River Farm
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River Farm (25 acres) is an historic landscape with gardens located at 7931 East Boulevard Drive, Alexandria, Virginia. It was owned by George Washington from 1760 until his death in 1799, and is now the American Horticultural Society (AHS) headquarters . The garden is open Monday through Friday, except national holidays, without charge.
The River Farm property was first established in 1653-54 when Giles Brent and his wife, a princess of the Piscataway tribe, received a grant of 1,800 acres (7.3 km²) named Piscataway Neck. Upon inheriting title in 1739, William Clifton renamed the property Clifton's Neck, and by 1757 had built the brick house now serving as AHS headquarters. In 1760 George Washington obtained clear title to the property for £1,210 in a bankruptcy sale. He changed its name to River Farm and leased it to tenant farmers. Today's smaller River Farm is located on the northernmost division of that original property. The property subsequently passed through a number of owners, and at one point was nearly sold to the Soviet Union as a country retreat. Instead in 1973 it was given to the AHS.
Today River Farm features the estate house (enlarged and remodeled) with naturalistic and formal garden areas. It still preserves several historical associations with Washington. Its Kentucky coffeetrees are descendants of those first introduced to Virginia upon Washington's return from surveys in the Ohio River Valley. The estate's oldest tree is a large Osage-orange (Maclura pomifera), believed to be the second largest in the United States. It was probably a gift from Thomas Jefferson to the Washington family, and grown from seedlings of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-06.
The farm's gardens include:
- André Bluemel Meadow (4 acres) - naturalistic area with native grasses and wildflowers. Two large black walnut trees (Juglans nigra) probably date to George Washington's ownership.
- Children’s Garden - more than a dozen small gardens for children.
- Estate House plantings - native shrubs and trees, including Allegheny serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis), fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus), dwarf fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii), and Carolina silverbell (Halesia carolina), as well as a hedge of English boxwood (Buxus sempervirens ‘Suffruticosa’) with specimens nearly 100 years old.
- Garden Calm - shrubs, trees, and perennials for shade, with the large Osage-orange.
- George Harding Memorial Azalea Garden - hundreds of azalea species, varieties, and cultivars, plus small ornamental trees including river birch (Betula nigra ‘Heritage’), dogwoods (Cornus sp.), dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), and dove trees (Davidia involucrata).
- Growing Connection Demonstration Garden - vegetables and herbs.
- Perennial Border - plants selected for resistance to diseases and pests.
- White House Gates - first installed at the White House in 1819, in the reconstruction after the War of 1812, and used for more than 120 years at the White House's northeast entrance.
- Wildlife Garden - a small pond with frogs, goldfish, and turtles, surrounded by blueberry and northern bayberry shrubs, grasses, junipers, and holly.
