Mary Livingston Ripley Garden

  The Mary Livingston Ripley Garden was the inspiration of Mrs. S. Dillon Ripley, lifelong plant scholar-collector, active gardener, and wife of the Smithsonian Institution's eighth Secretary. Mrs. Ripley conceived the idea for a "fragrant garden" on the eastern border of the Arts and Industries Building - a location that was designated to become a parking lot. In 1978 Mrs. Ripley persuaded the Women's Committee of the Smithsonian Associates, which she had founded in 1966, to support the garden. In 1988 the Women's Committee recognized their founder and friend by naming the garden after her. In 1994, Mrs. John Clifford Folger of Washington, DC, and Palm Beach, Florida, initiated an endowment fund for the support and care of the garden in order that it might be preserved as it was first conceived by Mrs. Ripley. This thoughtful gift was given with the hope that others might add to the fund so that visitors would be able to enjoy the garden into the 21st century.