Green Spring Gardens is a public park that was once a plantation dating to the 18th century. It features the historic 1784 Green Spring House, a horticulture/visitor center, over 20 gardens, a greenhouse, and a museum. The house and the immediate property around it, which includes a farmhouse, spring house, and a family cemetery, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The horticulture/visitor center features a gift shop, a non-circulating library, and space for art exhibits. Visitors of all ages can also participate in a variety of programs and activities including garden tours, garden-related workshops, and lectures.
Since its purchase in 1955 by the businesswoman, socialite, philanthropist and collector Marjorie Merriweather Post, Hillwood has served to function once as a place of residence, and forever as a museum to educate and awe those who visited it. Hillwood is known largely for its sizeable decorative arts collection that focuses heavily on the House of Romanov, a collection of French decorative art, and acres of sculpted gardens. Included in the collection are, among other pieces, Fabergé eggs, 18th and 19th century French art, and one of the country's finest orchid collections. Hillwood's mansion and gardens opened to the public in 1977 and are maintained by the Post Foundation.
This tree along the Bethesda Trolley Trail near the National Library of Medicine building is a clone of the tree on the island of Cos, Greece, under which Hippocrates, the "father of medicine" is believed to have taught his students. In 1961, the Greek Ambassador gave a cutting from this parent tree to the National Institutes of Health on the occasion of the opening of the new National Library of Medicine Building. That tree died in 2013, but the NIH planted a new clone of the parent tree at the same site in 2014. A second clone of the Cos tree was planted in front of the NIH Clinical Center at the same time.
This sycamore tree was planted in 1977 and grew from a seed that traveled around the moon. As part of a NASA/US Forest Service collaboration, Apollo 14's command module carried this seed and hundreds of others into space in early 1971 to study the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the ability of seeds to germinate and grow. Upon the return to Earth, the US Forest Service germinated the seeds and dispersed the seedlings all over the country and beyond. Many were planted to commemorate the US bicentennial. In June 1977, the NASA Goddard Space Center planted this sycamore shortly after the opening of its visitor's center.
Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in a National Park Services-maintained park that hosts a vast and diverse biological system, and is most notably home to numerous rare waterlilies and lotuses. In the 1800s, Walter Shaw selected the location to make into a water garden, bringing in plants from his native state of Maine. Today, the Park has expanded to include additional recreational facilities, and is open to visitors wishing to explore the wetlands.
The National Arboretum is a natural museum of trees and other plant life that seeks to enhance the value of plant life and scientific research not just in the U.S. capital area, area, but on a national scale. It stretches over 446 acres in northeastern Washington, D.C., with 9.5 miles of roads and paths. Established in 1927 by an act of Congress, the National Arboretum cultivates its tree and herbarium collections both for research and educational purposes. The Arboretum also features early nineteenth-century sandstone columns which once supported the eastern portico of the U. S. Capitol building, which arrived in the arboretum in 1984.
Established by the U.S. Congress in 1820, this botanic garden is one of the oldest in the nation and reflects President George Washington's vision for the nation's capital which included aesthetically pleasing buildings and gardens. The indoor exhibits and gardens take users through a variety of natural environments and include many endangered species. The outdoor spaces offer a variety of species that are native to the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is a modern art museum that opened in 1974 and was established by an Act of Congress in 1966. With an indoor space of 60,000 square feet to house exhibitions and almost four acres making up its two-level sculpture garden, it is one of the nation’s largest modern art museums. The site where it was built was originally the Army Medical Museum and Library. The idea for an art museum on the National Mall began as early as the thirties, but the project was postponed due to the Second World War. It is named for entrepreneur and financier Joseph H. Hirshhorn, who donated his priceless art collections to the Smithsonian.
Constitution Gardens is a fifty-acre park situated near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. The gardens was established in 1976 after President Nixon ordered that a park be established on the land. The site became a separate unit of the National Park Service in 1982 and is maintained by the National Capitol Parks-Central (NACC) division. The park also includes a memorial to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, which is located on a small island in the pond. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was erected in 1982.
This Tour is a Thematic Tour or Heritage Trail.
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History tours usually tell stories through buildings and human-made structures, but landscapes also tell important stories about the past. These gardens, conservatories, and horticultural sites represent the impact of human beings in shaping cultural landscapes. This tour explores the greater capital region; to stay within Washington, DC city limits, visit #2 and #5-9.
