The first gardens on the Cummer property were designed by Ossian Cole Simonds in 1903, just after the adjoining house was completed. Thomas Meehan & Sons of Philadelphia redesigned this garden and created what would become known as the English Garden in 1910. Ellen Biddle Shipman designed the Italian Garden in 1931. Sections of Clara and Waldo's garden were designed by William Lyman Phillips, a partner in the Olmstead Brothers firm. The Olmsted Brothers also advised Ninah on a design for a wall garden in 1922, but she chose to plant a garden designed by William Mercer of Philadelphia. The Cummer Gardens were selected for the National Register of Historic Places because they represent the history of American landscape design in the first four decades of the twentieth century.