Smithsonian Institution, Photo Permission: Kaitlyn Hay

Enlargements of postcards from the Archives of American Gardens’ Historic Gardens Postcard Collection are on display behind the Enid A. Haupt Moon Gate Garden along the east side of the Freer Gallery of Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. during the summer of 2009. This exhibit was created and designed for the Garden Fest 2009 program.

The Archives of American Gardens (AAG), a division of the Horticulture Division of the Smithsonian Institution,  founded in 1987, offers landscape designers, historians, researchers, and garden enthusiasts to approximately 80,000 photographic images and records that document a wide variety of historic and contemporary gardens throughout the United States.

The Archives of American Gardens currently documents over 6,300 gardens throughout the United States.  Images in the archives, which date from the late nineteenth century to the present, highlight such features as garden furniture and ornamentation, fountains, sculptures, fences and gates, parterres, and garden structures.  The design styles represented range from large Italianate  estates to herb and rose gardens, cottage and patio gardens, and community gardens.

For more information go to:  Archives of American Gardens