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Archives of American Gardens

Smithsonian Institution Staff ● Barbara Faust, Associate Director,

Smithsonian Gardens (SG), Office of Facilities Engineering & Operations (OFEO)

● Cindy Brown, Manager, Horticulture Collections Management and Education branch (HCME)

● Paula Healy } Museum Specialists, ● Joyce Connolly } HCME ● Kelly Crawford}

Cindy, Barbara, and Kelly (standing, l to r) with Joyce and Paula in the Folger Rose

Garden adjacent to the Smithsonian Castle. Eric Long, photographer.

About the Archives of American Gardens

The Archives of American Gardens (AAG) is a large photographic archive managed by

Smithsonian Gardens’ Horticulture Collections Management and Education branch. The

archives documents over 7,500 diverse gardens and cultural landscapes in America as

well as other gardens that have influenced the roots of American garden design. Some

gardens are represented by a single photograph while others are documented over the

course of decades.

The mission of the Archives 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.

Annual Report for 2013 for the Garden Club of America’s Garden History and Design Committee

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Notable Highlights…

Report from Mary Kent, GHD Committee Chair, 2012-2014 “The times they are a changing” and Garden History and Design is changing

with them. We moved into digital photography 5 years ago. Gone are the days of only documenting estate gardens or those of GCA

members. We are recording garden trends; courtyard gardens, community gardens, vegetable gardens, and suburban gardens.

We are improving our skills photographing gardens, navigating the complexities of SIRIS, and educating our club chairmen and their committees. GH&D exhibits in flower shows are now the norm rather than the exception.

Our goal: to educate members and the public about principles of garden design and the importance of virtual preservation of our garden heritage.

Our Reward: visiting and learning about gardens, both historic and contemporary.

We proudly continue to add to the GCA Collection at AAG by documenting gardens large and small, simple and complex, classical and vernacular.

Smithsonian Gardens Accreditation from AAM AAG’s parent organization, Smithsonian Gardens (SG), received accreditation

from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) in March after a multi-year self-study and external evaluation process. The intensive process required SG to compile and review its many policies, standards and operating procedures already in place and address those that needed some updates or refinements.

Accreditation from AAM is the highest national recognition of a museum’s commitment to public service, professional standards, accountability, excellence in education and continued institutional improvement. Of the nation’s 17,500 museums, less than 1,000 are accredited. Smithsonian Gardens is one of only about two dozen public gardens that have achieved accreditation.

Memorandum of Understanding between AAG and GCA • After a great deal of input and close review, a Memorandum of

Understanding (MOU) that defines the roles of AAG and GCA with regard to the GCA Collection was officially enacted in September.

• While AAG and the GHD Committee have been close collaborators for 25 years in the garden documentation process as it relates to the GCA Collection, we realized that it was high time to document our respective responsibilities

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in writing! Very special thanks to the general counsels at the Garden Club of America and the Smithsonian for their invaluable help in ushering the MOU through the review process and to GHD Committee Chair Mary Kent, GHD’s Executive Committee Liaison Connie Oliver, and GCA President Katie Heins for their support of this important project. While a significant amount of careful review was involved, the work that was expended ensures

that both AAG and GCA have a strong directive to help guide us for years to come.

New Acquisitions by AAG AAG acquired GCA member Corliss Knapp Engle’s extensive 35mm slide

collection consisting of thousands of garden images she photographed from the 1970s through the 1990s. Corliss was an early supporter of the GHD Committee and helped develop many of the documentation procedures that we still follow today. In her later years with the GCA she promoted photography standards and was awarded a GCA Achievement Medal. Many thanks to former GHD Zone I Rep Susan Kearney and former GHD Executive Committee Liaison Connie Oliver for facilitating this donation on behalf of Corliss’s club, the Chestnut Hill (MA) GC.

Slides dating from the 1950s through the 1980s taken by GCA member Georgia Vance were donated to AAG by a member of the Augusta GC of Virginia. Mrs. Vance was a noted floral arranger, author, lecturer and teacher. Special thanks to GHD Vice Chair Daphne Cheatham for her help with facilitating this donation.

Prolific garden writer and photographer Ken Druse donated a significant portion of his voluminous collection of garden images to AAG. The Ken Druse Garden Photography Collection includes several thousand color transparencies and 35mm slides of hundreds of gardens across the U.S. A number of the images were used in books and articles written by Mr. Druse.

American Garden Legacy Series Exhibit Work continues on an upcoming Smithsonian American Garden Legacy exhibit

titled Pools, Patios and the Invention of the American Backyard. The exhibit is slated to premiere in March 2015. Former GHD Intern Kate Fox was contracted by AAG to research the topic and write an exhibit script.

