If you stay fairly close to home, you are guaranteed an objective look at how such gardens have dealt with many of the problems you face in your garden – albeit with a staff of fresh-faced interns and well-tanned curators roaming their manicured hills and dales.

I’ve had a few of these moments this season, more than a few if I’m being completely truthful. Oldmeadow has seen its share of hardship over the last few months - voracious insects, punishing heat and a ridiculous travel schedule have pushed this particular gardener to her breaking point. The weeds are shamefully high and I confess to an apathy that has infected me to the core - much like the blight settling into one of my tomato plants.

Fortunately, there are many gardens to choose from in this area, and to cure my lack of enthusiasm and general malaise, I went with two old favorites – Monticello and Mt. Vernon. I am aware that most people visit these two standards for the grand homes involved as well as a glimpse into the lives of two great statesmen and defenders of liberty, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. But when I visit, my mission is very different. It is to see the gardens of two gentleman farmers of the early nineteenth century.

For Monticello and Mt. Vernon were not merely the country estates of the landed gentry, they were working farms – experimental farms. Both Jefferson and Washington considered themselves to be farmers and as such, used many different methods of propagation and planting; sketching plans and devising better ways of farming, both for the good of their farms and the good of a growing nation.

Both estates sit high on a hill, yet both use their space quite differently. Though he had much land dedicated to vegetable propagation, Washington obviously appreciated the beauty of flowers, devoting a great amount of energy and square footage to well planned cutting and ornamental gardens. And, although stressed by a lack of moisture and a hot environment this year, these gardens were still beautiful, rendering a good argument for structure in the garden. When flowers dry up and foliage refuses to put on a little makeup, a pleasing structure to the garden can help one recognize the potential of a space and look beyond a disappointing season.

The same is true at Monticello, where an expansive vegetable garden flanked on the south by fig groves and stone and pome fruit orchards is impressively laid out – gorgeous throughout the winds of March as well as the soft rains of June. I did pull one of those fresh-faced interns aside at one point to enquire as to watering methods – the vegetables looked suspiciously fresh and healthy and I had a hard time believing that traditional methods of dip and pour were being utilized in the early mornings.

After interrogation, the suspect confessed to an overhead sprinkler, hidden from view and turned on to provide crops with a safe inch of water every week. The information was reassuring to me, as I thought of my beleaguered tomatoes at home, dependant on a gravity feed rain barrel and the vagaries of a weary caretaker tired of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Both men suffered disappointments in the garden – loss of crops, lack of rain, diseases for which there was no nineteenth century cure, yet they persevered, intent on finding better crops, better methods, and better ways of enjoying their common lifelong passion.

So I found my inspiration in the end. The trouble is, it has more to do with the promise of next year’s garden than the remnants of this one, but I think either man would have understood my desire to start over. As Jefferson said near the end of his life, "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."

I couldn’t have said it better myself.