With support from a grant through Pennsylvania’s Wild Resource Conservation Program in 2024, Longwood Gardens recognized the unique opportunity to expand its existing seed bank and create the first conservation-focused seed bank in the state.

Climate change is reshaping ecosystems, growing conditions, water resources, and biodiversity around the world. As a public garden committed to excellence in horticulture, conservation, education, and innovation, we recognize both the responsibility and the opportunity to help address those challenges.

It’s not every day that you canoe in the boundary waters of Minnesota, let alone do it for days on end while leading a squad of people to fight 30,000+ acres of raging wildfire.

As we prepare to celebrate Native Species Day on May 16, in this post we address one of the most frequently asked questions we receive in our Gardens: why do we have plants that fall within the invasive category here at Longwood?

From reducing steep slopes that are more vulnerable to erosion, to protecting our iconic trees, to thoughtfully rerouting its trails, the care we put into our evolving Meadow Garden is a fantastic example of adapting to changing conditions and stewarding a dynamic landscape, while creating meaningful, beautiful experiences for our guests.

An observation posted from Longwood appeared to show a species long presumed extinct. What followed is a story about curiosity — but also about science, patience, persistence, and decades of thoughtful stewardship.

Here, ahead of Reverse the Red Day—a global movement and International Union for the Conservation of Nature initiative that encourages biodiversity conservation on a global scale—we share the latest in conservation horticulture at Longwood and what’s ahead.

On January 24, we officially launch our new Science Strategy, a framework guiding our science going forward.

This rare horticultural gem first came to Longwood nearly 70 years ago, and we use that original plant to propagate a crop each year for A Longwood Christmas.

Longwood Gardens has joined the newly launched Illegal Plant Trade Coalition, a global alliance led by Botanic Gardens Conservation International, which unites gardens, scientists, conservation organizations, and enforcement agencies to reduce demand, support legal trade, and protect threatened plants.

The Longwood Gardens Library was very fortunate to receive a recent gift reflective of our commitment to the conservation of native orchids: a rare 1931 two-volume set of Orchids of the North Eastern United States photographed from nature and published by American fine arts photographer Edwin Hale Lincoln.

Located adjacent to our Student Exhibition Garden, our new-this-season bog garden mimics naturally occurring bogs in the eastern United States, where carnivorous plants, orchids, blueberries, and plants that like having “wet feet” can grow naturally.

Our newly enhanced Waterlily Court is an aquatic showcase like no other—and it’s making its much-anticipated debut on May 9, marking the completion of Longwood Reimagined.

Ten years ago, we opened the gates to an expanded garden—and one that’s markedly different from every other garden at Longwood.

Prescribed burns, which occur in such locations as our Meadow Garden, are a way in which we can maintain the meadow’s health by rejuvenating its native plant communities and suppressing woody vegetation that would otherwise quickly overrun it.

From work we do here in our Gardens to manage such threats, to our support of related research led a multidisciplinary team from nine universities and the US Department of Agriculture to deepen understanding of such diseases—we are working to ensure the longevity of this iconic plant in our Gardens and beyond.

With our recent award of a competitive grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources as part of the Wild Resource Conservation Program, we are thrilled to be able to grow our efforts in preserving more species of conservation concern through the expansion of our seed bank.

At Longwood Gardens, we manage our natural areas to both promote native species diversity across the landscape and to help our guests create memorable and inspiring experiences discovering the dynamic beauty of our native habitats.

This year’s Thousand Bloom of Chrysanthemum × morifolium ‘Susono-no-Hikari’ started its journey as a vegetative cutting 18 months ago—and today is not only a sight to behold, but a culminating example of the unchanging beauty and art of people and plants working together.

Among our many conservation efforts is our recent work in propagating and restoring hundreds of one of the rarest plants in Pennsylvania, the Appalachian Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium vanbruntiae).