SG Director Barbara Faust (l) and GHD Committee Chair Mary Kent with the newly signed MOU. Sept. 2013. Nora Howard, photographer.

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• If you know of a site interested in hosting this exhibit, please visit: http://www.sites.si.edu/about/whatsnew.htm#garden

Farnham Garden in Mendham, NJ. c. 1960s.

Maida Babson Adams Collection.

AAG Social Media Initiatives Thanks to help from GHD and AAG interns, AAG’s Virtual Volunteer initiatives

provide opportunities for the public to learn more about the collections and assist with the identification and ‘tagging’ of AAG images. Visit http://www.gardens.si.edu/collections-research/virtual-volunteer.html for more details on how to become an AAG Virtual Volunteer.

SG’s Facebook and Twitter followers were treated to a weekly Tag-It-Tuesday post, which encourages them to tag a highlighted image (i.e. add keywords to an image to aid in searching for it).

Mystery Mondays is a weekly post featuring an image of an unidentified garden or site. We’ve gotten a number of these ‘mysteries’ solved thanks to inquisitive members of our online audience.

2012 AAG intern Jessica Short presented a poster on AAG’s public tagging initiative at the American Library Association’s annual conference in June.

Jessica Short presenting her tagging poster at ALA.

Government Shutdown We thank the GHD Committee members and GCA field volunteers for their

patience during the two weeks of the government shutdown and the weeks that followed. As a unit within the Smithsonian, AAG was closed during the shutdown that ran from October 1 – 16. A handful of Smithsonian Gardens staffers were designated as essential employees so that the gardens and living collections could be maintained during this time.

GCA Collection Submission Statistics for 2013

49 gardens were accessioned into the GCA Collection in 2013. The list of gardens is appended at the end of this report.

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Many thanks to the Garden History & Design Committee for the many handsome garden submissions that you send to AAG throughout the year for the GCA Collection. We’re grateful to each and every GCA volunteer for the time, effort, and dedication that goes into documenting gardens for the GCA Collection. Each submission adds to the overall collection and captures today’s history of a garden for future generations.

The Downings’ Cutting Garden in Fairfield, Conn. (left) and The Granby Garden in Richmond, Va. Two of 49 gardens documented in the GCA Collection in 2013. Stacy Bass and Jill B. Mountcastle, photographers.

A special thank you to those clubs who documented gardens for the GCA Collection in 2013…

Zone I: Cambridge Plant & GC; Chestnut Hill GC; Lenox GC, GC of Mt. Desert; North Shore GC Zone II: GC of Hartford, Hortulus, New Canaan GC, Sasqua GC Zone III: Essex County Adirondack GC; Fort Orange GC; The Little GC of Rye;

Millbrook GC; North Country GC of Long Island; GC of Orange and Dutchess Counties

Zone IV: Short Hills GC; GC of Trenton; Zone V: Carrie T. Watson GC; GC of Philadelphia; The Weeders GC Zone VI: GC of Chevy Chase

Zone VII: French Broad River GC; Kanawha GC; Tuckahoe GC Zone VIII: GC of Palm Beach Zone IX: Knoxville GC, Founders GC of Dallas, GC of Houston Zone X: Akron GC; Bay City GC; Indianapolis GC; GC of Michigan Zone XI: Cedar Rapids GC; Garden Guild of Winnetka; Ladue GC Zone XII: Carmel by the Sea GC; GC of Honolulu; Woodside-Atherton GC

..and for ‘solving‘ Mystery Gardens from the original GCA donation that lacked necessary Garden Owner Releases:

Zone IV: GC of the Oranges; Short Hills GC Zone VIII: GC of Palm Beach

Cataloging Statistics 42 of the 49 of the gardens accessioned in 2013 have been cataloged. This

includes both new accessions and updates of old garden submissions that were submitted to AAG in 2013. Representative images of each garden are available online in the SIRIS database at www.siris.si.edu.

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See the “Recent Acquisitions” web pages at http://gardens.si.edu/collections-research/aag-recent-acquisitions-2013.html for a list of all the submissions to the GCA Collection added in 2013. After a garden is cataloged into SIRIS, its entry on the Recent Acquisitions page goes live and links directly to corresponding catalog entries and images in SIRIS.

Once a garden is accessioned into the GCA Collection, the estimated time frame for cataloging into SIRIS is approximately six months. Thank you for alerting your clubs to this timeframe and for your patience. Please contact Kelly if you or your Zones have questions about the status of a garden submission.

