Parks & Gardens

DC’s got plenty to offer in regards to its community gardens, public parks and free city services. Below you’ll find a bunch of recommendations for local parks & what to expect from them, listings of all community gardens & organizations, and our highlighting some of the services helping you navigate what DC offers for free.

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  1. Parks & Gardens
    1. Interactive Map
    2. Outdoor Events
    3. Public Parks
    4. Community Gardens
    5. Organizations & Community Groups
    6. Feedback

Interactive Map

Outdoor Events

To see the latest outdoors, gardens, and parks related events happening in DC, click the button below to take you to WGIT’s event calendar.

Outdoor Events in DC

Public Parks

Here’s a list in no particular order of great parks to congregate, read, celebrate, imbibe, rest, picnic, and hang out at:

Community Gardens

  • Bruce Monroe Community Garden (Park View)
    • Location: 3000 Georgia Avenue, NW, Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001
    • About: “Bruce Monroe Community Garden is a community garden at Bruce Monroe Park, which is located between Irving St. and Columbia Rd. N.W. at the intersection of Georgia Avenue.  The park’s address is 3000 Georgia Ave., N.W.  The garden is located at the rear of the park, away from Georgia Avenue.  It is about 3-4 blocks from the Columbia Heights metro station on the green line.  The community garden is comprised of raised beds mainly divided into nearly 200 3′ x 6′ plots, which are maintained by individuals or families, shared plots that are maintained by a group of gardeners, and lower to the ground kids gardens.”
  • Common Good City Farm (LeDroit)
    • Location: 300 V St NW, Washington, DC 20001
    • About: “Common Good City Farm is a place where community members can source fresh food, see sustainable urban agriculture in action, and gain exposure to concepts and skills to lead healthy lives. We actively engage with all members of our diverse community and create opportunities for connections on our farm, while emphasizing intensive vegetable production and modeling best practices in sustainable urban agriculture.”
  • Edgewood Rooftop Farm
    • Location: 300 Evarts St NE, Washington, DC 20002
    • About: Situated in the Edgewood neighborhood, this garden encourages residents to cultivate plants and connect with their neighbors. This farm is also a partner of the DPR communal farms and holds a weekly free veggie giveaway. Want to receive updates on volunteering, harvesting and program opportunities? email joshua.singer@dc.gov
  • Edgewood Community Farm
    • Location: 2304 2nd Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20002
    • About: “Edgewood Community Farm is a non-profit urban farm in the heart of Washington, D.C. dedicated to addressing food justice and insecurity issues in Ward 5 by providing access to hyper locally grown produce, flowers, mushrooms, and urban gardening resources; promoting and building community across racial, income, and intergenerational lines; and implementing sustainable and regenerative practices to address and reduce the impacts of climate change.”
  • Glover Park Community Garden (Glover Park)
    • Location: 42nd St NW, Washington, DC 20007
    • About: “The Glover Park Community Garden is one of the District’s largest community gardens. Located at the corner of 42nd Street and New Mexico Avenue in Northwest, Washington, D.C., this 2.7-acre garden started as a Victory Garden to address food shortages during World War II. The garden sits on federal land within Rock Creek Park managed by the National Parks Service (NPS). The garden is run by the Glover Park Community Garden Association (GPCGA) and follows instructions given by the NPS. Gardeners must use organic gardening methods. The garden is to be used only for growing mostly vegetables and herbs for household consumption, educational purposes, or charitable donation. Commercial gardening is prohibited.
  • Wangari Gardens (Park View)
    • Location: ~3196 Park Pl NW, Washington, DC 20010
    • About: “Wangari Gardens was established in 2012 by Josh Singer and a community of neighbors and volunteers with the goal of being more than a typical community garden. In exchange for the space to grow food, each plot holder at Wangari helps support community programs such as public gardens harvested by the local community, educational programming, and community development projects. Wangari Gardens seeks to create a sustainable and inclusive community of local gardeners and volunteers, dedicated to promoting community enrichment to the surrounding community.”
