Come Visit Us
Smithsonian Gardens invites you to come and explore our outdoor gardens, designed to complement the museums they border and enhance your overall museum experience of learning, appreciation, and enjoyment. Please visit our blog.
Community of Gardens
Community of Gardens is a digital, participatory archive hosted by Smithsonian Gardens and created by public input. By contributing images, videos, and stories to this website, your participation will help others to better understand the meaning and value of gardens to American life – today and in the future. Community of Gardens is the Smithsonian’s digital home for sharing and preserving the stories of gardens and the gardeners who make them grow.
Patios, Pools, & the Invention of the American Backyard
In the 1950s, America was a nation emerging from the shadow of World War II, searching for ways to enjoy its newfound peace and prosperity. The baby boom, a growing middle class, the do-it-yourself movement, and a dramatic rise in home ownership remade much of the U.S. and, surprisingly, contributed to the development of the suburban backyard.
Patios, Pools, & the Invention of the American Backyard is a collaboration between Smithsonian Gardens’ Archives of American Gardens and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
Internship Opportunities
A wide variety of positions are available for interns ranging from grounds management, landscape architecture, greenhouse nursery production, horticulture education, and collections management.
Design for Small Spaces
Exceptional plants and unique elements add impact to small spaces. From fairy gardens to green walls, vignettes in this exhibit feature pieces from the Smithsonian Gardens’ Garden Furnishing Collection and plants grown at the Smithsonian Gardens Greenhouses. Tour our green scenes for ideas you can use to create your own little oasis.
Exhibit runs through August 31, 2016 in the Ripley Center Concourse
Our Gardens
An integral part of the Smithsonian Institution (SI), the Smithsonian Gardens creates and manages the Smithsonian’s outdoor gardens, interiorscapes, and horticulture-related collections and exhibits. Established in 1972 to manage the museum grounds, Smithsonian Gardens extends the museums’ exhibits and learning environment in a public garden setting while shaping visitors’ overall experience of the Smithsonian.
Come Learn!
Our mission at Smithsonian Gardens is to enrich the Smithsonian experience by extending the museum experience into an outdoor living classroom. We hope that the gardens tours and events in our gardens as well as our activity packages will help youth to exercise both their mind and body in the gardens around the Smithsonian and ultimately in their own community.
Smithsonian Gardens is an American Alliance of Museums Accredited Museum. Learn More about the accreditation process.
Connect With Us
- Like Us on Facebook
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- Visit Our Twitter Page
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- Sign Up for Our Newsletter
- 2015 Spring Newsletter
Contact Us:
gardens@si.edu | (202) 633-2220
Publications
Smithsonian Gardens is pleased to announce the publication of its first gardening book Encyclopedia of Garden Plants for Every Location featuring more than 3,000 plant recommendations to handle a variety of garden conditions and achieve amazing effects.
Garden Internships
The Smithsonian Gardens provides an exceptionally well-rounded array of experiences in its intern program thanks to the wide diversity of services it offers to the Smithsonian.
Mobile Field Guide
Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. This free mobile app uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.
