The Archives of American Gardens (AAG), 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.

Above: Shumway Garden, Lake Forest, Illinois. Photographer unknown. c. 1930s.

Scope of the Collections
The Archives of American Gardens currently documents over 6,000 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.

Guide to the Collections
View a listing of AAG collections with links to collection descriptions.

Mystery Gardens
Help archives staff identify unidentified gardens in the collection. Help us capture America’s garden history before it is lost!

The mission of the Archives of American Gardens is "to collect and make available for research use unique, high quality images of and documentation relating to a wide variety of cultivated gardens throughout the United States that are not documented elsewhere since historic, designed and cultural landscapes are subject to change, loss and destruction. In this way, AAG strives to preserve and highlight a meaningful compendium of significant aspects of gardening in the United States for the benefit of researchers and the public today and in the future."

Archives of American Gardens records are cataloged in the Archives, Manuscripts and Photographic Collections catalog in the Smithsonian Institution Research and Information System (SIRIS).

Each AAG catalog record in SIRIS includes information relating to a specific garden or image; a digitally scanned version of the image may also be connected to the catalog record.

SIRIS Slideshows and Cross Searching Center
View a selection of garden images in the SIRIS Slideshow Viewer, or create your search in the *NEW* SIRIS Cross Searching Center.

More information on searching for Archives of American Garden records in SIRIS.

Select AAG holdings are currently available for review on the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) database web site. Images and documents not on the Internet can be viewed at the Archives of American Gardens by appointment only.

More information on research access, reproduction policy, copyright and use policy and contact information.