GHD Committee Meetings

GHD Committee Spring Meeting in Palm Beach, FL, March 18-20 Discussion topics at the meeting included outreach, communications with

clubs, GCA awards, articles for the GCA Bulletin, the GHD exhibit at the annual GCA meeting and what GHD Committee records to keep and pass along to future Zone Reps.

The issue of copies of submissions made by GCA clubs for their archives and for garden owners was raised. Please make sure that clubs include a statement with any copies of the submission that use of any images or documentation requires the prior approval of AAG.

Special thanks to GHD Chair Mary Kent and members of the Palm Beach GC for the fantastic local arrangements and to Zone VI Rep Ann Jackson for her special tour of Palm Beach’s historic district.

The Marshall Garden (left) and Villa Filipponi were two of half a dozen private gardens visited during the GHD Committee meeting. Both have been documented by the GC of Palm Beach for the GCA Collection. Photographers: Joan R. Van der Grift, 2006 (left); Mary G. Reed, 2011 (right).

GHD Committee Meeting at GCA Headquarters in NYC, June 4-5 Discussion topics including suggested revisions to the Procedures Manual

and recordkeeping responsibilities for the GHD Zone Reps.

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Each Rep was asked to select an image from SIRIS for her Zone to feature in the GHD exhibit at the 2014 GCA annual meeting. The theme of the meeting is ‘Rhythm of the Rivers’ and ‘Southern Hospitality.’

GHD Committee Fall Meeting at AAG in Washington, D.C., Sept. 9-11 This meeting, hosted by AAG, included a number of PowerPoint

presentations by AAG staff that highlighted the history of the GCA Collection and reviewed garden documentation processes outlined in the Procedures Manual and Procedures Manual Appendix.

A workshop on documenting gardens took place in the garden spaces surrounding the National Air and Space Museum. Each GHD Rep received a workbook which featured a number of exercises that broke the documentation process into its component parts and posed a series of true/false questions.

The GHD fall meeting featured a mix of activities. GHD Committee members learned about AAG operations and later reviewed the garden documentation process ‘on site’ in the NASM gardens. Nora Howard, photographer.

All GHD Committee Reps received a ‘master’ CD with several PowerPoint presentations developed for education and outreach purposes for their clubs.

Special thanks to GHD Vice Chair Daphne Cheatham for the wonderful local arrangements which included a garden tour of Mount Vernon and dinner at the Sulgrave Club.

A dinner at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art started out with a private tour by the curator of the land art installation included in the exhibit, Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, in the Enid A. Haupt Garden.

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Garden History and Design Committee in the Smithsonian’s Enid A. Haupt Garden. Sept. 9, 2013. Photo courtesy of Zone II GHD Rep Nora Howard.

AAG Projects

Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS)

• We hope you have many occasions to access the GCA Collection images on the SIRIS search page at www.siris.si.edu. This web site features over 1.9 million catalog records for library and archival holdings throughout the Smithsonian! Although AAG accounts for less than 2% of that total (32,000+ catalog records), its holdings garnered over 375,000 search hits in SIRIS in 2013!

Our challenge now is to revisit early GCA Collection catalog records on SIRIS that are not linked to images in order to address any relevant copyright and use issues.

Digital Submissions

It has been five years since AAG’s Digital Submission Policy was launched! Most of the submissions received in 2013 included digital images, though we still continue to get submissions with 35mm slides (roughly 10% of the total).

Thank you for following the standards outlined in AAG’s Digital Submission Policy. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions about eligible camera models, etc.

Rapid Capture Digitization Pilot Project

AAG was the first participant in a pilot project funded by the Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office to digitize archival collections through a ‘rapid

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capture’ process. Nine hundred early 20th century 8x10 glass plate negatives from AAG’s Thomas Sears Collection (approximately 20% of the entire collection) were digitized and are now available on SIRIS.

The time needed to capture a high resolution digital scan of each fragile glass plate negative was under sixty seconds as compared to 9-14 minutes per scan that AAG staff had been averaging with a flatbed scanner.

AAG Mystery Gardens

While the original GCA donation to the Smithsonian in 1992 was a goldmine of garden documentation, it also included hundreds of gardens that were either unidentified or lacked descriptive information and/or AAG Releases that would enable them to be made available for research use. Without basic information or permissions, the informational value of this documentation, dubbed “Mystery Gardens,” is severely limited.

