The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens collects, preserves, and provides access to resources that document the history of gardens in America. The Archives includes photographic and written documentation on over 10,000 historic and contemporary gardens. The collections document the work of landscape architects, garden designers, and garden photographers as well as a handful of seed companies. Photographic formats and processes represented in the collections include stereographs, lantern slides, autochromes, glass plate negatives, 35mm slides, and digital images.

The Archives serves the needs of researchers, historians, preservationists, designers, students, and other interested parties by preserving garden images and records and making them available for research use and publication.