File:Graves along the south border of the formal flower garden - Arlington House - Arlington National Cemetery - 2012-05-19.jpg

English: Standing on the carriage drive south of Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial, at Arlington National Cemetery. I'm on the south edge of the flower garden, looking west along Mary Custis Lee's flower garden at a long line of officer's graves.

Designed by George Washington Parke Custis, the garden originally featured a path down the center north-south axis. In the center was a wooden arbor covered in yellow jasmine and red and pink honeysuckle vines. The hexagonal arbor was roughly 10 feet high, with a concave latticework roof that came to a point. Its sides were also covered in latticework, and although the structure was of rough wood the latticework wood was smooth and painted. Wooden benches lined the interior.

Two magnolia trees, one pink and one white, grew near the arbor in the center of the flower garden. The south portion of teh garden was mostly shrubs and boxwood hedges. The northern end was contained shrubs, perennials, and annuals, and featured roses and dahlias. Flowers grown in the garden were sold, either as bouquets or nosegays, in order to raise money for the American Colonization Society (an organization which sent freed African slaves back to Africa to live permanently).

The garden was largely laid waste during the Civil War. In 1864, burials began on the grounds of Arlington House. Although most burials initially occurred near the freedmen's cemetery in the northeast corner, General Montgomery C. Meigs ordered in mid-June 1864 that burials commence immediately on the grounds of Arlington House. Meigs ordered that officers be buried on the grounds of the mansion, around the former flower garden. The first officer burial had occurred there on May 17, but with Meigs' order another 44 officers were buried along the southern and eastern sides within a month.

In December 1865, Robert E. Lee's brother, Smith Lee, visited Arlington House and observed that the house could be made livable again if the graves around the flower garden were removed. Meigs ordered that more burials occur near the house, in order to make it politically impossible for disinterment to occur.

The flower garden was rebuilt several times in the late 1800s, and in 1884 a "Temple of Fame" (a Neoclassical dome supported by marble columns) was erected in the flower garden where the arbor used to be. The Temple of Fame was removed in 1967, and the flower gardens restored to their 1861 condition.

Arlington House was built by George Washington Parke Custis, adopted son of George Washington, in 1803. George Hadfield, also partially designed the United States Capitol, designed the mansion. The north and south wings were completed between 1802 and 1804. but the large center section and portico were not finished until 1817.

George Washington Parke Custis died in 1857, leaving the Arlington estate and house to his eldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee -- wife of General Robert E. Lee.