Longwood Gardens is located about 10 miles north of Wilmington, Delaware and about 25 miles west of Philadelphia. My sister, Andrea, put this on our list of things to do; as you will see below, it was definitely worth the 2 1/2 hour drive, and a gorgeous day.
The land was originally purchased from William Penn by fellow Quaker, George Peirce (in a photo below, you will see the Peirce-du Pont house) in 1700. It was a working farm until about 1798, when the Peirce brothers started it as an arboretum. Pierre du Pont purchased it in 1906 to save the trees from being sold for lumber. It was his private estate from 1906 to sometime in the 1930's. He did open the gardens up occasionally to the public during that time, but after his death in 1954, the gardens have been open all year.
Today the 1,077-plus acre Longwood Gardens consists of 20 outdoor
gardens and 20 indoor gardens within 4.5 acres of heated
greenhouses, known as conservatories. It contains 11,000 different types of plants and trees, as well as fountains. The main conservatory is one of the world's greatest greenhouse structures (4 of the 4.5 acres) and is home to 5,500 types of plants.
(Thanks to Wikipedia for making this easy)
(I don't normally add this many photos [42], but I didn't want to split it into two posts and it was hard to pick out ones to leave out)
Entrance to the visitors center.
Topiary Gardens- First started in 1938.
Inside the Gardens.
A sundial in the Gardens.
The 'old' fountain. This is what it looked like. They are building a new one that will not be completed until the spring of 2017(see next photo).
Just by the size of this site tells you how impressive the new one will be
The 4 acre conservatory.
Photos from here on down to 'Lunch Time' were taken in the Conservatory.
Caroline and Andrea posing.
The Silver Garden.
A banana tree.
A Rabbit's Foot Fern. Planted in 1952, they are not sure how much it weighs, but it is 9 1/2' in diameter.
Chenille Plant - about 6' tall.
A Nectarine 'tree.' It 'climbs' up a fence and is trimmed flat.
It seems to go on forever !
Orchids.
Bougainvillea archway. About 6' to 8' tall.
A tropical tree forest.
A bonsai Crepe Myrtle. Started in 1944 and is about 2' tall.
A bonsai Azalea. Started in the 1970's and about 18" tall.
A glass hallway filled with plants.
A glass room filled with plants.
An outdoor pool area. It was closed for maintenance, but was due to open about 2 weeks after we left. Note the bougainvillea in the archway - it is the one 6 photos above.
A bougainvillea archway.
A panorama inside.
How do you like this hallway of restrooms ? There are 17 individual restrooms surrounded by 47,000 ferns and other plants on 4,000 sq. feet of wall space.
To the right is Purple Throat Wort.
A Jaboticaba Tree (member of the myrtle family). About 10' tall.
Lunch time !
The Peirce - du Pont private residence. The brick portion to the right dates back to the late 1700's. The middle conservatory and 3 story brick addition to the left were added around 1914.
A fountain that comes on every hour for about 10 minutes to the marching music of John Phillip Sousa.
Can't see me with my perfectly camouflaged shirt, can you?!!
A fountain leading to the Purple Garden.
Strolling in the Purple Garden.
I wish this had come out as impressive as it was in person.
Wisterias.
Neat stuff everywhere.
One of their small lakes.
Italian Water Garden.
They even had walking trails through a meadow.
Closeup of the house in the photo above.
Panorama of the meadow.
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