The Smithsonian Institution's Smithsonian Gardens hosts Community of Gardens, a digital archive of gardens across the United States and throughout time. Visitors with a connection to any kind of garden, historical or contemporary, are invited to submit stories and photographs to this project (via Share A Story). On the Community of Gardens homepage, visitors can explore these stories on the interactive map, which includes both public and private gardens. One private garden in this collection is Cecelia Auge's Garden in Mendota, Minnesota. In 1924, nineteen-year-old Auge wrote a letter in response to a contest, hosted by W. Atlee Burpee & Company, called "What Burpee's Seeds Have Done for Me." Visitors can read Auge's letter in full and view photographs of the gardener and her letter. Meanwhile, one of the public gardens featured here is the Jones Valley Teaching Farm of Birmingham, Alabama. This urban farm was created in 2007 on the site of a number of vacated properties in downtown Birmingham and now hosts a number of educational programs. In addition to the interactive map, this page also includes a number of educational resources designed for community organizations interested in implementing gardening programs.
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