You this morning, also to kind of see all the pieces come together. And its truly a privilege to introduce our first speaker whos a fellow wisconsinite like myself. So our first speaker this morning will be Jonathan Pliska author of the Award WinningWhite House HistoricalAssociation Publication a garden for the president history of the white house grounds. Jonathan will be signing copies of this book later in the day during the reception in the gift shop. So youll have an opportunity to meet with him and talk about how great haze presentation was. No pressure. So please join me in welcoming Jonathan Pliska. So, yes, hello. I am in fact Jonathan Pliska. And i am absolutely honored to be speaking at this wonderful garden symposium. Id like to thank the White House Historical association, oaks spring and all the other sponsors for having me here today and hosting the events. As well as that splendid reception last evening at the u. S. Botanical garden and thank you all for attending. And my task here this morning is to give you an overview of the first 100 years or so of the white house grounds, focusing on the various uses of it landscape as well as its physical development and squeeze this all in a little under 30 minutes. Now, thats a bit of a tall order and were obviously not going to be able to touch on absolutely everything, but i like a challenge. I think well do just fine. Okay, lets start with the basics. The white house itself stands as the center piece of a grand 18. 7 acre site, which we know as the white house grounds. Having been established in 1790 the white house grounds in fact constitute the oldest continually maintained landscape in the nation. The grounds are older than the mansion itself, and George Washington is rather famously the only president to have never lived in the white house. But every single u. S. President including washington has walked upon the grounds. This is what the grounds look like today. With sloping lawns and groves of grand trees. That said, this is definitely not what the grounds looked like in 1790. For one thing the south grounds originally stopped here basically where this road way is. And it stopped there for about the first 8 decades of the grounds existence. The far south grounds were not added until 1872 under president grant. And the southerly addition was to compensate for the loss of land eaten about by the expansion of the executive offices. So as i was saying the white house grounds did not always look quite as nice as they do today. In the great rush to complete the white house before president john adams moved in november 1, 1800, the landscape was left completely neglected and unimproved. In fact, as weve heard it was still full of the all the temporary structures needed for building the mansion. This included the carpenters shed and unused Construction Materials and even heaps of garbage. Many of the preexisting trees had been filled for firewood. The ground itself was terribly uneven and pockmarked with holes and dug for clay and brick kilns. In short the scene was deplorable. Upon her arrival first Lady Abigail Adams was understandably less than impressed and wrote to her daughter was not the least fence yard or other convenience. Even so she still saw the landscapes potential through all of this mess and closed the note by saying it remains a beautiful spot capable of every improvement. But the adams would not have the chance to make any improvements themselves. John adams lost his reelection bid and only lived in the white house for a little less than four months. So when the new president , Thomas Jefferson moved in, it remained a wreck. Visitors describe td as a barren, stony, unfenced waste that existed in a rough, wild state. One english gentleman found the site down right dangerous after dark when one was liable to fall into a pit or stumble over a pile of rubbish. But none of this deterred washington in the slightest and almost immediately he got to work improving the landscape, filling in the holes and grading the earth. And jeffersons vision for the ground culminated in this draft landscape plan. While it doesnt look very much like the current arrangement of the white house grounds it formed the basis of all future development. It also perfectly illustrates how that the beginning of the white house grounds were more short and squat than they are today. Theyre shorter north and south and wider east and west. So very broadly speaking jeffersons plan revolves around three key things. The first two are closely related. He divided the landscape into north and south grounds but the white house itself acting as the dividing line between the two halves. This arrangement might seem familiar as most American Homes have front lawns visible from the street and back yards more secluded. This was actually precisely jeffersons intent. To have the north grounds freely assess too assessable to the public. Over time this distinction between public and private space blurred and changed. Jefferson called for plants in abundance. His vision included trees but also productive gardens for growing fruits and vegetables. Ornamental gardens for flowers and decorative plants. In keeping with the Spatial Division of the landscape the planting on the north grounds would be formal and symmetrical. So lets begin on the north grounds. Standing on pennsylvania avenue looking on the north front of the white house this really is the most iconic view of the mansion. I mean, whos come to visit washington and not had their photo here taken standing by the fence. I know i have lots of times and today this is still the formal front lawn of the white house. Throughout the 19th century when the public was allowed ready access to 3 4 grounds and people werent shy about coming for a visit either as we can see from this fantastic