Monticello is the plantation where Thomas Jefferson lived, but it’s also home to the Center for Historic Plants – an enterprise committed to collecting, preserving and distributing heritage fruits, vegetables and flowers cultivated more than a hundred years ago.
140 years ago William Pratt, UVA’s first superintendent of buildings and grounds, planted a gingko tree on the northwest side of the Rotunda. “It’s like a living fossil. It’s the only tree in its genus – maybe several hundred million years old.”
Jessica Bryars and Robert Dowell work in the nursery of Monticello’s Center for Historic Plants. “It’s the only tree that has a leaf shaped kind of like a duck’s foot. It’s a beautiful ornamental tree, especially in the fall. The leaves turn a bright yellow, and they’re famous for dropping all at once.”
The Pratt gingko is still healthy, but gardeners say it could be nearing the end of its life, so UVA commissioned the center to take cuttings from the tree, planting them in a mix of peat and perlite where they’ll grow roots. Cultivating this way and not from seed assures these new trees will be males.
“The males are more desirable, because the fruit on the females is kind of unpleasant smelling,” Dowe says.
In the greenhouse at Tufton Farm near Monticello they’ll grow about 300 new Pratt gingkos – providing the university with perhaps 40 of them and selling the rest.
Details on how to buy one are not yet available, but the trees will go on sale in about three years, and Bryars says Monticello will put the word out when that time comes.
