their rarity and which lack beauty.” Heliotropes, 
she wrote, would be transplanted “outdoors in the 
summertime with the geraniums, jasmine, rose 
bushes, etc.”We we do not have a painting of 
Rosalie Calvert's indoor parlor plant 
arrangement, we do have this painting from Connecticut in 1816,

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George Freeman (Connecticut artist, 1787-1837) 
Widow Elizabeth Fenimor Cooper 1816

Rosalie Calvert's orangerie never materialized. 
Instead, she used a central room of the house, 
her “grand salon,” with three large south-facing 
triple-hung windows, as her conservatory. She 
bragged to her father in 1813 about “my lemon 
trees. I have four superb specimens which in 
winter we place in the four corners of the salon, 
where they make a lovely effect. Last November 
one of them produced 87 large lemons.”

American diplomat David Bailie Warden visited 
Riversdale and described Rosalie's salon, "The 
hall is ornamented with lemon-trees, geraniums, 
polianthusses, heliptropes, and other plants, 
which in the summer evenings, invite the 
humming-birds to taste of their sweetness; and 
afterwards struggling to escape, they fly 
incessantly backwards and forwards near the 
ceiling, until from fatigue they perch on a stick 
or rod, when they are easily taken by the hand."

Another nurseryman living in Philadelphia was 
also promoting plants and pleasure gardens. In 
1806, Irish American horticulturalist, seedsman, 
& writer Bernard M'Mahon (1775-1816), whose book 
would be read by gardeners in America for the 
next 50 years, explained the difference between 
the greenhouse and a conservatory,

"A Green house is a garden building fronted with 
glass, serving as a winter residence, for tender 
plants from the warmer parts of the world, which 
require no more artificial heat than what is 
barely sufficient to keep off the front...A 
greenhouse should generally stand in a pleasure 
ground and if possible, upon a somewhat elevated 
and dry spot fronting the south...the building 
ought to be of brick or stone, having the front 
almost wholly of glasswork, ranging lengthwise 
east to west, and constructed upon an ornamental plan...

"The Greenhouse and Conservatory have been 
generally considered as synonimous; their 
essential difference is this: in the greenhouse, 
the trees and plants are either in tubs or pots, 
and are planted on stands or stages during the 
winter, till they are removed into some suitable situation abroad in summer.

"In the conservatory, the ground plan is laid out 
in beds and borders, made up of the best 
compositions of soils that can be procured, three 
or four inches deep. In these the trees or 
plants, taken out of their tubs or pots are 
regularly planted, in the same manner as the plants in the open air.

"This house is roofed, as well as fronted with 
glass-work, and instead of taking out the plants 
in summer, as in the Greenhouse, the whole of the 
glass roof is taken off, and the plants are exposed to open air."

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Charles Peale Polk (1767-1822), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).

Thomas Jefferson, who was always experimenting 
and adding onto his property, was interested in a 
greenhouse as well. On August 2, 1807, from 
Albermarle County, Virginia, even Thomas 
Jefferson (1743-1826) received a letter listing 
sizes of glass he would need for a "green house."

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1799 Artist Lambert ? Bouche. Ann Ogle (Mrs. John 
Tayloe III) and daughters Rebecca and Henrietta.

The Minute Book of John Tayloe III (1770-1828) 
noted on August 2, 1812 at his country seat Mount 
Airy in Richmond County, Virginia, "Gardeners 
attending to the Greenhouse at Mt. Airy." 
Tayloe's city residence was Octogon House in Washington D. C.

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Wye House (18th-century greenhouse with hot air 
duct system, still owned by descendants of Edward 
Lloyd) Copperville, Talbot County, Maryland. Photo by Janet Blyberg.

By the early 19th century in the new republic, 
gentlemen were building greenhouses, 
conservatories, orangeries, hot houses, pineries, 
and stove houses to grow tender plants for their 
food value and to impress their neighbors. Some 
even had their portraits painted holding their favorite plants.