The Arlington House Deodar Cedar

This cedar was still a seedling in a nursery across the river the last time Mary Lee visited Arlington House. It is not a Lee tree, and its own paperwork says so. In 1873, as the grounds were remade after the Civil War, the Quartermaster General's Office hired a landscape gardener named David H. Rhodes. The following year Rhodes planted two deodar cedars in circular beds behind the house. The Park Service's newsletter for the site finishes the story in four words: we have one left. That survivor is this tree, planted in 1874 and so about 150 years old by a documented planting, not an estimate. A Himalayan cedar behind a Virginia mansion is an exotic, and the site once considered taking it out. The park chose instead to leave it alone and let it live out its life. The witness tree survey, VA-10, recorded it in 2018 for its size, its longevity and its part in the post-Civil War development of the grounds. The trunk measured 54.5 inches across at chest height, about 4.35 metres round. That 2018 record is the latest dated sighting we have, so if you see it, tell us. It stands beside the house on its west side, in Virginia rather than Washington proper. Arlington House is free and open daily; the cemetery around it has its own entry procedure. Arlington Cemetery station on the Blue line is about 15 minutes by Metro from downtown, then the walk up through the cemetery.