The Founding Gardeners offers a fascinating look at the revolutionary generation from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen and farmers.

For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Andrea Wulf reveals for the first time this aspect of the revolutionary generation. She describes how, even as British ships gathered off Staten Island, George Washington wrote his estate manager about the garden at Mount Vernon; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; how a trip to the great botanist John Bartram’s garden helped the delegates of the Constitutional Congress to break their deadlock; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. Taken together, these and other stories are a revelation of a guiding, but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution. 

The Founding Gardeners adds depth and nuance to our understanding of the American experiment, and provides us with a portrait of the founding fathers as they’ve never been seen before. 

Where to buy

To buy the book in the UK click here

To buy the book in the US click here

Reviews

“Illuminating and engrossing new book … Wulf has written an ecological and historical narrative, revisionist in the best sense, combining the suspense of war and political debate with an intimate view of private lives devoted to the natural science … her eloquent and revelatory prose … throughout her narrative Wulf squarely faces the institution of slavery” – New York Times Sunday Book Review

“Lively and deeply researched history … Wulf ingeniously connects that highbrow political philosophy to the founders’ personal passion for horticulture … thoughtful account” – Washington Post

“Engrossing new book … excellent … fascinating … This is a timely and passionate book” – The Guardian

“Wonderfully engaging … Wulf may be at her best when she invites us to enter the founding fathers’ gardens themselves.  Her knack for description is marvelous … This book also breaks new ground’ – Times Literary Supplement  

“superb…this book will fascinate anyone interested in gardening, agriculture or American history, offering new insights into four familiar lives and conjuring up the gardens of the new republic,” – Mail on Sunday

“Delightful book”– Huffington Post

“Andrea Wulf’s fine story of how gardening and farming shaped the thinking of Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison … One of Wulf’s most luxurious and sharp-witted chapters concerns the matter that would fertilize a new nation: ‘Mundane as it seems,’ she writes, ‘manure was of the greatest concern to all four of them” – San Francisco Chronicle

“Wonderfully illuminating and readable book … Wulf writes enthrallingly … Wulf writes beautifully. Examples of her gift for providing the crucial detail bloom thick in these pages … excellent book” – Daily Telegraph

“This fascinating and well-researched book … The Founding Gardeners is genuinely illuminating, illustrated with a wealth of compelling detail and well-chosen quotations from personal correspondence, and provides succinct accounts of both the founding of America and some of the country’s earliest and most spectacular gardens” –Spectator

“This lovely book … fascinating story” –The Sunday Telegraph

‘Wulf takes a startlingly fresh and revealing perspective on Founding Fathers Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, chronicling their passion for landscape, trees, farming and gardening, and analyzing most thrillingly how their deep appreciation for “the balance of nature” shaped our nation’s “founding principles.” – Top 100 Books of 2011, Kansas City Star

“Prose that is never dry but always lively and attractive … enjoyable and well–researched book … refreshing … Wulf wears her considerable knowledge lightly” –Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 2011

“Andrea Wulf found a timely topic, has done excellent research, and has written a wonderful book to demonstrate the thesis … ‘Brother Gardeners,’ Ms. Wulf’s previous book, was such fascinating reading that I slowed down as I anticipated its ending. In ‘Founding Gardeners,’ she neatly continues the historical thread of the previous work: its blend of history and gardening is as interestingly written as before … extraordinary book” – The Martha Vineyard’s Times

“The reader’s reward is a fresh appreciation for the talents, vision and energy of the men who shaped their farms and gardens along with the nation” – The Post & Courier, Charleston

“Founding Gardeners offers a new interpretation of early American history, one that connects the founders’ zeal for agriculture and gardening to their thoughts on politics, independence, self-sufficiency, and patriotism. It’s terrific” – Philadelphia Inquirer

“Andrea Wulf, a British horticultural historian, is one of those rare and talented writers with a distinctive narrative voice. Just as in “The Brother Gardeners” (2009), she infuses her text with such liveliness, grace and original scholarship that the reader happily follows the author at a brisk trot wherever she may lead. And what a journey. For the first time, we are vividly shown how the Founding Fathers reinvented a system of agriculture geared to the needs of the young country” – Washington Times

“Founding Gardeners offers an original, insightful look at the characters and passions of the men who shaped our country. Wulf’s colourful prose, superb research, and driving narrative makes for an engrossing read” – American Gardener

“By the time the reader has finished this absorbing book with its engrossing thesis, a more nuanced picture of America’s founding has emerged, and Wulf has laid out a persuasive case for her view … Wulf’s prodigious research, her revelatory concept and her exquisite prose combine to make “Founding Gardeners” a work of historical and horticultural importance, one that examines America’s origins through a new prism, and in so doing enriches Americans’ understanding of their heritage” – Richmond Times Dispatch

“Making real people come alive to readers must be the Holy Grail of those who write historical fiction. If this is so, then our Founding Fathers, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison are drinking from it right now in salute to Andrea Wulf’s success in weaving the origins of the United States with their horticultural interests … an amazing read … fascinating … the Founding Fathers really do come alive … great read” – New York Journal of Books

“Andrea Wulf’s beguiling and eloquently written Founding Gardeners is one of those rare books that, by focusing on a single angle of vision, brings to life a whole era and cast of characters … Wulf draws parallels throughout this book that are illuminating, fresh, and immediate … Founding Gardeners is an excellent short history of the early federalist years — portraying this one aspect of these men and their times so vividly and recognizably, that it conjures up the rest” – Dallas Morning News

“Eloquently written and very beguiling “Founding Gardeners” … Anyone who thinks gardening has zilch to do with politics should read this book … [Wulf] is a writer of considerable grace and breadth of vision, and “Founding Gardeners” is an excellent portrait of the early years of the federal republic. It will delight the general reader, not just the garden buff. But for the garden enthusiast, this is a book of special interest, reminding us that a garden has a purpose, a character, a soul — that it’s an expression of our relationship not just to the soil, but to a vision of the world.” – The Plain Dealer, Ohio

“excellent … riveting …There is a huge amount of fresh research in this valuable book, including the first proper examination of the gardening exploits of presidents James Madison and John Adams.  The Founding Gardeners is a great achievement and deserves its place on the shelves of political as well as garden historians” – Country Life 

“fascinating book ….this is a highly enjoyable and thought-provoking book. Wulf combines a sure knowledge of garden history and 18th-century politics with a keen eye for domestic detail and evocative description. By focusing the grand narrative of early America on four individuals, she writes the best kind of popular history. For a reviewer, a test of a good book is whether to keep it or not; another is whether to lend it. Wulfs book is definitely one to keep. But maybe not to lend. Would I ever get it back?” – Irish Times

“Artfully composed … Wulf’s scholarship, passion and pleasing prose make for a happy combination: a history book for gardeners, a gardening book for historians. A fresh look at the Founders that charms even as it irresistibly convinces” – Kirkus Reviews

“Wulf offers a delightful new perspective on the men we usually associate more with politics than with plants” – Publishers Weekly

“The Founding Gardeners is full of wonderful details” – Literary Review

“The book fizzes with energy” – The Lady

“unusual book … [Wulf’s] account is persuasive, and enlivened with vivid descriptions of US countryside from “soaring white pines” to “swathes of quamash” that “shimmer like lakes” across the plains” – The Independent