Please urge your clubs to visit AAG’s Mystery Gardens webpage at www.gardens.si.edu/collections-research/mystery-gardens-initiative.html if they haven’t already. Be sure to contact AAG if you can solve any of these mysteries!

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States with unidentified gardens in AAG

If you have clubs in your zone that may be interested in following up on any identified gardens in their area that lack basic descriptive information, please contact AAG. AAG may have a client name and location for these gardens, but that’s it! ANY information that can be provided about any of these gardens (many of which date from the 1960s to the 1980s) will help to rescue their story before they sink into anonymity.

Many of the ‘Mystery Gardens’ are not cataloged in SIRIS. AAG is happy to supply

a list of relevant identified-but-lacking-information Mystery Gardens to interested

clubs to get the process started.

AAG’s reference room was reconfigured to host a rapid capture pilot project in August. An outside contractor digitized 900 fragile glass plate negatives in approximately 15 hours.

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AAG especially needs help with numerous gardens in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut!

An honorable mention goes to Zone IV for all its help in following up on a number

of Mystery Gardens. Club members have provided exceptionally helpful

information to AAG for a number of gardens that had little or no descriptive

information in the garden file at AAG. Without this information, the story that each

of these gardens has to tell would eventually be lost forever.

Interns, Research Assistant, Fellow and Volunteers

GCA Garden History and Design Internships AAG was most fortunate to have two interns fully funded by the GCA’s Garden

History and Design Internship in 2013! AAG is particularly grateful to the GHD and Scholarship Committees for their generosity—the GHD Interns are a tremendous asset and help AAG immensely with the academic skill sets they bring with them.

o Bella Wenum is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a

Master’s in Library and Information Science specializing in archives and

digital libraries. o Audrey Abrams recently entered her second year as a graduate student at

Simmons College in Boston in Library and Information Science with a

concentration in Archives Management.

GHD/AAG Interns Bella Wenum (left) and Audrey Abrams.

Among the projects Bella and Audrey worked on during their 10-week internships

were cataloging scores of images from the GCA Collection for ready access in SIRIS, uploading digital images into the Smithsonian’s Digital Asset Management System, entering data into Archivists’ Toolkit in order to create finding aids, and writing a number of GHD One Minute Reports and posts for social media outlets based on the AAG collections. In addition, Audrey processed much of the Corliss Knapp Engle Collection while she was here.

Interns benefit greatly from the GHD Internship—they gain practical skills required in the archives world including cataloging, digitization, research and reference, and outreach. In addition, they learn about the many ways in which garden history and design affect our lives every day. After completing an internship with AAG, several recent interns have quickly found professional positions—a real feat in this job market. Thank you for supporting the next generation of archivists!

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Smithsonian Gardens’ Interns Smithsonian Gardens’ Horticulture Collections Management and Education

(HCME) branch (which AAG falls under) manages SG’s very active intern program: http://gardens.si.edu/get-involved/internships.html . In addition to the two GHD Interns this year, 10 interns joined the various units of SG in 2013 for internships ranging from 10 to 16 weeks.

HCME hosted a total of 4 interns during 2013 o Jessica Hemphill, a graduate from the University of South Carolina with

a Master’s program in Library and Information Science, completed a 10-week internship with AAG in March. Among other projects, she cataloged garden submissions from the GCA Collection, tracked down information on nitrate negatives in AAG’s Thomas Sears Collection, and researched images to post on SG’s Facebook page for Mystery Mondays and Tag-It Tuesdays

o Three interns assisted Cindy throughout the year with a number of educational and outreach projects

Research Assistant • Janie Askew, a graduate student enrolled in the History of Decorative Arts

program at George Mason University, has been researching and writing posts for the Smithsonian Gardens blog highlighting objects in the Garden Furnishings and Horticultural Artifacts Collection. One of Janie’s posts, titled “What’s in a Name,” highlights a recent acquisition of a floral ‘frog’ donated by Zone II GHD Rep Nora Howard: http://smithsoniangardens.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/whats-in-a-name/

• Janie also helped ‘pin’ images and links to artifacts on the Smithsonian Gardens’ Pinterest board and aided in enhancing catalog records for SG artifacts in SIRIS.

Enid A. Haupt Fellowship in Horticulture Joe Cialdella, the 2012-2013 Enid

A. Haupt Fellow in Horticulture, is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan. During his residence at SG, he conducted research for his dissertation "Landscape of Ruin and Repair: A Cultural History of Environmental Change in the Rustbelt." It examines the cultural meaning of landscape change in "rustbelt" cities, such as Detroit. Using historic methodology, he analyzed how community gardens and parks functioned as important public spaces central to the cultural life

and livelihood of American cities from the late 19th century to the present. Joe presented a short presentation of his findings to the GH&D Committee at the fall meeting in Washington.

