TRSCHIFF PHOTOGRAPHY


removed in 1998 to provide access to the garage. At the time, it was hoped that money for a replacement might be donated, but the matter was not pursued, and the greenhouse has yet to be reconstructed.


Except for the annual Garden Week Open House, when a cadre of Garden Club volunteers spends all day decorating the mansion and all week tending to those floral displays, there are no regular floral arrangers. The mansion director buys what is needed from local florists.


Sometimes the chef will cut flowers from the rose garden and create his own arrangements.


Starting in the 1840s, the mansion


gardens and grounds were maintained by supervised prisoners brought every day from the nearby State Penitentiary. From the 1940s, the newly created Department of Engineering and Buildings took responsibility for the landscape, but continued to use convict labor. The Department of General Services replaced Engineering and Buildings in the 1970s.


Since that time, inmates from the James River Correctional Facility continue the tradition of tending the Capitol Square grounds and the mansion yard. One of the first projects undertaken by First Lady Maureen McDonnell was the planting in 2010 of a vegetable and herb garden to promote Virginia’s largest industry—agriculture. In season, the modest garden produces a bounty of cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, squash, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, chili peppers, eggplant, beets, and carrots,


16


October/November 2012


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