Master Of All They Survey

Headquarters House celebrates its gardeners

In 1853, when Jonas Tebbetts built his family’s home in Fayetteville, the Greek Revival-style house stood on 4 acres, surrounded by orchards, pastures and vegetable gardens, with a smokehouse and outbuildings typical of the era.

The Washington County Master Gardeners can’t re-create all of that: There are churches, houses and a grocery store in the way. But they do keep the gardens at Headquarters House — now the home of the Washington County Historical Society — looking as they might have 150 years ago. They’ve been at it for 20 years, having started in 1997, and in celebration, they’ll take the public on tours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Nowadays, the gardeners maintain 15 different gardens at Headquarters House, ranging from perennials that border the front sidewalk to vegetables, roses, herbs, a shade garden, a butterfly garden and more. About 75 percent of the plantings are perennials, says Jan Lefler, a project leader, with historic plants and designs taken most seriously in the front yard between the house and Dickson Street.

How do the gardeners know what was period? Ryan and the others who have followed in her footsteps turned to the records of a Jacob Smith, who had a nursery on Scull Creek in Fayetteville in the 1850s.

“He had recorded all the plants he grew and sold, and he kept meticulous records,” Lefler says.

“It’s a work in progress, always,” Lefler says.