I Love Longwood, Again

     In conjunction with attending last October's Perennial Plant Conference, two coworkers and I were able to visit Chanticleer, and Longwood Gardens - twice. On the night before the conference we went to see Longwood's Nightscape, which is a state of the art combination of original music, color, animation, and movement - all projected onto the garden's plants. You will have to take my word for how spectacular it was, as I was unable to capture any of the video due to exhausted batteries. It was worth every penny of the $27 price of admission. Two days later on the way back to Virginia, we stopped by again for a more traditional visit; neither of my coworkers had ever seen Longwood in the daylight. I was uncharacteristically conservative with my photography, but what follows is some of what we saw.

     Helenium

     Gomphrena, maybe 'Fireworks'

      Hibiscus 'Fith Dimension'

     Sarracenia

     The next three photos were taken in Longwood's Theatre Garden.

     I took this photo in their Idea Garden, and I got the idea that I really like this combination of colors. 

     Being fall, garden mums had a huge presence in the plantings along their Flower Garden Walk, which is always a must-see for me. I had to fight the urge to run jump into these great big bosomy pink mums.

     I have never been a fan of rainbow color schemes in garden design. Nonetheless, I had a hard time pulling myself from the a large display of assorted Dahlia.

     Unrelated to Longwood, there is about a week left for bloggers to enter my annual Winter Walk-Off. Click here for details.

The Meadow Garden at Longwood

     I became fond of meadows at an early age. Growing up in the Piedmont of Virginia on the outskirts of Richmond, our then relatively new neighborhood was surrounded by several meadows that made for great play and exploration. Only a few years earlier they were likely to have been cow pastures. I also have a fond memory of dove hunting with my father on a late fall morning in a wild meadow. I was more interested in the swaying grasses, odd seed pods, and the burs and patches sticking to my pants than I was in shooting doves. Along the coast here in Tidewater, meadows are very temporary situations - clear a patch of ground, turn your back, and a forest of loblolly pines has taken root. With this nearly innate fondness, I really enjoyed my October visit with two of my co-workers to Longwood Gardens' Meadow Garden.

     Either by design or circumstance, one of the main entrances to the Meadow Garden takes you past Longwood's Italian Water Garden, creating quite the contrast in gardening styles. Personally, I think classic Italian Gardens are best left in Italy.

     The entrance takes you through a wooded area, and on the day we visited the maples were showing color and casting shadows. One of several beautifully designed bridges leads you over a lake and to an equally beautiful pavilion where volunteers orient visitors and answer questions. I wish I had taken photos of these structures, but I was distracted by other things.

     To augment what was already here, Longwood added masses of additional plants from 100 species that are both appropriate to the site, and appropriate to the Brandywine Valley - all planted and managed using current best ecological practices. To experience the Meadow Garden there are trails and boardwalks throughout its 86 acres that lead visitors through the surrounding wood edges, over wetlands, and through the meadow itself. A few of the trails, and vistas, lead to the Webb Farmhouse, built in the 1700's, and revealing another, cultural, layer of the garden. I asked one of the farmhouse volunteers what her her favorite season was in the garden. She said late summer when many of the flowers were at their peak. With the sun, the colors, and all the birdsong, I told her I couldn't imagine it being any nicer than it was that day.

     Even though we knew that it took an incredible amount of work to make it look so, the garden felt incredibly natural and very easy on the land. We left hoping we had just seen the future of horticulture.

Longwood in Mid-October

     As part of our itinerary for the Perennial Plant Conference in October, we scheduled a stop at Longwood Gardens on the way back home to Virginia. Though I have been there several times before, this was my first visit in the fall. Since I now work in public horticulture, my time at Longwood is seen with a different set of eyes. I marvel at the seemingly spare-no-expense attitude, and speculate at what needs to take place behind the scenes to make it look as it does. I am not envious; I am actually glad there is a place where people who do what I do are seemingly unhindered by lack of money, personnel, or facilities (even if it only appears that way), and where the public is shown the potential of horticulture.

     Outside the visitors center we were greeted with a display of bananas, Crinum, variegated Manihot, bright yellow mums, and a new-to-me Cassia (C. didymobotrya), seeds of which I have already sourced.

    We first headed towards the Flower Garden Walk, where several Salvia species and cultivars (especially S. leucantha), dahlias, mums, and ornamental peppers were vying for center stage. Along the way there were containers to admire.

     Entering Pierce's Woods, plants more typical of the eastern woodland were showing their fall colors.

     At the Conservatory the Chrysanthemum Festival was just getting started, though most were not yet open. However, there were many other things to look at.

     While we were in Philly the local weather forecasters were calling for the first freeze of the season for the next night. With that different set of eyes earlier mentioned, I kept seeing many plants throughout Longwood that would need to be brought indoors for protection, and it looked like it was going to take a Herculean effort to get it all done. The three of us were happy this wasn't going to be our job, and that we could still enjoy all of the tropicals in the garden, including those in their famous waterlily display at the Conservatory.

     The last stop we made at Longwood was the restroom. Each one of the doors in the green wall leads to an individual, single seat, very private, spacious, unisex restroom. 

     The thing I was most looking forward to seeing at Longwood was the new Meadow Garden, and it did not disappoint. We got lost there, but not directionally. I will need to show you in another post.