Follow along as we take you behind the scenes of Longwood’s archives, including a typical day for the archives team and some collection highlights.

Many moving parts came into play when planning for and opening our new gardens, glasshouses, and landscapes. One such component was the multi-faceted (and multi-year) approach to creating the hundreds of plant display labels for our new spaces.

We’re thrilled to welcome you to an unparalleled new chapter in our legacy—a 17-acre expansion and reimagination of our grounds, serving as the most ambitious undertaking in our history. With the addition of these 17 acres of new gardens, new landscapes, and new buildings are many more opportunities for holiday magic.

Our Garden Shop has gone above and beyond to bring that magic to life in the form of heartfelt keepsakes, one-of-a-kind handmade finds, apparel, and so much more … so you can take home some of the magic.

With our incredible new dining experience now open, we can share with you not only our beautiful new dining room, bar, and lounge, but also our new, imaginative menus that celebrate fresh, seasonal, and sustainable ingredients—many of which have been grown just steps away.

To move the Cascade Garden into its new, free-standing, custom-built glasshouse required us to relocate, reconstruct, and preserve this prized garden in a way no other institution has done before—stone by stone and plant by plant.

Our November 22 opening of Longwood Reimagined continues to draw nearer, and with each passing day not only do we continue to make great progress, but we grow even more excited to share its beauty with you.

Featuring five unique garden spaces—including the redesigned Ornamental Kitchen Garden—the Idea Garden echoes some of the classical elements of the Main Fountain Garden and blends the formal with the less formal, and notably the agrarian.

Among those helping make Longwood Reimagined an upcoming reality is The Challenge Program, a local nonprofit that provides vocational training for Delaware’s youth to empower them with confidence, skills, and purpose—and the makers of custom furnishings that will grace the new buildings opening with Longwood Reimagined.

As our most ambitious expansion, reimagination, and preservation of our Conservatory and surrounding landscape in a century continues to take shape, we’re so pleased to share with you the latest moments and milestones along the way.

With its name composed of two Japanese characters that mean “grass” and “thing”, the literal translation of kusamono—a Japanese botanical art of small, potted grasses traditionally displayed next to bonsai as seasonal accent plants—may suggest that this Japanese botanical art is unassuming or falls secondary to its bonsai counterpart.

We recently marked a major horticultural moment in our Longwood Reimagined: A New Garden Experience project—28 major moments, to be exact.

We are proud to represent our Professional Horticulture Program classmates in leading the planning and preparation for the class of 2023 trip to Italy, taking place in late May.

In recent months, we’ve reached several notable milestones as our garden expansion continues to take shape and as our cultural landscape evolves … and now is a wonderful time to share with you some of that progress.

Our bonsai collection is about to grow by significant depth and breadth and, of course, tremendous beauty.

Even though the Waterlily Court can’t be visited until its 2024 reopening, the aquatic plants for which this space is known—including our famed Victoria water-platters—are still growing and thriving while awaiting their newly refreshed home.

Our Orchid House has been completely restored in the same way our founder Pierre S. du Pont would have done it himself—with excellence.

As our Gardens continue to take shape and as our cultural landscape evolves, we are delighted to share with you a few of the many facets of this incredibly detailed project.

Whether we’re transplanting our plant collections or moving our precious, one-of-kind library and archives (right down to our oldest book, dated 1635), we must practice a high level of care along the way.

We are the steward of one of the most important collections of gardens and glasshouses, and one perfect example of that commitment lies in the 55 plants we’ve moved from their previous West Conservatory locations to new permanent homes in our Main and East Conservatory display spaces.