Garden and Heirloom Orchard

The Smithfield garden is designed as a demonstration garden rather than a restoration. The garden displays a variety of authentic 18th century plants, many of which were mentioned in Preston family documents. Be sure to visit the garden during your visit. In addition to being available for visitors, the garden offers historic lessons in sustainability and self-reliance.

The heirloom plants represented in the Smithfield garden were utilized for a variety of purposes including food for humans and livestock, culinary and medicinal plants, pest deterrents, dye plants, and plants used in making and treating textiles. The garden reflects the concern of the frontier settlers about providing their own sustenance as well as crops for trade.

In addition to the garden, an heirloom orchard is being developed that contains apple, pear, plum and cherry varieties of the period, again documented in Preston papers.

In 1982, The Garden Club of Virginia was asked to restore the Smithfield landscape, a project that took until 1984 to complete and dedicate.  Rudy J. Favretti was the landscape architect. In recreating the landscapes, he took great care to maintain the simplicity of an 18th century frontier plantation to provide an educational experience for visitors.