  • Euclid Street Community Garden
    • About: Euclid Street Community Garden was established in 2012 in partnership with the DC Department of Parks & Recreation. The garden contains 40 11′ x 4′ plots (4 of which are ADA accessible), an orchard, a communal herb garden, and several pollinator habitats.
  • Twin Oaks Community Garden (Petworth)
    • Location: 1390 Taylor St NW, Washington, DC 20011
    • About: “Twin Oaks Community Garden is located on the SE corner of 14th Street NW and Taylor Street NW, Washington DC which borders the neighborhoods of Columbia Heights, Petworth and 16th Street Heights. The garden is owned by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation and is managed by a Garden Board made up of community garden members. Twin Oaks is on the South side of Taylor Street East of 14th Street.”
  • Upshur Community Garden (Petworth)
    • Location: 1325 Upshur St NW, Washington, DC 20011
    • About: “Upshur Community Garden is located at the top of Upshur Park at 14th Street NW and Upshur Street NW, Washington DC which borders the neighborhoods of Columbia Heights, Petworth and 16th Street Heights. The garden is owned by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation and is managed by a volunteer team of garden members. Plots in the garden vary in size and are available for an annual membership fee of $30. The garden has 42 individual plots, 10×15 feet in size. Amenities include: community compost on-site, water, stocked tool shed, ADA accessible plots, pavilion with seating area, pollinator garden, fruit orchard, and community strawberry, raspberry, asparagus, sweet potato, and medicinal herb beds.”
    • Situated in the Friendship Heights neighborhood, this garden offers plots for gardening enthusiasts in the area.
  • Powell Community Farm (Columbia Heights)
    • About: “Urban community farm in Ward 1 run by invested neighbors + DC Dept Parks & Rec. Volunteer Hours: TH 9am-1pm (Veggie Giveaway 11a-1p), SAT 11am-1pm.”
    • This farm is also a partner of the DPR communal farms and holds a weekly free veggie giveaway. Want to receive updates on volunteering, harvesting and program opportunities? email joshua.singer@dc.gov
  • Newark Street Community Garden
    • Location: 3307-3499 39th St NW, Washington, DC 20016
    • About: “The Newark Street Community Garden, a four-acre site at 39th and Newark Streets NW, consists of 234 garden plots maintained by DC residents. NSCGA is an organic community garden. The DC Beekeepers Alliance has also colonized a honeybee hive on the property. In addition to the garden-wide compost bins, there are veggie compost bins available for community use (training is required).”
  • East Capitol Urban Farm (Capitol View)
    • Location: 5929 East Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20019
    • About: “East Capitol Urban Farm is a multi-functional, three acre farm located in southeast Washington, DC. It includes community beds for gardening, an aquaponics system, walking trails, community art, and playspace for children. The physical address of the site which is located directly across the street from the Capitol Heights Metro Station is 5901 East Capitol Street, NE, Washington, DC. Learn more about East Capitol Urban Farm below.”
  • Hill East Community Garden (Capitol Hill)
    • Location: 1700 D St SE, Washington, DC 20003
    • About: “Neighbors in this east Capitol Hill neighborhood came together, worked hard and in a few short years, they turned that dream into a reality. What was once an overgrown, neglected plot of land is now a thriving community garden.”
  • Marvin Gaye Greening Center
    • Location: 5000 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave NE, Washington, DC 20019
    • About: “Long believed to be a private lot, the Marvin Gaye Greening Center sat empty and abandoned for years. Where others saw an overgrown field, Washington Parks & People saw opportunity. After discovering that the lot was in fact public property and part of the Marvin Gaye Park corridor, we were able to, along with a wide range of community partners, to reclaim this long-forgotten plot of earth and transform it into the vibrant cultural, nutritional, economic, and educational hub that it is today. In addition to serving as a base of community stewardship and programming of Marvin Gaye Park, DC’s longest municipal park, the one-acre site provides introductory green job and enterprise training through Parks & People’s Green Corps program, cultural and educational programming through our ParkArts program, park-based health through our Heart & Soul program, and year-round food through our Community Harvest program.”
