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Gardening

Pearl Fryar in his topiary garden

Born to a Family of Sharecroppers, This Topiary Artist Overcame Discrimination to Become the ‘Picasso of Plants’

Self-taught artist Pearl Fryar, who died this month at age 86, got his start when he tried to win an award from his local garden club. He ended up becoming a celebrity in the horticultural world

The Mercer Botanic Gardens in Houston, Texas, has its own Shakespeare garden.

Shakespeare Gardens Around the World Honor the Playwright—and Hold Their Own Storied History

The curated plots of flowers, herbs and trees serve as windows into Shakespeare’s work and life

Snowdrops can push through snow and icy ground to bloom in winter, bringing their blossoms to the largely dormant landscape.

How a Small Winter Flower Has Attracted Droves of Admirers—and Offers a Symbol of Resilience

The snowdrop, or Galanthus, blooms when the world is still frozen. Gardeners enamored with the plant gather each year in Pennsylvania to celebrate its subtleties and endurance

The moss spores germinated after enduring space outside of the ISS.

Moss Spores Survived Nine Months Outside the International Space Station. Then, They Grew Normally on Earth

While lunar gardens are still out of reach, the study sheds more light on terrestrial biology that may not be limited to our planet’s surface

Ian and Stuart Paton pose with their world record pumpkin, nicknamed Muggle. The pumpkin weighs 2,819.3 pounds.

The Giant Pumpkin World Record Just Crept Closer to 3,000 Pounds. Here’s How Science, Sweat and ‘Soul Crush’ Keep Growers Reaching for the Heaviest Fruit Possible

Twin brothers in the United Kingdom grew the biggest pumpkin ever documented, tipping the scales at 2,819.3 pounds

The pads, also known as platters, of giant waterlillies can be up to ten feet in diameter.

How Much Can a Giant Waterlily Hold? See One Carry 183 Pounds Before Sinking, Winning a Social Media Contest

Now in its third year, the Waterlily Weigh-Off invites public gardens and zoos to show off the strength of their aquatic plants

Irises on Yellow Columns, Graphic Rewilding

See Soaring Sunflowers and Radiant Roses That Bring Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings to Life

Featuring 18,000 plants and works by three contemporary artists, a new exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden celebrates the Dutch painter’s love of nature

Visitors flock to botanic gardens when their corpse flowers are in bloom. But these charismatic plants are threatened by inbreeding and low genetic diversity, in part due to spotty recordkeeping at institutions around the globe.

Stinky Corpse Flowers Face a Recordkeeping Problem at Botanic Gardens, and It’s Leading to Inbreeding, Study Finds

Inconsistent data may be hurting conservation efforts for these endangered plants, known for attracting visitors to their scent of rotting flesh

Even broken in two pieces, the rare pot shattered presale estimates.

Cool Finds

Why Did This Broken Ceramic Pot Sell for More Than $60,000 at Auction?

Discovered in pieces in a backyard garden in London, the vessel turned out to be the work of Hans Coper, one of Britain’s most influential potters

Posters, newspaper advertisements and radio shows promoted carrots' health benefits.

Carrots Can’t Help You See in the Dark. Here’s How a World War II Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth

The British government claimed that eating carrots helped its fighter pilots shoot down German planes at night. In truth, the Royal Air Force relied on top-secret radar

The Vegetable Orchestra performing in Madrid in 2013

How the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra Performs Music Using Carrots, Turnips, Radishes and Pumpkins

The band has now secured a world record for playing more than 340 concerts on instruments made from produce. After each concert, the band members serve soup to the audience

An Amorphophallus gigas plant bloomed at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York on January 24, with hundreds of flowers producing a putrid stench.

Rare and Stinky ‘Corpse Flower’ Blooms Draw Thousands of Visitors to Gardens in New York and Sydney

People lined up to see—and smell—the blossoms of two pungent plant species, which only bloom for a short time every few years

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025 took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, this week.

The Eight Coolest Inventions From the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show

A needle-free injection system, a bug-watching garden camera, a wearable that helps with memory lapses and more were unveiled at the annual Las Vegas trade show

An aerial view of the new park modeled after Vincent van Gogh's 1889 masterpiece The Starry Night

This Park Recreates Vincent van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ With a Dazzling Display of Plants, Trees and Winding Pathways

At a new park in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two dozen gardeners have spent years replicating the Dutch artist’s masterpiece using the land as their canvas

A little over a century ago, a limestone cave system north of Kuala Lumpur was reborn as a holy Hindu shrine, called Batu Caves.

From Cisterns to Temples, These Twelve Underground Worlds Are Open for Exploring

Some of these age-old subterranean spaces have even been transformed into amusement parks, art galleries and restaurants

More than 30 different varieties of cherry tomatoes are grown at this farm in Hillsborough.

Savor the Bountiful Flavors of Summer

These 15 images from the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest offer a taste of the season

The male Morrison bumblebee relies on its enlarged compound eyes to spot—and then pursue—desirable queens to mate with.

These Cute, Fuzzy Bumblebees Are Precision-Engineered Pollinators

As numbers of these key pollinators decline, conservationists are eyeing new federal protections for one vulnerable species

Farmer Robert Tomlinson harvests forced rhubarb by candlelight on his farm in Pudsey, near Leeds in northern England, in January 2022. 

Northern Europe and the British Isles

The English Farmers Who Harvest Rhubarb by Candlelight

The secret to the world’s sweetest rhubarb? Sealed sheds, total darkness and a little old-fashioned flair

In celebration of the upcoming new film The Color Purple, the Smithsonian Gardens, in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, hosted a webinar to unearth the nature-related themes in the story. (Above: Alice Walker by Anthony Barboza, 1989)

Unearth the Roots of Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple’

Gardeners discuss the oft-overlooked symbolism of nature that underlies the Pulitzer-prize winning novel

Travis Gienger attends the weigh-in for his 2,749-pound gourd at the 2023 World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. 

Minnesota Man Sets World Record With 2,749-Pound Pumpkin

Travis Gienger is a horticulture teacher who grows his award-winning gourds in his backyard

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