Longwood Gardens in October, Part I
Yesterday Judy and I returned from a visit with our friends Carol and David, who live outside Baltimore. On the last day of our visit Carol drove us the 90 minutes to Longwood Gardens in southeast Pennsylvania.
As we approached the visitor center I noticed some people planting bulbs. This is a sight that always gladdens my heart, though it did make me wonder if we were visiting a bit too late in the year.
At 1,077 acres, Longwood Gardens is absolutely huge. It started out as a farm and arboretum run by a family of farmer-botanists. Early in the last century it was purchased by the industrialist Pierre du Pont, an avid gardener. After du Pont’s death, Longwood was turned into a public garden operated by a private foundation.
I shouldn’t have worried about there being enough to see. In fact, there was so much that Judy took well over 300 photographs. In an attempt to do justice to this place, I think I’ll do at least three different posts: the first mainly on the Flower Garden Walk and adjoining areas, the second on the Meadow Garden, and the third on the Conservatory.
On the way to the Flower Garden Walk we walked along a row of absolutely huge Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum). Longwood has many venerable trees, including some of the biggest specimens I have seen.
The Flower Garden Walk is a mostly old-fashioned rather formal garden. Not my usual thing, but I couldn’t resist the masses of color and mix of plants. The Walk itself is 600′ long.
Containers are filled with annuals, grasses, and conifers. And everywhere there was a mix of majestic evergreen and deciduous trees providing background and counterpoint.
Chrysanthemums were massed in many of the borders. Here they were mostly single-flowered and sweetly fragrant, which surprised me.
Old Mr. du Pont had a thing about fountains, a point we shall return to.
Other borders were full of Dahlias, Mexican Sage (Salvia leucantha), Pentas, and Cannas.
I am not such a New Perennial/Natural Garden/Native Plant enthusiast that I cannot be moved by masses of colorful annuals, especially when they reach such imposing heights and come in such stirring colors.
Looking out through an ivy-covered arbor at the Flower Gardem Walk. I like how they cut back the Smokebush (Cotinus obovatus) to just a few tall purple-leaved stems.
There is a Wisteria Garden I would dearly love to visit in May or June. There is a traditional Wisteria-covered arbor, but also several old Wisterias that are pruned like small trees leaning on tall metal poles.
The colors of Pierce’s Woods burst like fireworks above one of Longwood’s two lakes.
Many native shrubs and trees to be seen like this Mapleleaf Viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium).
Here’s the Peirce-du Pont house, which began as a farmhouse before du Pont turned it into his “country place”. I usually avoid going into the houses attached to gardens – who wants to look at a bunch of furniture? But Judy and Carol were determined, so I trudged along behind them.
Actually, the house now contains a small atrium, which is nice, and a modest museum on the history of Longwood. I also watched a short laudatory film about Pierre du Pont, who was portrayed as nothing less than a heroic paragon of virtue. No doubt the man loved his trees and flowers, and was a genuine philanthropist.
He was also arguably a victim of the social mores of his day. Du Pont married when he was 44, but had a long-term intimate relationship with his chauffeur, (a man 26 years his junior). This relationship could not be acknowledged by the du Pont clan, then or even now.
On the other hand, du Pont was something of a would-be Koch brother, though not as effective. In the 1930s he poured money into the American Liberty League, an organization that opposed the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and child labor laws. When Franklin Roosevelt spoke of “malefactors of great wealth”, du Pont was one of the people he had in mind.
OK, enough politics. Leaving the house, we came to a wonderful model railroad. And it was free! At the Chicago Botanic Garden you have to pay an extra admission fee.
Look, Thomas the Tank Engine! My kids loved Thomas and his friends, as well as Mr. Conductor.
We went to Longwood’s outdoor theater to view the fountain show. I could have skipped this, but was once again overruled by Judy and Carol. The fountain show consisted of many jets of water rising and falling in time to a couple of John Phillip Sousa marches blasted through loudspeakers. The most entertaining part was a little girl, about five, who was inspired by Sousa to perform an impromptu dance that was part Swan Lake, part hip hop, and part little kid running around.
Actually, this fountain show was only a shadow of the traditional show performed at the main fountain garden, represented in the map above, which could give Versailles a run for its money..
Currently it is being updated and made even more magnificent, and looks like this. It is closed to the public until 2017.
Oh, and I shouldn’t forget the Topiary Garden, for people who like that kind of thing. It was right next to the rose garden, which had quite a few roses in bloom, a surprise for late October. Many were nicely fragrant. We didn’t get any pictures, though.
Longwood is full of curving paths that disappear into woods and behind hedges. It’s hard to restrain yourself from following each and every one.
Coming soon: Longwood’s Meadow Garden.
gardeninacity 
thank you for taking us along. By the looks (or more the read) of it, we both like natural gardens more than formal stuff and these silly, cut green bushes…
We do share that preference, though I can still enjoy other styles of gardening. I like a lot of color. Really formal gardens that have little more than boxwood and statuary do bore me.
Lovely photos! It looks like you could get lost in there for a couple of days… Definitely a garden to visit again in a different season.
Absolutely! I think you could visit every day for a week.
There’s never a bad time of year at Longwood. Looking forward to the next installment.
I’m working on it already.