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AAG Volunteers One of AAG’s premier volunteers, Nancy Sahli, celebrated her 14th anniversary

with us in May. Over the years, she has cataloged thousands of images from the GCA Collection into SIRIS. Nancy’s focus these days is identifying uncaptioned images from the Thomas Sears Collection, including those he took during a trip to Europe in 1906.

Marca Woodhams, a volunteer of eight years, is the former librarian of the Smithsonian’s Horticulture Library and instituted the earliest collections management policies for AAG which have successfully guided its operations for more than twenty-five years. During the year, Marca processed a major component of the Eleanor Weller Collection: thousands of 35mm slide photographed and compiled by Mrs. (Weller) Reade, a GCA member, driving force behind the creation of the GCA Slide Library of Notable American Parks and Gardens (which later became the GCA Collection), and co-author of the book, The Golden Age of American Gardens: Proud Owners, Private Estates, 1890-1940.

Judith Lesser assists with cataloging new garden submissions in the GCA Collection.

Contract Archivists Anna Barker, a former AAG intern, was contracted on a part-time basis to

assist with digitizing and cataloging hundreds of images from the GCA Collection. She played an integral role in ingesting AAG images into the Smithsonian’s Digital Asset Management System (DAMS). Anna left AAG in May for a full-time position as a librarian in Wyoming. We were truly sorry to see her go, but we are so happy for her in her new position.

Nancy Cushing, Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Coordinator, funded by a pan-Institutional grant, continued to assist AAG staff with the implementation of Archivists’ Toolkit (soon to be Archives Space) to create EAD finding aids for the AAG collections.

Research Inquiries

AAG staff received a total of 281 requests for information in 2013; 107 (or 38%) of the queries involved holdings in the GCA Collection.

A number of requests involved landscape historians researching different historic landscapes for restoration purposes and numerous scholars and writers researching gardens for books, articles, exhibitions and lectures.

In addition, AAG staff handled a number of inquiries from GCA members and GHD Reps, some of whom were writing articles for the GCA Bulletin or their club newsletters, putting together presentations or reports for their clubs or GCA Headquarters, or asking about the holdings for specific gardens in the GCA Collection.

All AAG catalog entries in SIRIS have a link to AAG’s research query address (aag@si.edu).

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Use of GCA Collection Images

Research and Outreach

Of particular note are queries we received from: o the GCA Archives Committee o two GCA clubs working on a history of their club o The Cultural Landscape Foundation o The Garden Conservancy o The Trustees of Reservations (Mass.) seeking images of a garden in New

Bedford that it has recently acquired o numerous parties seeking images and documentation to help with garden

restoration efforts including the owners of a garden damaged in Hurricane

Sandy; a historic house museum in Connecticut; a garden historian

working on the restoration of an Olmsted-designed garden in Connecticut;

a researcher putting together an application for the Connecticut State

Register of Historic Places; and a landscape architect restoring a historic

garden on an estate owned by a local historical society o an author seeking images for a book to be published by Rizzoli o The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts requesting images for an

upcoming exhibition and accompanying catalog

In 2013, gardens documented in the GCA Collection were cited or images reprinted in a number of publications, etc. including the following:

o the Spring issue of Country

Gardens magazine featured

a prominent 4-page ‘spread’

on the GCA Collection’s historic glass lantern slides. The article touched upon

how the GCA commissioned

the slides as a teaching tool

and how it continues to

document gardens today.

o Gardens of Long Island's North Shore, by the North Country Garden Club

o In Bloom: The First 100 Years of the North Country Garden Club of Long Island,

o The Examiner (TX) 2/21 online article reported on the restoration of Cead-Mile-Failte (AAG Garden #TX001)

o South Hill Enterprises (VA) 3/26 online article identified Margaret Page Bemiss of the GC of Virginia as having served on the GCA’s GHD Committee

o Sewickley Herald (PA) 4/17 online article reported on the documentation of the Macchione Italian Garden by members of the Village GC’s GHD Committee and the founder of the Italian Garden Project

