Funded by Congress in 1988, the National Bird Garden, at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., is an exhibit designed to show how to attract birds into domestic gardens. It is named after the founder of the National Audubon Society, Carl Buchheister.

The twenty-five acre site, bisected by a narrow ravine draining into a man-made pond, was conceived with three educational purposes:

Introducing birds and illustrating their needs.

Showing the visitor how to welcome birds into the garden.

Inviting humans to explore the birds' habitat.

The HOH team of Ian Tyndall, Lanshing Hwang, and Dan Hoover designed the garden to be a series of vignettes, each with its own personality, and with the preferred plants displayed in a distinctive context. In this way, the visitor sees that a garden can take many forms yet still be welcoming to birds.

The entry to the garden begins with a sequence designed to symbolically transform a human into a bird. The entry portal recalls a bird rising from a field of wild grasses. Passing through this, the visitor immediately steps onto an elevated walkway, zig-zagging through the trees above the ravine, and landing at the introductory exhibit, Birds on Stage. Here, in a easily understood manner, the human audience learns the birds' basic requirements - shelter, nesting sites, food and particularly water. With the forest as a backdrop, bird houses, feeding stations and a chalice-like bird bath are arrayed before us as if on a stage.

Around the existing Curator's house are clustered the Domestic Gardens. They vary in size from a tiny hummingbird courtyard to a half acre suburban back yard, and include the plants most attractive to birds in the Mid-Atlantic region. These gardens vary in style like most gardens across the country. The Suburban one is casual in its style, while a formal ellipse of holly trees is the focus of another.

Geographically in the center of the wild habitat is a small pond tightly framed by the wooded ravine, it opens out towards an adjacent golf course. The Pond Habitat is a perfect setting for attracting ducks, other wild fowl and bats. It comprises three water-oriented habitats, the pond itself, a marsh area with a thin covering of water, and at the most accessible area, a series of hummocks to allow controlled public access with a dramatic view of the pond.

In the Butterfly Meadow (below), evergreen shrubs and perennial meadow plants attract both birds and butterflies. The garden is shaped like a butterfly and this can be seen on a walk through the insect's head with its antenna-like hibernating boxes and along the length of its swelling abdomen, above a border of damp mud.