We visited Montpelier Saturday—in Virginia, the home of James Madison! It’s been too long since the last American history class (1965) and so we had fun brushing up on the 4th president and his wife Dolley. The house has been recently renovated and the tour dealt fairly forthrightly with the fact that many people were enslaved to keep things running.

I was delighted to find a ceremony in progress to plant a blight-resistant variety of American Chestnut in honor of Tom Dierauf, retired director of research at the Virginia Department of Forestry and pioneer of Chestnut research. I know the two American Chestnuts I planted back in Montpelier (Vermont) will just be at the bud-swelling stage by now.

After the planting and the tour we visited a woodlot behind the home where we saw dozens of huge trees, mostly Tulip Poplar, that were probably more than 300 years old.

Still cool here but still lovely to see early blooming trees and shrubs, especially the Azaleas.

26 Apr This entry was published on April 26, 2015 at 10:01 am. It’s filed under Flowers, John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Spring, Trees, Vermont and tagged American Chestnut Foundation, azalea, Dolley Madison, James Madison, John Snell, Montpelier, Photography, Tom Dierauf, tulip poplar, Vermont, Virginia. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.