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o Natchez Democrat (MS) 5/5 online article reported on a series of garden tours hosted by the Natchez GC as a fundraiser for the club’s ongoing preservation work; one of the gardens, Cherokee, is cited as being included in the AAG

o Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) 6/8 online article reported on Tullymore (AAG#PA698), the estate of John C. Oliver, originally designed by A. B. Orth in 1927

o The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI) 6/24 online article reported on the Butler Garden (AAG#HI034)

o An article about Middlegate Japanese Gardens (AAG #MS040) was published in ”The Journal of the North American Japanese Garden Association” (Issue No 1, 2013)

o The Rosita Trinca Garden in Greenwich, Conn. (AAG #CT703) was cited on the website of the garden’s designer, Oehme Van Sweden

o New Canaan News Online (CT) 11/18 online article highlighted the Sun House in New Canaan (AAG #CT081) (formerly owned by Richardson Wright, editor of House and Garden Magazine in the 1930s and 40s) as being documented for the GCA Collection

Thank you for letting us know of any articles or postings you come across that refer to the GCA Collection—it is a huge help as we don’t always know (despite our best efforts) where GCA Collection images or citations will appear.

Please remind your fellow GCA members to let us know if they wish to use any GCA Collection images in presentations, displays, newsletters, etc. This enables us to track how the collection is being used and by whom which helps to justify our operation to Smithsonian management.

GH&D Committee Outreach Materials

At the fall GHD Committee meeting, each GHD Zone Rep received a CD with PowerPoint presentations on, among other things, an overview of garden history and design customized for each Zone, how to document a garden for the AAG, and both of the Smithsonian American Garden Legacy exhibitions to date that utilized dozens of images from the GCA Collection.

We hope your GHD volunteers will have an opportunity to present one or more of these programs to their clubs in the future in order to highlight the critical importance of the GCA Collection and the many ways in which it is used by researchers.

The GHD Committee pages on the GCA website continue to be a premier resource for information relating to the AAG garden documentation project. Everything from the Procedures Manual and AAG releases to a library of all the GHD One Minute Reports is available here. Special thanks to GHD Chair Mary Kent for making sure that all the many updates to the pages are made.

Outreach and Public Relations

The following new AAG GHD Minutes were distributed to the GHD Committee: o A Century of Documenting Gardens (Jan.)

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o Rills: Thrills, Spills and Chills (Feb.) o Copyright: Where [Physical] Possession Isn’t Always Nine Tenths of

the Law (Mar.) o Finding Gold in the Attic

[donating slide collections] (April)

o Armillary Spheres (May) o Council Rings: More Than

Just a Place to Sit (June) o That’s A-Maze-ing: Mazes

and Labyrinths (July) o The Funny Thing About

Follies (August) o Secret Gardens: Private

Gardens of Paradise (Nov.)

AAG is one of several Smithsonian archives that regularly contribute to the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center blog. The following blogs were posted by AAG to the Smithsonian Collections Blog. We hope the titles of the AAG blogs posted in 2013 intrigue you enough to visit http://si-siris.blogspot.com/search/label/Gardens to see all the AAG blogs posted to date!

o Top of the World! Rooftop Gardens (Jan.) o Sneak Peek from the Stacks: Photo Identification from Twitterverse

(Feb.) o Rills: Thrills, Spills and Chills (March) o Perseverance in Preservation (April) o Armillary Spheres (May) o The Funny Thing About Follies (June/July) o How Does Your Garden Glow: Night Gardens (July) o New to the Archives of American Gardens (Aug.) o Unity, Function, Simplicity, Scale: Thomas Dolliver Church (Sept.) o True Story? Glass Lantern Slides (Oct.) o A Lens for Beauty: J. Horace McFarland and the Civics of Garden

Photography (Dec.)

SG staff presented a litany of educational programming and outreach activities throughout the year in a variety of venues including numerous garden tours, lectures, presentations and how-to workshops.

o In April, Cindy Brown led a sold-out bus tour in conjunction with Historic Garden Week in Virginia for The Smithsonian Associates. During the ride she spoke about AAG’s collections and the work of Smithsonian Gardens.

o In May, Cindy attended several sessions at the annual American Public Gardens Association conference relating to outreach and interpretation. She got enthusiastic feedback from a number of parties who heard her speak about AAG during a panel presentation she gave on ‘Creating Regional Partnerships to Share Vital Resources.’ Haupt Fellow Joe

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Cialdella had his poster, ‘Looking Back to Look Forward: History’s Evolving Role in Public Gardens,’ featured during the conference.

o Kelly gave an overview on the history of the modern terrarium at a Smithsonian Associates workshop in July. Smithsonian Gardens’ own Garden Furnishings and Horticultural Artifacts Collection includes a number of original and reproductions of 19th century plant cases that were used to protect plants.

