Mount Vernon's Bowling Green (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this trailside historical marker:

Bowling Green
"Began again to Smooth the Face of the Lawn, or Bolling [sic] Green on the West front of my House…"
Washington Diary Entry, September 30, 1785

George Washington devised, as the central element of his landscape composition, a level, well-manicured lawn, admiringly described by one French nobleman as "a kind of courtyard with green carpet." While modern visitors may be accustomed to such wide expanses of evenly trimmed grass, 18th-century lawns were expensive to plant and required extensive labor to maintain. The gently curving perimeters gave the landscape a more natural appearance, strongly contrasting with the straight, formal walks of most 18th-century American landscapes. To maintain its appearance, the grass was regularly smoothed with a large stone roller and cut with scythes by skilled enslaved laborers.