United States Independence Day Gardens: Flowery Shrubs, Trees, Vines

Summary: United States Independence Day gardens florally celebrate 20 states that, as 13 colonies, changed North America economically, politically, socially.

A rose for remembrance: On July 5, 2012, Spc. Edward Marshall of 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) walks his last walk as a Sentinel at Arlington Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; Spc. Marshall numbers among only 602 Soldiers who have earned the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Guard Identification Badge; Arlington, Virginia; Friday, July 6, 2012: The U.S. Army, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

July 2, 2017, for the Resolution of Independence, and July 4, 2017, for the Declaration of Independence, are the two important dates for 241st anniversary celebrations in United States Independence Day gardens.

July 2, 1776 bears historical importance for the Second Continental Congress' approval vote of Virginia representative Richard Henry Lee's (Jan. 20, 1732-June 19, 1794) proposed resolution. July 4, 1776 celebrates the approval vote by the Second Continental Congress of the declared explanation for the decision to configure 13 colonies into one nation. The Massachusetts Historical Society's Adams Family Papers collection details the Resolution's significance with excerpts from Massachusetts Bay representative John Adams' (Oct. 30, 1735-July 4, 1826) correspondence.

Correspondence by Congressional delegate Adams July 3, 1776, explains: "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America."

Massachusetts Historical Society archives furnish celebratory recommendations of the subsequently first Vice President (1789-1797) and second President (1797-1801) to wife Abigail (Nov. 22, 1744-Oct. 28, 1818).

Correspondence gives his recommendations for "Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other." Celebrations "by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival" have all nine elements despite the "Day of Deliverance" happening two days later than Delegate Adams' predictions. They involve one end of the continental and insular United States of America to the other, south and west of the original 13 eastern coastal colonies.

United States Independence Day gardens join together the state-proclaimed flowering non-woody plants, shrubs, trees and vines from the 20 states whose 21st-century sustainability 13 colonies jumpstart.

Independence Day celebrators know Connecticut and Pennsylvania by their May- to June-blooming mountain laurels and North Carolina and Virginia by their April- to June-blooming flowering dogwoods.

May- to June-blooming peach, April- to June-blossoming white pine, with cones and tassels, and April- to May-flowering purple lilac respectively laud Delaware, Maine and New Hampshire. March- to April-blooming Cherokee rose, June-blossoming roses "in any color or combination" and March- to April-flowering yellow jessamine respectively memorialize Georgia, New York and South Carolina. March- to June-blooming mayflowers, July- to August-blossoming black-eyed Susans and April- to August-flowering violets nod to Massachusetts and Maryland and to New Jersey and Rhode Island.

United States Independence Day gardens obtain January- to February-blooming camellia and March- to April-blossoming magnolia from the parts of Alabama and Mississippi occurring in colonial Georgia.

August- to September-blooming goldenrod, July-blossoming rhododendron and April- to August-flowering iris respectively partner Kentucky and West Virginia to pre-mid-nineteenth-century Virginia and Tennessee to pre-independence North Carolina. Vermont, within pre-independence New York, and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, within pre-independence Maine, respectively queue up with May- to June-blooming red clover, violets and mayflowers.

All of the flowering plants, shrubs, trees and vines require well-drained soils that revel in partial shade, excepting sun-loving black-eyed Susan, irises, purple lilacs and roses. They all survive comfortably indoors in United States Department of Agriculture cold hardiness zones 1 to 11 and outdoors in USDA hardiness zones 5 to 8.

United States Independence Day gardens treat July Second and July Fourth celebrators to fragrant, predominantly pink- and white-tinted history lessons tinged in purple, red and yellow.

pink variety of flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), state flower of Virginia, first permanently settled English colony in North America; Hungry Mother State Park, Marion, Smyth County, southwestern Virginia; Sunday, April 24, 2005: Virginia State Parks (vastateparksstaff), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

A rose for remembrance: On July 5, 2012, Spc. Edward Marshall of 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) walks his last walk as a Sentinel at Arlington Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; Spc. Marshall numbers among only 602 Soldiers who have earned the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Guard Identification Badge; Friday, July 6, 2012: The U.S. Army, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/7515213074/; 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment "The Old Guard" (3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard)), All Rights Resered, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/theoldguard/7509309000

pink variety of flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), state flower of Virginia, first permanently settled English colony in North America; Hungry Mother State Park, Marion, Smyth County, southwestern Virginia; Sunday, April 24, 2005: Virginia State Parks (vastateparksstaff), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/vastateparksstaff/7396344426/

For further information:

Daniels, Erica. 11 April 2016. "The 50 State Flowers: History, Growing Info and More." ProFlowers Blog.
Available @ http://www.proflowers.com/blog/50-state-flowers

"Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, 'Had a Declaration... .'" Massachusetts Historical Society > Adams Family Papers > Correspondence between John and Abigail Adams.
Available @ http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17760703jasecond