  • Lederer Gardens
    • Location: 4801 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave NE, Washington, DC 20019
    • About: This farm is also a partner of the DPR communal farms and holds a weekly free veggie giveaway. Want to receive updates on volunteering, harvesting and program opportunities? email joshua.singer@dc.gov
  • Southwest Gardens at Lansburgh Park
    • Location: 1098 Delaware Ave SW, Washington, DC 20024
    • About: “The SW Community Garden opened on July 31st, 2013 with the help of Fiskars, The Home Depot, and the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. The garden is the culmination of a year long effort by a group of green-thumbed SW residents that found a common interest, and worked to bring it to fruition. The garden initially consisted of 34 raised beds: 2 of which are wheelchair accessible, 4 that are specifically reserved for residents of the 4 surrounding public housing complexes, and 10 that are worked communally. In 2014, the garden won a DC Love Your Block grant and added 3 additional plots in October of that year, bringing the total number of plots to 37.”
  • Virginia Avenue Community Garden
    • Location: 1098 9th St SE, Washington, DC 20003
    • About: “The Virginia Avenue Community Garden (VACG) was started in Southeast Washington, DC in 2004 in the Virginia Avenue Park. Since its beginning, the VACG has expanded to full membership capacity, providing local families the opportunity to grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers in a completely organic setting. With over 80 community garden plots, gardeners are assigned plots on a first-come, first-served basis, and commit to providing garden clean-up support throughout the year.”
  • Noyes Park Community Garden
    • Location: 1000 Franklin St NE, Washington, DC 20017
    • About: “Noyes Park is located at 1000 Franklin Street NE in Ward 5, and is classified by DPR as a Small Park. The park was constructed in 2013 and includes a pavilion for community events, children’s play area, exercise equipment, an artificial turf field, a community garden, and a picnic area with grills and tables. The park playground is an extremely popular neighborhood asset and is regularly used by neighborhood children with their parents and caretakers as well as students attending nearby K-12 education facilities through all seasons.”
  • 13th Street Community Park & Garden
    • Location: 1305 C St SE #1301, Washington, DC 20003
    • About: “The 13th Street Community Park & Garden was created by the community for the community. Located at the corner of 13th and C Street, SE in Washington, DC, the space includes a community garden and a landscaped park with benches, native plants, a picnic table, and a fountain. The Park & Garden is a nonprofit run by a volunteer board and maintained by the community around it. Residents of Kentucky Courts apartments and the surrounding neighborhood share the garden plots, which are assigned through an application and waiting list process. Capitol Hill neighbors had the idea to create a park in the space, which used to be an empty concrete lot. They partnered with the D.C. Housing Authority, which owns the land, and Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells to plan, design, and build the space.”
  • Kingman Park – Rosedale Community Garden
    • Location: E St NE, Washington, DC 20002
    • About: “The Kingman Park-Rosedale Community Garden is a gardening space where people from across the neighborhood can become garden members and tend their garden beds and grow local, organic fruit, vegetables, and flowers. Gardeners tend their own garden beds and contribute to the upkeep of our space. We also tend a number of fruit trees that anyone in the neighborhood is welcome to. Our garden space is a place of rest, growing, and community!”
  • Blair Road Community Garden
    • Location:
    • About: “Blair Road Community Garden is one of the largest community gardens in DC, with over 200 plots in more than five acres of garden space bordered by several streets and several garden neighbors. We are proud to announce that, as of 2023, we are officially a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization!”