o SG and the National Museum of American History co-hosted a highly successful Food in the Garden series in the recently relocated Victory Garden at the museum. Over the course of five weeks, more than 600 participants attended weekly evening panel discussions/garden tours with experts in topics ranging from heirloom plants to foraging for food in your own garden.

o SG hosted an activity for a Smithsonian Associates program in September

highlighting “Jazz in the Garden” for over 500 attendees. One part of the

program focused on GCA Collection glass lantern slides from the Gatsby

era.

o Kelly was a presenter at the “Tech Tools for Archives” session at the Mid-

Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) meeting in Philadelphia

in November. Her presentation focused on AAG’s use of social media to

enlist the public’s help with ‘tagging’ garden images and identifying

Mystery Gardens.

o Cindy joined Dr. Thomas Mickey in a presentation he gave for The

Smithsonian Associates in November on his newly released book,

America’s Romance with the English Garden. Dr. Mickey was a former

Haupt Fellow at SG and conducted some of his research at AAG.

o Cindy presented numerous other public and garden club programs on topics

ranging from urban potagers to edible plants. The Smithsonian Gardens Newsletter comes out every quarter with articles on

what AAG and the other units of Smithsonian Gardens are up to. To sign-up for this e-newsletter, email gardens@si.edu .

GCA Clubs

Cindy gave a presentation on AAG to the GC of Hartford (CT) in April.

Cindy Brown (center) with members of the GC of Hartford.

Former GHD Intern Julie Hunter was invited by the Rye GC (NY) to give a presentation on the Smithsonian gardens.

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25 members of the Tuckahoe (VA) GC visited AAG in October for a tour of the archives and a presentation on the operations here.

Individual members from the Green Tree GC (WI) toured the archives.

Smithsonian Gardens’ 7th Annual Garden Fest

AAG was one of several SG units participating in this year’s Garden Fest held in conjunction with National Public Gardens Day in May. The theme of the day was ‘Earth Matters’ which coincided with various earth works installed by African artists in the Smithsonian’s Enid A. Haupt Garden.

AAG staffers helped run a container contest where visitors could vote for their favorite container arrangements. Several images showing a wide variety of plant containers from the GCA Collection were featured in a display accompanying the contest.

A container made out of a pair of jeans was the crowd favorite at the container contest sponsored by AAG at this year’s Garden Fest. Brett McNish, photographer.

AAG Administration

Impact of Sequestration Congressionally mandated sequestration cuts to the federal budget took

approximately $42 million or 5% from the Smithsonian’s budget in fiscal year 2013.

Sequestration’s direct impact on AAG in 2013 meant reductions to staff travel, training, and intern stipends as well as significant cuts in Smithsonian-wide grant funding which supports contract work for AAG’s archival (cataloging, digitizing, and processing) and outreach/education projects. In light of these budget reductions, AAG is especially grateful to the generous financial support extended by the GHD and Scholarship Committees for the GHD Internship.

AAG Staffing In 2013, Smithsonian Gardens’ Horticulture Collections Management and

Education branch (HCME) included 4.3 FTE positions (4 Smithsonian staff and 1 part-time contractor) whose responsibilities encompassed working on tasks relating to the Garden Club of America Collection at the Archives of

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American Gardens. HCME staff spent an estimated 30% of their time on GCA-related activities. This factors out to 1.3 FTE positions in 2013 (or 1.3 people working full-time on GCA-related activities).

30%70%

Breakdown of HCME staff timeGCA-relatedtasks

non-GCArelatedtasks

HCME staff spend the other 70% of their time on a wide variety of tasks and projects including processing, cataloging, and digitizing the other AAG collections; developing SG’s educational programming; managing SG’s Garden Furnishings & Horticultural Artifacts Collection; administering SG’s intern, volunteer, and fellow programs; developing policies; compiling reports; contributing to SG’s social media efforts; exhibit planning; intra-unit event collaboration; managing related contracts; and purchasing.

Of the time HCME staff devoted to GCA-related activities in 2013, roughly half was spent addressing new garden submissions added to the GCA Collection (from accessioning to cataloging and digitizing for SIRIS). Another 40% was spent planning and attending GHD meetings, developing outreach materials, and answering numerous queries from GCA members relating to gardens in the GCA Collection as well as the garden submission process. The last 10% was spent training and supervising the two GHD Interns.

