“If you can imagine encountering George Washington on the grounds, it would be in the Botanical Garden on his knees with his hands in the dirt. He tried many new plants in this small space and recorded things in detail. But not everything he grew here was new and experimental. He grew sugar beets, grasses, peppers, oaks, pecans, Lombardy poplars and chinaberry.”
“The cherry tree myth is just that. When I do lectures I bring an old hatchet and say we just found this under an old cherry tree we had to take down. George Washington loved cherry trees. He put in a Cherry Walk of espaliered cherries in the Upper Garden. He did some pruning but not with a hatchet.”
