Grottos are natural or artificial caves used since antiquity as spaces of devotion or retreat in the landscape. From the the caves of Homer’s Odyssey and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, to the rock-cut grottos of Hellenistic Rhodes and spring-fed crypts of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi, the tradition of grottos is founded at the intersection of history and myth.

On July 27, the inaugural cohort of Longwood Fellows traveled to Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the first in a series of Leadership Salons that will expose the Fellows to thought leaders in public horticulture and beyond and to the challenging topics they face in the nonprofit sector. This first salon, led by Danielle Rice, Ph.D., Director of Museum Leadership at Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, focused on the history of urban public spaces—an appropriate place to begin.

West 8 urban design & landscape architecture has had the privilege of serving as master planners and landscape architects at Longwood Gardens since 2009. During this time, our team has gotten to know the culture, staff, traditions and seasons at Longwood, and walked every corner of the 1,077-acre site. For the Master Plan and the Main Fountain Garden we have worked with Longwood to take a big step back from the complex details of the horticulture and day-to-day operations. Along with our client team at Longwood, we have a huge ambition—to further root the Gardens within the canon of the greatest gardens of the world.

“Leadership” can be an amorphous term. Most agree that it is an important quality to possess these days, from scholars to the average person on the street, but how is the term defined and what does it mean to study leadership in 2017? Beginning with this post, the Longwood Gardens Fellows invite you to “Follow the Fellows” as they define the term for themselves and actively seek to develop their leadership skills and personal brands.

This July, in the dark of the new moon, an unusual celebration will be taking place all over the United States. No, it’s not the Fourth of July—it’s National Moth Week! From July 22 through July 30, nature lovers and moth enthusiasts across the country will be celebrating these secretive, under-appreciated insects.

In July 1906, Pierre S. du Pont purchased the rights to the historic Peirce’s Park and surrounding lands, thereby establishing Longwood Gardens. One hundred and eleven years after Mr. du Pont’s purchase, we commemorate this historic act with our Founder’s Day weekend of festivities.

Longwood is home to the most significant fountain collection in North America and in June we celebrate all the fountains in our Gardens. From Pierre S. du Pont’s first single-jet fountain on the Flower Garden Walk to the 1,719-jet Main Fountain Garden, guests can learn more about Longwood’s fountains with tours and two new exhibits...

What does our 2017 Community Read selection, The Way Things Work Now, have in common with our Main Fountain Garden? Both are works of art and engineering that engage the imagination. Both were created by masters of their fields—David Macaulay is an award-winning author whose words and drawings help us imagine how technology works, while Pierre S. du Pont was a visionary business leader whose love of fountains placed that technology on spectacular display. It’s one thing to stand in awe of such technological wonders—and quite another thing to wonder, and to seek to understand. That’s what David Macaulay and this year’s Community Read do so well—they make us wonder not only about things that inspire awe, but also about things we might otherwise take for granted.

On Friday, March 3, the Longwood Graduate Students presented their annual symposium entitled “Growing Together: Cultivating Change in the Economic Landscape.” The daylong educational experience sought to engage attendees in big picture thinking. From how the public horticulture industry uses vacant city lots for urban farming to the way public gardens can advocate for their mission while leveraging current events and politics, the riveting speakers and crowd discussions left no mind untilled.

With soft, pastel-colored flowers, Clivia miniata ‘Longwood Sunset’ is a color breakthrough for our 40-year-old clivia breeding program. Apricot and peach tones imbue the reflexed, overlapping tepals with hues of a blushing sunset. Before being named and released, ‘Longwood Sunset’ received multiple awards at the North American Clivia Show in 2014. This year ‘Longwood Sunset’ will be exclusively available for purchase through a partnership with White Flower Farm.

Have you ever wondered how your smartphone works? How about a telescope? Or helium pants? This year, the Longwood Gardens Community Read invites you to explore the wonders of science, technology, and engineering that shape our world. Pick up this year’s titles—The Way Things Work Now by David Macaulay, and Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty—to find fun and fascinating answers to these questions, and the inspiration to ask many more.

Orchids are one of Longwood Gardens’ oldest and largest plant collections, with more than 2,200 different hybrids and species. On any given day, several hundred blooms are on display in the Orchid House in the Conservatory. For the past two years, this extensive and historic collection has been managed by Greg Griffis, Longwood’s orchid grower. As Greg acknowledges, a lot of work is required to keep all these orchids healthy and flourishing, and he relies on the help of a team of dedicated volunteers. I’m privileged to be one of them!

The 2017 Orchid Extravaganza at Longwood Gardens is certainly the most outstanding display I’ve seen here since we started this exhibition! There are more orchids in more places than you could hope to enjoy in one morning. The Longwood team has scoured the orchid world to bring you some of the most dynamic selections available to gardeners! The careful composition of colors and textures is what really makes this extravaganza so special.

Orchids are an incredibly unique and fascinating group of plants. Many people can identify a Phalaenopsis (moth orchid) or Cattleya (the old corsage orchids), but the question often is asked, “What makes an orchid an orchid?” Orchids have some morphological (physical) traits that make them stand out from other plant families. In orchids, many of their floral parts come in groups of three.

Every season, our gardeners strive to create new and innovative displays while preserving the spirit and traditions of A Longwood Christmas. For this year’s display, Senior Gardener Koa Kanamee spearheaded the brainstorming, design, and execution of the largest “Living Tree” in Longwood’s history. Standing in the flooded Fern Floor of the Exhibition Hall at 30 feet tall and 20 feet wide, the tree boasts 1,300 individually potted plants, including red poinsettias, white Euphorbia fulgens, Canary ivy, Hedera canariensis, white Phalaenopsis orchids, and hand-painted winged Euonymus.

Christmas at Longwood: gorgeous floral displays? Check. Beautiful, elegant decorations throughout the Conservatory? Check. Hundreds of thousands of lights sparkling in our outdoor gardens? Check. Music of the season? Check, check, and double check. Anyone who has visited Longwood Gardens or who has learned a little bit of our history will know that music and the performing arts have always been an important part of our Gardens.

Every year during A Longwood Christmas, we feature a small, tucked-away display of poinsettia cultivars in our North Passage (adjacent to our Bonsai display). These varieties are part of our efforts to continually improve the quality of our horticulture displays and introduce new plants to our guests. Midway through the Christmas season, a panel of gardeners, growers, researchers, and our display designer meet up to evaluate the poinsettias and decide which plants we want to grow in the future. Here are some of the panel’s thoughts from this year.

When our founder, Pierre S. du Pont, purchased the property where Longwood Gardens now stands, he did so to rescue and conserve an exceptional collection of historic trees originally planted by the Peirce family. Peirce family members, who began farming the land in the 1700s, were interested in natural history and planted an arboretum covering 15 acres. Since the time of du Pont’s purchase, we have continued to protect the original stand of trees—now called Peirce’s Park—while developing and adding to the collection.

For a second season, staff members from all corners of the Gardens used their creative talents to design garden plots in our Trial Garden—all while engaging in a friendly competition. The process is a way for us to showcase new plants for our guests, evaluate each plant’s suitability for our display, and spotlight our staff’s design talents. Participants selected three to eight plants from a list of more than 160 plant species and cultivars. This year we had a total of 15 different combinations, including the top three combinations from last year's Trial Garden. The results are in!

The final installment of Nightscape's Artist & Friends wrapped up the speaker series with a discussion about the future of virtual experiences. Kevin Ritchie and Mark McCallum of Klip Collective joined founding member Ricardo Rivera to discuss the future of virtual reality and its relationship to fields as varied as art, design, healthcare, and military training; and the place of human agency within art and immersive experiences.