The Parlor Garden at the Buckingham-Hall House

The Parlor Garden at the Buckingham-Hall House. . , All the flowers and shrubs in this garden were in general use during the 1830s and 1840s., In 1835, as President Jackson was growing citrus trees and tropical flowers in the White House greenhouses, the Buckinghams and other American families were planting flowers in small, front-yard 'parlor gardens' such as this one. Popular gardening manuals and agricultural newspapers encouraged readers to cultivate flowers, vegetables, and fruit and to see their bountiful gardens as signs of God's providence and their own virtue. A simple fence often protected favorite flowers, like the newly introduced Chinese peony, from man and roving beast. As interest in horticulture grew, fruits and flowers became favorite motives in the decorative arts, used even by sailors at sea on their scrimshaw.