The Gardens of Bunny Mellon

The name "Mellon" most likely conjures thoughts of finance, art, and philanthropy. Author Holden (Presidents' Gardens) adds gardening to the list. From childhood, Rachel "Bunny" Mellon (1910–2014) found opportunities to create and plant gardens at a succession of houses, estates, and, finally, national places. She was an avid collector of horticultural writings and art, and with Jeffersonian attention to detail, cataloged the sowing, germinating, and growth cycles of plants; her library is a story in itself. The Mellons owned houses in many diverse locations. Their Virginia estate, Oak Spring, occupies most of the pictorial and narrative space in this book, which presents a tour of both the buildings and the grounds, the garden plans and plantings forming an environmental whole that reflects Mellon's refined aesthetic that "nothing should be noticed; nothing obvious." Of note are the historically significant and personal designs for the White House Rose Garden, the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, the John F. Kennedy gravesite, and the Kennedy Presidential Library.