Accessions

Cataloging

DigitizationMeetings & Outreach

Queries

Interns

HCME staff time spent on GCA-related tasks

19

List of Gardens added to the Garden Club of America Collection at the Archives of American Gardens in 2013

AAG Garden #

ST City Garden Name GCA Club

CA536 CA Mendocino Gardens at Harmony Woods, The

Woodside-Atherton GC

CA539 CA Carmel Little House Carmel-by-the-Sea GC

CT081 CT New Canaan Sun House New Canaan GC

CT702 CT Fairfield Downings' Cutting Garden, The

Sasqua GC

CT703 CT Greenwich Trinca Garden, The Rosita Hortulus GC

CT704 CT Avon Garden of Thomas F. & Elinor R. Oakes, The

GC of Hartford

CT705 CT Avon Northington Farm GC of Hartford

CT709 CT Salisbury Twin Maples Millbrook GC

FL249 FL Palm Beach Casa de Miel GC of Palm Beach

HI056 HI Honolulu Hale Opua GC of Honolulu

HI058 HI Honolulu Pu'u Makani GC of Honolulu

IA024 IA Cedar Rapids Nau's Green Valley Cedar Rapids GC

IL037 IL Winnetka Haynes Garden Garden Guild of Winnetka

IL160 IL Evanston Hodges Garden, The Garden Guild of Winnetka

IN067 IN Zionsville Frogmore Indianapolis GC

MA399 MA Beverly Edwards Garden, The Grace North Shore GC

MA409 MA Sheffield Good Dogs Farm Lenox GC

MA418 MA Cambridge Muffin's Garden Cambridge Plant and GC

MA592 MA Chestnut Hill Coffin Garden Chestnut Hill GC

MA594 MA Cambridge Brattle Street Garden Cambridge Plant and GC

MD042 MD Chevy Chase Marsh Garden Cambridge Plant and GC

ME174 ME Bar Harbor Bide-A-While GC of Mt. Desert

MI088 MI Grosse Pointe Farms

Birches, The GC of Michigan

MI115 MI Bay City Claire's Garden Bay City GC

MO087 MO St. Louis Emerson Garden, The Ladue GC

NC061 NC Asheville Meadow Rue French Broad River GC

NC081 NC Asheville "Kinkaku-ji" Garden French Broad River GC

NJ612 NJ Lambertville Hart-Vorhees Farmstead - Lipson Garden

GC of Trenton

20

AAG Garden #

ST City Garden Name GCA Club

NJ619 NJ Millburn Community Garden, The Short Hills GC

NY873 NY Rye Bird Homestead Little GC of Rye

NY919 NY Newburgh Echo Lawn GC of Orange & Dutchess Counties

NY961 NY Willsboro Scragwood Garden Essex County Adirondack GC

NY978 NY Latham Gardens at Pruyn House, The Fort Orange GC

NY1005 NY Locust Valley Land's End Manor North Country GC of Long Island

OH248 OH Akron Compact Urban & Japanese Garden at Twin Oaks

Akron GC

PA697 PA Ambler Tunnel Farm Weeder's GC

PA714 PA Harrisville Blackwood Carrie T. Watson GC

PA715 PA Fairview Hetz Garden Carrie T. Watson GC

PA727 PA Erie A Touch of Williamsburg Carrie T. Watson GC

PA728 PA Girard Falls Run Carrie T. Watson GC

PA731 PA Philadelphia A Garden For All Seasons GC of Philadelphia

PA732 PA Erie Stout/Bestoso Garden Carrie T. Watson GC

TN083 TN Knoxville Hays Gardens Knoxville GC

TX060 TX Dallas Crow Garden, Harlan Founders GC of Dallas

TX082 TX Dallas Crow Garden, Barbara Hunt Founders GC of Dallas

TX097 TX Dallas Sealy Garden Founders GC of Dallas

TX105 TX Houston Chapman Garden GC of Houston

VA439 VA Richmond Granby Garden, The Tuckahoe GC of Westhampton

WV015 WV Charleston Michael Garden Kanawha GC

List of Mystery Gardens ‘solved’ in 2013

AAG Garden #

ST City Garden Name GCA Club

FL086 FL Palm Beach Dayton Garden GC of Palm Beach

NJ321 NJ West Orange Burrows Garden GC of the Oranges

NJ342 NJ West Orange Elmore Garden GC of the Oranges

NJ350 NJ West Orange Jennings Garden GC of the Oranges

NJ362 NJ Short Hills McGraw Garden Short Hills GC

NJ382 NJ Short Hills Hoyt Garden Short Hills GC

NJ383 NJ Short Hills Hoyt Garden Short Hills GC

NJ386 NJ Short Hills Cox Garden Short Hills GC

NJ467 NJ Short Hills Auchincloss Garden Short Hills GC