photo of these rather dapper gentlemen lounging on the north grounds fittingly in the shadow of the jfrson statue that was originally the center piece of the north grounds. All this was well and good as long as people stayed out of what was supposed to be the private south grounds. Before very long folks started making themselves quite at home in the president s backyard as well, and this trend really started with a bang during Andrew Jacksons first inaugural reception in 1829 when more than 20,000 boisterous supporters descended and continued to Party Outside on the south grounds. And to be fair washington was still a young city and woefully lacking in parkland and other recreational spaces. So people started availing themselves of whatever green ground they could find. Because of this by the mid19th century the entire landscape essentially functioned as a de facto public park. And some president ial households dealt with this invasion of privacy better than others. President grant for his part hated the crowd of gawkers but he put up with them because he did not want to be labeledads the president who shut the people out. The president of benjamin harrison, they were good natured about living in the public eye and even posed for photographs. In particular the president s young grandchildren always drew quite a lot of attention. Children always do in the white house, and this was especially true when they were being carted around by the pet goat who had the apt name of his whiskers. Eventually enough was enough. When unwanted visitors went so far as to physically hoist president clevelands baby daughter out of her carriage to get a better look at her and pose with her as if she was a doll. He had to put his foot down to ensure her safety. Public access on the south grounds thus came to an abrupt end in 1893. The south grounds came to what president jefferson originally intended. Remains so to this day. The north ground stayed open for a bit longer before also being closed for good due to mounting security concerns. Today general access to the entirety of the grounds is of course prohibited. But there are exceptions to every rule. The best example is the kpubl easter egg roll. Its one of the longest tenured events in white house history. Held the monday after easter the 2019 egg roll just took place and marked the celebrations 141st anniversary. Less than 200 children showed up on the first occasion way back in 1878 to roll their brightry colored hardboiled eggs as well as themselves down the sloping south grounds. But the events popularity has absolutely skyrocketed since then. In 1890 the estimated attendance was already up to 50,000. It was far more people than the grounds could realisticly accommodate. And shortly thereafter the decision was made to bar adults unless accompanied by a child. Enterprising kids began going back and forth through the gates charging a dime ahead to bring in as many sets of parents as they could find. And since 2009 tickets have been distributed in advance via online lottery. More than 200,000 tickets are requested each year but attendance is limited to about 30,000 lucky winners. So now lets switch gears here a little bit and talk about the physical development of the grounds. Specifically all the different types of plants growing on the landscape over the years. Thomas jefferson was a lifelong gardener, and while its romantic at least to me to imagine him outside the white house trowel in hand digging the soil, its unlikely he ever did any planting on the grounds during his 8 years in office. The site was simply in too bad a shape and jefferson had to content himself with setting the stage for his successors. He did place this order for tree and shrubs which arrived at the white house days after James Madison became president. 51 different types of plants around this list including oak, elm, ash and beach trees. We also know these trees were indeed planted as one of jeffersons former assistants wrote to him in 1809. Not exactly a wilderness of shrubs and trees. Do any of these shrubs and trees survive today . Its possible. Theres particularly one large oak on the south grounds that might be even older than the mansion itself, but its not very likely most of these early plantings survived and thats because the british burned the white house during the war of 1812 leaving only the clarrharr exterior walls remaining. Thankfully in 1825 another plant loving president moved in. John quincy adams had harbored a lifelong interest in botany and ho horticulture. This all changed when he came to the white house and established a tree nursy inside a home wood paling fence, and thats what we see here in the foreground of the image. All told adams grew more than 700 samplings. An oak tree survived up until 1891. Some of adams trees also held special significance having grown seeds and nuts harvested from historically significant trees. White oaks from a tree riddles with bullets fired during the war of 1812 and english oaks from the sate of salem, massachusetts, which i believe were likely procured from the infamous gallows tree used to hang during the witch trials. But the most famous tree ever planted on the white house grounds is undoubtedly the grand southern magnolia located just west of the south portico. Thats this tree right here. Legend holds it was personally planted by president Andrew Jackson who defeated John Quincy Adams in the election of 1898. Both sides ran particularly nasty campaigns that year, but they accused jacksons wife rachel of being an adulterous. Jackson made it known he believed the assault on her character and good name had quite literally killed his wife. He never forgave adams and, and griefstricken the wid eoar president brought with him seeds from the southern tree and planted them outside her the white