The Founding Gardeners

The New York Times bestseller - a unique portrait of the founding fathers, exploring how their passion for gardens and nature influenced the birth of the American nation.

A story of how George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison's passion for nature, plants, agriculture and gardens shaped the birth of America.

A follow-up to Andrea Wulf's award-winning and critically acclaimed history of British gardening, this is the story of how George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison's passion for nature, plants, agriculture and gardens shaped the birth of America.

Through a series of vignettes spanning the Declaration of Independence to the death of Adams and Jefferson exactly fifty years to the day afterwards, these stories that weave the political, the personal and the botanical and are in turns funny, fascinating and moving. The Founding Gardeners shows that it is impossible to understand these visionary men and the American nation without considering their love of gardening.