Gardening in Montana follows a rich and varied history. Like many other states, many batches of seeds, scions, grafts, and trees were bought across the plains in the early 1860s, or sent around the Horn, and those that survived river fords, heat, poor growing conditions, became established in early Montana gardens.

In 1845, Father de Smet, a Catholic missionary to the Indians, sowed a patch of ground to grains and vegetables at St. Mary's Mission in the Bitter Root Valley, near the present town of Stevensvilie. A handful of farms were started in the same valley over the next 20 years.

The first significant group of settlers flowed into Montana following the Alder Gulch gold discovery in 1863, beckoned by the promise of gold. A few turned to agricultural production

Early Montana settlers obviously held the aesthetic value of plants in high esteem. The beautiful blooms of the old lilac and rose shrubs that grace many of today's Montana's gardens date back to the flowers that their grandmothers brought west with them more than a century ago.

Bibliography and Acknowledgments

Shown: Bitterroot ( Lewisia rediviva )

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