house in her memory. Truthfully the stories probably were more fiction than fact. Neither jackson or any of his contemporaries ever mentioned the tree and it does not appear in the earliest photo ofs the white house. However, this does not in any way detract from the enduring love story the tree has come to represent over the centuries. The Jackson Magnolia is far from the only tree planted on the white house grounds. This Condition Survey marks the location of some 500 trees and shrubs. Thats what all those ittybitty tiny dots are. And 500 or so, this is about the same number of trees and shrubs found on the grounds today. And beginning with Rutherford Hayes in the 1870s nearly every president ial administration has also planted at least one tree as a means of commemorating their time at the white house. Unfortunately, not all of these trees have survived. But here at the top Queen Elizabeth ii seen helping george h. W. Bush plant one. The oldest tree with a proven president ial association is this absolutely beautiful rust colored japanese maple planted by first Lady Francis Cleveland on the far south grounds in 1893, the same year that the grounds were closed to the public. The most recent comemerative tree was also planted by a first lady, in this current First Lady Melania Trump who planted a sapling grown from a historical oak tree originally planted by eisenhower on the white house grounds in the 1950s. So other than trees what else grew on the grounds . Up until about a decade ago when First Lady Michelle Obama installed the Current White House vegetable Garden Fresh Produce would not have been the first thing that came to peoples minds and thats because prior to 2009 there would be no serious cultivation of fruits and vegetables at the white house for nearly 150 years. But the truth is for much of the 19th century the white house grew a great deal of its own food. As with the first trees the first Vegetable Seeds were planted under madison and almost certainly ordered by jefferson in the first days of his administration. These included cucumber, turnip and leek. John quincy adams later wrote in his diary about planting deep blood colored beats, yellow flowered parsnips, tall and slender stemmed jerusalem artichokes. And fun fact jerusalem artichokes are in fact neither artichokes nor from the holy land. Theyre actually a type of sun flower. And adams further mentioned herb such as mint, sage as well as prizewinning pairs and peaches. After he came to office Andrew Jackson went even bigger. For some 40 years this plot provided fresh food for the occupants of the white house to enjoy. And this landscape drawing done shortly after the end of the civil war shows the old Kitchen Garden at its greatest extent. Having grown to about 1 acre in size it was pretty darn big, larger in fact than the footprint of the main block of the white house. And the garden is located right here in this trapezoidal area. And as you can see its also rather interestingly divided up into 8 smaller sections which to me suggests it was run like a miniature farm. I should point out these faint line said running through the drawing here. Thats the outline of the future west executive avenue which today separates the white house grounds from the Eisenhower Executive Office building. And when this road was cut through in the early 1870s it ran smackdab through the middle of the Kitchen Garden which alas meant the end of the serious growing of fruits and vegetables on the white house grounds until the Obama Administration. Now, unfortunately because it was a working productive space the old Kitchen Garden is not terribly well documented. It wasnt pretty or glamorous, and so it went largely unrecorded. There arent any paintings or photographs of it, and apart from the plants showed there isnt visual at all. After an awful lot of searching and archives i was fortunate to track down the original sales receipts for the fruit and vegetables grown in the white house Kitchen Garden during president lincolns time. Hes capable of making any little thing interesting and significant even this list. Something like president taylors tomatoes or buchanans brussels spouts just would not have the same cache. A good number still aexist as heirloom varieties. This means that Backyard Gardeners can try their hand at growing the same produce that graced president lincolns table during the civil war. This season you can still do this. Would you like to plant some turnips or christmas beans or hunters cantaloupe or what about my personal favorite if nothing else just for the name alone mangle wurtsal, which is basically the beats much, much larger cousin. For the past few years my wife ellen and i have done the best to do so for our suburban baltimore home. I think im a better historian than i am a gardener. I dont have a black thumb but neither is it quite green. Weve had more success than others and the biggest success by far was our cabbage harvest a few years ago. Seriously if we can grow this much cabbage its full proof a and a great plan to start off with. And of course what would the white house be without flowers . President s John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson kept a flower guards on the west side of the south grounds. Just like the old Kitchen Garden its history has proven to be frustratingly elusive to track down. Its not kplaekt muexactly much is it . The only part thats really visible is this wooden structure. Its either a trellis or an arbor. The foreground is obviously dominated by this crane. It was the expansion of the treasury that necessitated the removal of the white house Flower Garden in the 1850s. There were of course still flowers but no real Flower Gardens in the way we think of them today. And why would that be . Frankly because the president s and families