Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Gardening

The small, rocky island of St. Michael's Mount is off the coast of Cornwall, England.

Calling All Green Thumbs! A Legendary British Island Is Looking to Hire a Resident Gardener

Applicants will need to be comfortable with rappelling down the battlements of a historic castle

Curious sculptures have popped up throughout the Smithsonian campus in its gardens and are meant to show the inner-workings and relationships of insect and plant habitats.

The Gardens Around the National Mall Are Growing Giant Nests and Fanciful Tunnels

The new exhibition “Habitat” is a whimsical, art-filled lesson on ecosystems and how they work

Trekking paths leading to Everest Base Camp

This Greenhouse on Mount Everest Is One of the World’s Highest Gardens

A Sherpa couple built their own greenhouse to grow vegetables at 13,100 feet

The Gardens of Agra

Cool Finds

Restored Mughal Gardens Bloom Once More Along Agra’s Riverfront

Two of the 44 original historic gardens and structures have been rescued in an ambitious conservation project

Bird's eye view of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, which Olmsted was instrumental in planning

24,000 Documents Detailing Life of Landscape Architect Frederick Law Olmsted Now Available Online

Collection includes journals, personal correspondence detailing development of Biltmore estate, U.S. Capitol grounds and the Chicago World’s Fair

Lion Forest Garden.

This City in China Has the Most Unesco-Recognized Gardens in the World

Suzhou has more than 60 gardens dating back to 600 AD, and nine have collective World Heritage status

The new horticultural center will be built at the RHS flagship garden in Wisley, Surrey

One Million British Botanical Treasures Will Be Digitized

Artifacts in the sprawling collection include a Chilean potato plant collected by Charles Darwin and 18th-century lavender

A very happy World Bee Day to you. Let's talk pollinators.

How to Protect Your Local Pollinators in Ten Easy Ways

As the first annual World Bee Day looms, insect and garden lovers are abuzz with excitement

Mrs. Jane Loudon’s The Ladies' Flower-Garden of Ornamental Greenhouse Plants (1848)

A Botanical Wonderland Resides in the World of Rare and Unusual Books

The Smithsonian’s librarian and antiquarian Leslie Overstreet time travels, sharing centuries of horticultural splendors

The Desert Pavilion at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

This Friday, You Can Visit More Than 150 of the Best Gardens in the U.S. for Free

Celebrate National Public Gardens Day May 11

Washington D.C. in Spring

Cherry Blossom Forecast Update: When Will Washington, D.C. Reach Peak Bloom?

How Do You Make Beer in Space?

Strap on your beer goggles and join us on a hops-fueled rocket ride

The author Brett McNish and Fred Hay perch in a live oak on Sapelo island.

A Smithsonian Horticulturist Goes on a Quest for an Historic Seedling

A live oak tree from a South Georgia island community will one day enhance the grounds of the African American History Museum

The fruit that bursts with contradictions.

The Toxic Rise of the California Strawberry

Growing this popular fruit year-round has long relied on harmful chemicals. Is there another way?

Amazon may be coming to a garden near you.

Amazon Now Has a Patent For a “Garden Service”

The massive online retailer might recommend recipes and tools based on pictures of your plot

Gardener Rob Gimpel harvests cabbage from the commemorative War Garden.

Cool Finds

A Century After WWI, a Victory Garden Sows Seeds of Remembrance

The Library of Congress is playing host to heirloom vegetables and traditional growing methods that date back to 1917

New Research

Botanic Gardens May Be Endangered Species’ Best Bet

Survey shows the institutions preserve one third of Earth’s plant life and 40 percent of endangered plant species

The Tulip Folly

There Never Was a Real Tulip Fever

A new movie sets its doomed entrepreneurs amidst 17th-century “tulipmania”—but historians of the phenomenon have their own bubble to burst

Blue chrysanthemums

New Research

The Scientific Feat That Birthed the Blue Chrysanthemum

In a world first, scientists engineered the flowers to take on an azure hue

Over 60,000 Plants Bloom Inside the World’s Largest Orchid Garden

Step inside Singapore’s National Orchid Garden, a collection that includes 600 newly created hybrid species

Page 3 of 6