What a huge place. There are some magnificent pics here (autumnal trees reflected in water) but gardens on this scale always make me feel uncomfortable. I can’t help thinking about how much it all costs and wondering if that money couldn’t be put to better use. Especially the work on the fountain… Does that sound very curmudgeonly?! And I’m shocked that the guy’s significant relationship with his chauffeur is still not properly acknowledged. It’s 2015!
The family is political and very conservative. Pierre ‘Pete’ du Pont IV was Governor of Delaware in the 80s and ran for President in the Republican primary. As for better uses of the money, I personally wouldn’t invest so much in the fountains but I do think that public spaces generally are a worthy recipient of public and private funds.
I agree that public spaces, especially beautiful ones, are worth the expense but sometimes it can be a little over-the-top (it was the fountain construction that made me think this, not the beautiful planting, etc). Politics depresses me.
I completely understand. That’s why I almost always stay away from it on this blog.
Me too on mine (although I sometimes HAVE to comment) 🙂
Beautifully captured, Longwood is great any time of the year, there’s just so much to see and do. We’re fortunate to live just 15 minutes away from this wonderful place.
Yes, you are! Glad you think we conveyed a sense of the place, with so much going on it isn’t easy.
Thank you for sharing all – Need to get my butt out there one year – and I love that Wisteria Garden!
I want to get there in time to see the Wisteria bloom.
Great to see Judy’s wonderful photos and your take on Longwood, looking forward to the next updates. I visited there once in July. Thought it was great but didn’t get to see as much as I’d have liked. (I really don’t “get” fountain-music-light shows.) The Mapleleaf Viburnum is fine.
I know what you mean about the fountains. Tried to grow the Mapleleaf Viburnum but it died on me, sad to say.
A garden full of wonders. Great.
Thanks.
What a place! And what a story about Du Pont. History certainly give us perspective on our own times. The great writer and historian Jacques Barzun asserted that for him, studying history calmed his jitters. (He was a young boy in France during World War I. Lots to be jittery about.)
For me, the more remote the history, the more calming it gets. Still useful things to be learned, though.
Oooh, I am so envious! When my daughter and I went to Pittsburgh for a few days in July, I contemplated making the drive to Longwood. But I realized it was a four-hour drive there and didn’t think I had the stamina to drive there and back in a day while she was in meetings. Now I wish I had made the time:( What a fantastic place! I will definitely keep this one on my bucket list. As much as we complain about big business today, the early captains of American industry certainly weren’t great role models either, were they?
Pennsylvania is a BIG state, just like Illinois, except it goes east to west. Those long car trips can be exhausting, even though you’re not moving.
Somehow I find the billionaires of today to be a scarier bunch.
Thanks, Jason, for the reporting. It’s been a long time since we visited Longwood Gardens. I look forward to scenes 2 and 3.
Working on them tonight.
What an amazing house and garden–just goes to show what a dollar or two can do toward a beautiful setting! So glad it’s open to the public–lots of great ideas there!
Yes, it is nice to have a few bucks to play with.
What an amazing place! Thank you for sharing that with us – truly wondeful
You’re welcome.
That’s quite a garden. I’m surprised to see that many flowers still in bloom!
It was a pleasant surprise.
You have brought this fabled garden to life for me. Thanks! Love the image of the tiny dancer. Elton would be proud.
Wish we had gotten a picture of her, or even better, some video.
So far so good! I’m always interested to see the first impressions of people who visit gardens I’ve been to, and your photos really bring out the best of Longwood and the autumn gardens! I may have to sneak down there one of these weekends…. maybe I’ll give it a go once their Christmas decorations go up
Thanks. That sounds like it would be a nice trip.
You’ve reminded me that it’s been a good 10 years since the last time I visited Longwood (embarassing, because it is about 3 hours away … the Traffic Gods willing!) and now that the crazy Jersey Shore Weekend season is over, it might indeed be a nice drive..hmm.. .:-)
Sounds like a good plan to me.
I’ve long wanted to visit this garden; maybe you’ll inspire me to actually get there.
Not to far from your old college.
I have yet to visit Longwood or Chanticleer although both are on my spring To Do list. What a cool place. I think topiaries are strange so I might skip them. But I’d love to see that long mixed border. 🙂
The mixed border is worth seeing, I’d like to see it in each season.
Sensory overload here. I have several MG friends who travel there yearly, but I’ve never been. Thank you for sharing your visit. 🙂
You’re welcome!
How interesting…I rather like topiaries….but they can be overly formal and old fashioned. That is a lot of acres! I did like the second fountain picture and would have liked to have seen a pic of the little girl dancing!I loved Thomas and the atrium.xxx
I wish we had taken a picture of the little girl, though I’m not sure if the parents would have objected.
Love the fountains, love the model railroad, love the beautiful fall colors of the woods. The topiaries are very interesting. I enjoy seeing them, though not my personal style. Who knows, if I had gazillion dollars, they might become my style!
If I had a gazillion dollars, I would try out a lot of styles!
Hello Jason, over 1000 acres, where does one start and how can one possibly get round everything in a day, or even a week? The size and scale of the revitalisation of the fountains looks as though the result is going to be jaw-dropping, in the meantime, I’m happy to settle for the meandering paths and autumns colours. It looked like a great day out.
Hi Sunil. You really can’t get around everything in a day, though I suppose it helped that a large area was off limits when we visited.
I’m late to the Longwood party! Lovely pictures and brought back memories of my visit in October 2015.
Glad to jog those pleasant memories.
I have heard any season is the time to see Longwood, and I can see that is true….on my wish list!
You’d enjoy it.