The Gruenewald Heirloom Garden was created and is maintained by
volunteers from The Madison County Master Gardener Organization. All
plants grown in the garden are varieties that were grown before 1900.
There are over 130 varieties of herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables
labeled with their common name, Latin name and date of introduction into
American gardens.
We started the garden 6 years ago after a year of research. We
searched for the old varieties and started most of our plants from seed.
Since they are open pollinated, we now collect seeds from our plants.
They also reseed freely in the garden.
Herbs include culinary, medicinal, dye and tea plants. Many of the
flowers are native. We list the date they were brought into gardens. We
also have 6 heirloom roses. The Cypress vine and the Cardinal Climber
vines grow on the gazebo.
We have also added two heirloom grapes; Catawba, a red grape dating
back to the 1820’s and Niagara, a white grape introduced in 1882. The
grapes on the arbor are the Concord Grape which was introduced in 1854.
We have included a few heirloom vegetables. We have 4 tomatoes, the
red pear and the yellow pear (before 1805), the Riesentraube (before
1847) which in German means “giant bunch of grapes” and purple calabash
(1850). Our beans include the Cherokee Trail of Tears (1800’s), black
valentine (before 1850), scarlet runner (before 1800) and caseknife
(1820’s).