Organizations & Community Groups

  • DC Department of Parks and Recreation
  • Washington Parks & People
    • About: “Washington Parks & People is DC’s hub for breathing life into public lands & waters for broad community revitalization. Our mission is to grow city-wide park-based community health & justice through innovation & partnerships. Parks & People began 33 years ago in Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, founded by diverse community and parks leaders. We led the transformation of the single most crime-ridden national park in the capital region into one of its safest. Today, we lead greening initiatives across the city — massive land reclamation, native reforestation, watershed restoration, public health and fitness programming, urban agriculture, and green job training — to help revitalize our parks and work for justice alongside our local communities.”
  • Friends of Anacostia Park
    • About: “One of the city’s largest green spaces, the Park comprises 1,100 acres situated along the Anacostia River, which is currently undergoing a renaissance of restoration and recreation. An important ecological buffer between city and river, the Park is also a popular destination for organized athletics, picnicking, biking, kayaking, walking, hiking and recreational fishing. Historically, the development of Anacostia Park has been impacted by racial and economic inequities—from the establishment of racially segregated recreation areas and sewage infrastructure that polluted the river to the interstate construction that cut off nearby neighborhoods from the Park. Today, we work with the National Park Service to center the needs of the surrounding community in the revitalization effort and ensure that residents are plugged into the planning.”
  • Tregaron Conservancy
    • About: “‘In a city of world-famous and popular monuments . . . Tregaron was hands down the most popular destination in TCLF’s first-ever ‘What’s Out There’ Weekend, September 25-26.’ (The Cultural Landscape Foundation October 2010 E-Newsletter). The Tregaron Conservancy is a nonprofit organization founded in 2006. As owner and steward of 13 acres of protected parkland, the Tregaron Conservancy is restoring and maintaining this important historic landscape for the benefit of the public.”
  • DPR Communal Farms
    • About: “DPR Communal Farms are urban Ag sites that are organized as communal production farms, managed by DPR staff and community volunteers, with the purpose of providing various ways for community members to receive free food, volunteer, and participate in hands on educational opportunities. Communal farms can produce more food than community gardens but are more communal than partner urban farms.”
  • DC Mutual Aid Apothecary
    • About: “A COVID response project in ward 7 DC, getting herbal medicine + education to folks who need it. Est. summer 2020. Support us here“
  • City Blossoms
    • About: “City Blossoms is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that cultivates the well-being of our communities through creative programming in kid-driven gardens. Since 2008, City Blossoms has designed, developed, collaborated on, and provided programming or trainings for over 100 projects throughout Washington, DC and nationwide. We work with Black, Latino, and children of immigrant backgrounds, ages 2-19. City Blossoms programming is centered in neighborhoods where children and youth may not otherwise have access to safe, community-led green space.”
  • DC Gardens
    • About: “Welcome to DC Gardens – a nonprofit campaign to promote public gardens and gardening in the Washington, D.C. area. Browse the 16 major gardens or select a month to see what they all look like then. Almost all photos here are available for download at no charge, with credit to the garden. Check out the extensive “Local Info” above to find out where to find plants, learn to garden, and connect with other gardeners.”
  • Dreaming Out Loud
    • About: “DOL is rebuilding urban, community-based food systems through cooperative social enterprise: increasing access to healthy food, improving community health, supporting entrepreneurs and cooperatives from low-income communities; and creating opportunities for at-risk residents to earn sustainable, family-supporting wages and build wealth. We believe that all communities deserve equal access to fresh, healthy food choices, but that achieving this requires moving beyond the “access” paradigm to a focus on community self-determination and food sovereignty. We are working to create an integrated pipeline to jobs, economic opportunity, and community wealth-building for our most marginalized communities, utilizing the food system as the catalyst.”
  • Soilful City
    • About: “Soilful seeks to bring justice to communities and heal the sacred relationship between communities of African decent and Mother earth. Soilful views farming not only as a way to cultivate food and sovereignty for communities, but as a way to heal and rebuild our souls. We utilize the agricultural and the political principals of Agroecology to work in solidarity with under resourced communities to develop a collective consciousness about restoring bodies, families, communities, and the land in which they live and to create a harmony amongst individuals, communities, and the natural world.”

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