The Garden - Ashland: The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, KY

The Garden - Ashland: The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, KY
120 Sycamore Road
Lexington, Kentucky 40502

The Old Garden

Little is known about the original garden of Henry and Lucretia Clay, although it was started not long after they moved to Ashland. In December 1886, Charles W. Coleman, Jr. wrote:

"After Clay’s return from Europe (1815), whither he had gone as commissioner plenipotentiary to the Council of Ghent, he bestowed much attention to beautifying the grounds about Ashland, putting into practical use observations made while abroad. His model seems to have been an English country seat ... A park of superb forest trees, sloping lawns sheeted with the luxuriant bluegrass... and a wide-reaching view of the surrounding country were supplied by nature ... From the mountains were transplanted dogwoods, redbuds, pines, hollies, and other flowering and ornamental trees; and handsome shrubs, not indigenous to the country, were dotted about the lawns. Tan-bark walks were laid, heavily shaded by avenues of hemlocks, ashes, and walnuts."

By 1818, Dr. Horace Holley, the president of Transylvania University, wrote that

"Ashland was a very pleasant place, handsomer than anticipated: the grounds were beautiful, the lawns and walks extensive, the shrubs and shubbery luxuriant, and the garden well supplied. The native forest of ash in the rear added a charming effect to the whole."

The year prior to Dr. Holley’s felicitous comments, one John Foy, apparently the gardener or overseer at Ashland, placed an advertisement in the Kentucky Gazette of March 10, 1817:

"WHEREAS some person or persons have at various times pulled up, cut down Pines and Cedars, in the gardens of the Hon. H. Clay, I now offer TEN DOLLARS REWARD to any person giving such information as should enable us to prosecute and punish according to law, such envious, malicious wretches."

He advised "innocent neighbors" to proceed cautiously through the gardens, as he intended to "set a Spring Gun and a steel trap, to catch or punish those offenders."

A visitor to Ashland in 1846 remarked that Henry Clay "pointed out the trees which he had planted with his own hands and cut every flower that I admired. He carried a full-blown rose with a short stem in his hand and frequently addressed himself to its perfumed cup." And tradition relates that, when blooming, Lucretia would lay her husband’s favorite flower, the Luxembourg rose, upon his blue willow breakfast plate.

The gardens declined after the James B. Clay family left Ashland. In 1900, Anne Clay McDowell, Henrygarden2z.jpg (7975 bytes) Clay’s granddaughter, whose husband purchased Ashland in 1882, decided to restore the gardens as much as possible to their original appearance. She used her grandparents original site and partial plan, but restored only about half of the Henry Clay garden. After her death, the garden eventually was neglected and became almost extinct.

Unfortunately, no plans of the McDowell gardens remain. The following description of the original Clay garden was published in Country Homes of Famous Americans in 1905.

"The garden occupied a large rectangular plot of ground south of the long stretch of lawn back of the house. It was separated from the lawn by the pines and cedars that form the south border of the vista I have told about. From its present appearance and from what Mrs. Clay has told me, I imagine it was a typical old-fashioned "kitchen " garden. There were beds of vegetables bordered by flowers. Here and there one comes upon a row of jonquils or a bed of ancient rose bushes. The south side of the garden is bordered by purple lilacs, which probably have an antiquity as great as the rose buses."

Anne Clay McDowell and Nannette McDowell Bullock both had a similar garden in this spot.

gardgatz.jpg (7449 bytes)This circa 1890 view of the garden is from the corner closest to the house, looking to the southeast. Landscape features shown include the farm road leading to the east, the garden and path layout, wire fence on the house side of the garden, a plank fence on the road side of the garden, and a picket fence running to the south and dividing the pastures.

The 1951 Garden

In 1950, Ashland was opened to the public and the Garden Club of Lexington was invited by the Henrygards1z.jpg (18746 bytes) Clay Memorial Foundation to establish and maintain a garden. Immediately, a controversy arose. Would an attempt be made to restore Mrs. Clay’s garden or should an entirely new garden be established? Members of the Garden Club split almost equally on what should be done; lacking adequate information on the original garden, it was narrowly voted to build a new one on a site to the right of the existing remains. Henry Fletcher Kenney of Cincinnati was chosen to design the new garden and work began in the spring of 1951. The original garden committee was composed of Mesdames Simpson, Lawwill, Carrick, Hamilton, Stoll, and Crosby, and Misses Johnston and McDonald.

Henry Kenney designed a six parterre garden based upon formal garden plans of the eighteenth century, gard94z.jpg (16611 bytes)rather than reproducing the less formal style of Henry Clay’s era. At the outset, every able garden club member brought bulbs and flowers from their own gardens to plant in the Ashland parterres and borders. During the ensuing years, many additional varieties of flowers have been added, as were brick walls, iron gates, statuary, and the sundial from the old garden of Anne Clay McDowell. In 1987 a large hackberry tree fell in the main garden, and the parterre where it had been located was completely redesigned by the firm of Innocenti and Webel of Roslyn, Long Island, New York.

A second garden was created on the Ashland grounds in 1986 when many superb Saunders hybrid peonies grown by Mrs. Richard Prewitt were given in her memory by her daughter. This peony garden is located to the rear ofgardenz.jpg (8972 bytes) the main garden, and is ablaze with color each spring.

In 1965, the garden club started a gift shop, which supported the garden for fifteen years. A memorial fund was established and revenue was raised in a variety of ways. A very successful fund-raiser has been the 1985 Bluegrass Winners cookbook which still provides financial support for the gardens.

garden4z.jpg (19555 bytes)The dedication and expertise of the Garden Club of Lexington are exemplary. Many members work weekly throughout the blooming season which lasts from spring through fall. Their generosity of time and resources creates a lovely ambiance for thousands of visitors who come to Ashland each year.

by William B. Floyd

Photos at Ashland

Photographs are allowed outside the house, but there is a fee for professional photographers. Contact Ashland for a contract and fee information.

The Garden - Ashland: The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, KY
120 Sycamore Road
Lexington, Kentucky 40502

Phone: (859) 266-8581
Email: ebrooks@henryclay.org

©Copyright, The Henry Clay Memorial Foundation, 2001