A few weeks ago, there was a Gardening Convention in Asheville. I've been reading about it on the blog, Garden Rant. In Beautiful, but also kind of a yawn, they posted about how the Biltmore gardens were "disappointingly lacking in personality," which really surprised me. We've had memberships for the Biltmore Estate for the last year,* and we still haven't finished exploring the grounds. I've taken hundreds of pictures. You haven't seen most of them because my aged computer is having trouble with all sorts of things including photo editing programs and uploading to the Internet.** However, their post has given me the incentive to overcome the computer's difficulties and blog these photos from April (and before).
For those of you who aren't from NC, the Biltmore Estate was built in the 1890's by George Washington Vanderbilt II as his summer home. At 135,000 sq. ft. and 250 rooms, it was the largest private home in the world. It was first opened to the public by his daughter in the 1930's and turned into a house museum in the 1950's. It's one of Asheville's top tourist draws.
Most of the blog post commenters that went to the convention also agreed that the Biltmore Gardens were boring and not nearly as interesting as the gardens of British estates (which I haven't seen).
Are we talking about the same gardens?
No, as it turns out. They, apparently, only saw the gardens near the house. You know, the ones that you'd use for entertaining hundreds of people - since, if you were the Vanderbilts and had the largest private home in the world, you'd probably have lots of people over to your parties. In the wonderful spring, summer, and fall weather, you'd probably entertain outside much of the time. Those gardens would have lots of functional space for people to gather. Dear husband says that, in these parties, you wouldn't want the gardens to show up the women in their gowns.
We don't spend much of our time in those parts of the gardens so, when the post complained about too much lawn, it took me a while to figure out what lawns they were talking about.
This lawn?
No, they liked the view from the house.
This lawn?
This is the hiking trail from the river up to the house. Basically, this trail was the tipping point that made us decide to get the memberships. The gently rolling hillsides, the variety of trees, the occasional view of the house - we knew we'd want to hike it again!
Same trail from the house end. Doesn't it look tempting?
Heading back down the trail towards the French Broad River.
It took me a while to remember one of the lawns they were talking about because I don't usually photograph it. In fact, it's been so long that I can't easily find a picture. Fortunately, Wikimedia Commons helped me out:
The front lawn:
Wikimedia Commons attribution.
Yes, that's a lot of front lawn. It's there so that you're impressed by the house. Actually, the front lawn is at its best after dark in December (Wonderful Flickr photo of the lit Christmas trees on the lawn here).
Luminaries on the front lawn last December.
I will confess, in the year that we've had our Biltmore membership, we've only been in the house once - at Christmas. Younger son hates crowds so we went at 4:30 pm when it's the least crowded. I don't usually linger over the front lawn view. I wave at the house on our way to park at the gardens. Or, when we do go to the house, I'm too busy taking pictures of the architecture to pay much attention to the lawn!
By the way, speaking of architecture, older son is in Prague right now for the summer session of the NCSU Design Institute. His blog, with lots of architectural photos, along with lots of other views of Prague, is Chocolate and Lace.
The statue and pond garden came in for some criticism too:
Again, it isn't where we spend much of our time, but I can see that it would be a wonderful place for an elegant garden party. The gardens also change a bit each year. The photo above was from a year ago, but I like this April's view much better:
The irises were in full bloom, and there were lots of tadpoles in the water. Unfortunately, the tadpoles weren't in focus.
The photo in the Garden Rant post displaying too much lawn in the gardens is taken at the same distance as this one, but from further to the right, and without the tulips.
What you can't tell from this photo is that the sides and the back have long perennial borders.
Here's a better view of one of the borders:
The rose garden is to the left:
Here's an iris in one of the side gardens...
...with a bit of a view of the house in the background.
Another border last October:
The gardens are quiet in the winter, of course. However, there's nothing like the Conservatory on a barely-above-freezing, mountain day in February (2012).
The photos below are from May, 2011. There's often something whimsical going on in the Conservatory:
They had plants growing in various old suitcases.
However, our favorite gardens are the ones further down the hill from the house. They get a post all their own tomorrow.
Historical comment:
You could, of course, ask why the show of flowers near the house isn't greater.
This has to do with how they lived here, and how their guests arrived. Vanderbilt, whose family made its money in railroads, had a three mile long railroad spur build right up to the site of the house for the construction. This was actually taken out when the house was finished because he didn't want to live near a railroad. Instead, the guests had an hour long carriage ride through the grounds to get from the estate entrance to the house. By the time they got to the above lawn view of the house, they had spent that hour being amazed by Frederick Law Olmstead's design of the grounds (this was mentioned in the Garden Rant post). After their trip, the guests weren't going to be leaving soon. They had plenty of time to explore the grounds and find all the wonderful touches in the gardening and landscaping. When we were discussing this post, dear husband mentioned that Olmstead's placement of the oaks on the hills going down from the house to the French Broad River is beautiful and well thought out.
When the house was first built, the estate had to be reforested. The estate was originally listed on the National Historic Registry, not because of the house, but because of its forestry!
Originally, the estate had 125,000 acres. Vanderbilt's widow donated 85,000 acres to the government to be part of the Pisgah National Forest. Vanderbilt originally had a hunting lodge built on Mt. Pisgah, but it was torn down when the land was given to the Blue Ridge Parkway after his widow's death. The current estate seems huge at 8,000 acres. I can't even imagine the estate at 125,000 acres. Long-term guests would have lots of time to explore.
BTW, this was the turn of the century. The single gentlemen stayed in a totally different wing of the house from the single gentlewomen.
Our State Magazine has an excellent article about the estate, the tours, and the history. If I can get over my fear of heights, I want to take the architect's tour someday!
* Memberships plural. No family memberships; dear husband and I have separate ones. Younger son gets in free because he's under 16. It's expensive so we're making the most of it.
** New computer has been ordered. Computers which can handle Photoshop well are not cheap.
Wikimedia Commons attribution.