October 15, 2024 at 12:30 pm
He had a great appreciation for roses, ink, and paper. He lavished as much attention on national parks in the U.S. as he did on his own garden. If you don’t recognize the name J. Horace McFarland, you’re not alone. He might be the most famous man you’ve never heard of. McFarland (1859 – 1948) […]
July 30, 2024 at 10:28 am
Back to school…Before “Natural Sciences” classes were taught in high schools, Botany (the study of plants) was considered its own course of study for students. Botany was included in high-school curriculums as early as the 1800’s. In the nineteenth century, it was often covered in a half- or full-year course in the second year of […]
June 17, 2024 at 7:42 pm
Juneteenth is a day of commemoration and a time to reflect on the remarkable resilience of enslaved individuals seeking freedom. The historic record has little on freedom seekers’ experiences during their journey to freedom to escape enslavement. Few details have been found on the survival methods of people fleeing enslavement, including the means to find […]
February 15, 2024 at 12:23 am
Sweethearts abound in February thanks to Valentine’s Day. What more appropriate flower for sweethearts than sweet peas! Did you know that sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) were the focus of a wildly popular plant craze in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? This annual, a native of southern Italy, Sicily, and the Aegean Islands, had […]
October 2, 2023 at 12:36 am
Smithsonian Gardens (SG) and the Archives of American Gardens (AAG) have a lot to celebrate in 2022. This year marks a series of institutional milestones, including the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Smithsonian Gardens in 1972, the 35th anniversary of the formation of the Archives of American Gardens in 1987, and the 30th anniversary […]
October 18, 2022 at 12:54 pm
Documentation of America’s garden heritage would not be as sizeable today, if not for the foresight and efforts of Alice G. B. Lockwood and other members of The Garden Club of America’s (GCA) Historical Gardens Committee. In 1925, the committee began assembling information for a book that would illuminate the historic gardens of the United […]
October 5, 2022 at 1:11 pm
October is American Archives Month, a time to celebrate bringing the past to the present with the documentation available in archives across the U.S. including Smithsonian Gardens’ own Archives of American Gardens. It’s easy to forget, what with it being so simple to take and send instantaneous photos to family and friends while on vacation […]
August 18, 2022 at 1:55 pm
Smithsonian Gardens (SG) and the Archives of American Gardens (AAG) have a lot to celebrate in 2022. This year marks a series of institutional milestones, including the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Smithsonian Gardens in 1972, the 35th anniversary of the formation of the Archives of American Gardens in 1987, and the 30th anniversary […]
July 14, 2022 at 2:26 pm
Smithsonian Gardens (SG) is celebrating its 50th anniversary on July 31, 2022! It has been truly amazing to witness the growth and positive impact that SG has experienced as it has matured into a world-class public garden and living museum that serves millions of visitors in Washington, D.C. each year. SG serves as a vital […]
June 13, 2022 at 5:35 pm
What better way to honor Father’s Day than by celebrating men and their flowers? Here are a few fun photos from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens, which houses tens of thousands of images and records that document gardens and landscapes from the 1890s to today. David Burpee was a seed seller with a strong […]
February 11, 2022 at 7:07 pm
Despite the name “sailors’ valentines,” these sentimental treasures have nothing to do with February 14th or Valentine’s Day. Instead, these tokens of love and friendship were given to wives, mothers, sisters, and friends upon a seafarer’s return from a long voyage at sea. Sailors’ valentines are octagonal wooden boxes often made from Cerdrella (Spanish Cedar) that range in […]
October 5, 2021 at 9:15 am
While October is American Archives Month, the Archives of American Gardens (managed by Smithsonian Gardens) celebrates the importance of archives year-round! Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, staff who manage Smithsonian Gardens’ Archives of American Gardens (AAG) have been primarily teleworking from home. Despite the fact that they have not been […]
September 11, 2016 at 6:00 am
Last year, I had the opportunity to design an exhibit in the Ripley Center, “Design for Small Spaces.” Featuring stumpery, fairy gardens, green walls, terrariums and dish gardens, I hoped to inspire visitors with some ideas they could try at home, even in the smallest of spaces. A favorite component of the exhibit was the […]
April 8, 2016 at 6:51 pm
What better way to celebrate National Garden Month in April than to spend some time enjoying historic garden images from the J. Horace McFarland Company Collection! Thanks to a Smithsonian preservation grant, thousands of images from this collection at the Archives of American Gardens (AAG) were digitized recently and are now available online through the […]