Look and Breathe

Our Rose Arbor is beginning to emerge into spectacular bloom! Always a highlight in June, the arches in this inviting circular garden are covered with the vibrant pink Rosa ‘American Pillar.’ Take a walk with us and experience the beautiful blooms of our Rose Arbor.   

As we open our 2021 Festival of Fountains season, one of the horticultural highlights that you can begin to enjoy in late May is our Waterlily Display. Read more about our spectacular Nymphaea collection and piece together the beautiful Nymphaea ‘Detective Erika’ from our display.

Spring 2021 is popping up all over our gardens! From our magnolias to our cherries, sit back, relax, and enjoy these peaceful walks through our most spectacular flowering trees.

After a snowy February 2021, it’s time to start looking forward to spring, and for vegetable gardeners, that means getting ready to sow a wide variety of vegetables both outdoors in the garden and indoors. Horticulturist Alex Correia shares her expertise and explains how you can reap the rewards of frost-tolerant spring vegetables—peas, broccoli, kale, arugula, cabbage, spinach, carrots, radishes, scallions, just to name a few, and shares an easy guide for when to plant your veggies throughout the season. 

Our 2021 Winter Wonder display offers the chance to appreciate the juxtaposition of the stark beauty of the winter landscape with the colorful exuberance of our indoor display. This week we head inside with Conservatory Manager Karl Gercens as he shares a few of his favorite plants on display in our Main Conservatory during Winter Wonder. 

We wanted to share highlights from our dazzling 2020 Main Conservatory display, where perfect poinsettias in all shapes and colors and towering trees dripping in ornaments create a magical holiday scene. Explore with us.

Nothing completes your holiday table better than a glorious centerpiece! Join our floral design expert instructor Darcie Garcia as she creates an innovative work of art for the holiday table using a combination of live and natural elements. Darcie’s tips and tricks will inspire you to brighten up your own holiday table to rave reviews.

Our 2020 annual holiday display is now open and we thought we would give you a peek at our spectacular Music Room, decked out to look like a festive Christmas morning! The Music Room is just one part of our spectacular holiday display that spans indoors and outdoors. From 48 trees—some as tall as 25 feet—decorated with 18,000 glittering ornaments inside, to 500,000 twinkling outdoor lights and fountains dancing to holiday music, warmth and cheer are here at A Longwood Christmas.

The star of our 2020 Chrysanthemum Festival has arrived! Our remarkable Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum features 1,362 perfect yellow blooms on a single plant. This beautiful behemoth takes 17 months to grow and intense attention from our talented horticulturists to shape it into its unique form. One of the most nerve-wracking moments each year is delivering this 12-foot wide plant to the Conservatory from its home at our Nursery. Watch the Thousand Bloom’s journey in our fun timelapse video from a previous year, and make sure to come see this year’s Thousand Bloom, and the other amazing mums on display, during Chrysanthemum Festival.

Camellias have graced our Gardens since 1919 when Pierre du Pont planted the first in the Peirce-du Pont House conservatory. Today, camellias remain an important collection to us and can be seen year-round in our Camellia House in the East Conservatory. Native to Asia, camellias are evergreen shrubs with dark green, lustrous leaves that can grow to a height of 20 feet. They bloom in late fall or early spring and add beautiful color to the garden when most other plants have yet to begin or have finished flowering. We began hardiness trials and a breeding program in the early 1960s to evaluate and develop camellias that can tolerate colder winters. Learn more about our Camellia breeding process with Dr. Matt Taylor, former director, research and conservation.

September is an especially beautiful time to explore the native wildflowers, beautiful hues, and varied fauna of our 86-acre Meadow Garden. Learn more about the origin and ecological design of the Meadow Garden from the team that brought the vision to life, including landscape architect Jonathan Alderson. Then take in a solitary, sunrise stroll through our Meadow Garden.

Did you know that the Ginkgo biloba is closely related to conifers? Ginkgos, conifers, and cycads (among others) are all gymnosperms, seed-bearing vascular plants in which the ovules or seeds are not enclosed in an ovary. Learn more about this fascinating tree in a photo story by Elisabeth Meyer of North Carolina State University and check out our easy reference guide to conifers. 

Our Director of Outdoor Landscapes, Andrea Brunsendorf, shares how she turned her office patio into an inviting oasis using diverse container designs. Then, listen as she shares a few design principles and approaches she uses around our Gardens that you may want to use in your home gardens, too, in this video from 2020.

We raised a big stink in July 2020 with the much-anticipated blooming of our titan arum, Sprout! See Sprout’s amazing transformation in this timelapse video and learn why this rare event in the plant world was not to be missed. 

Although we weren’t able to host a 2020 Fireworks & Fountains Show to celebrate July 4, we still wanted to mark the day and share with you the rousing finale of 2019's show, Star Spangled Spectacular.

Summer is here and our fountains are dancing throughout our Gardens. Enjoy this rousing performance by our Open Air Theatre fountains!  

Journey with us to the Amazon to discover Victoria, the waterlily queen. Learn about her fascinating biology, her intricate structure, and how Victoria is woven into our history from growing her in captivity to developing Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’ in this fascinating online exhibit.

Join 2020 Longwood Fellow Barbara Wheeler as she takes you on a tour of her ten favorite “freaky plants.” From unusual odors to gigantic blooms, these unique plants showcase the wonder of nature. Then meet Barbara, whose career in horticulture has taken her around the globe.

In May 2020, our staff joined together in a very unique way to recognize and thank the points of light in our community who are battling on the frontlines of this global pandemic. 

Want to create a bouquet or arrangement for that special occasion or special someone (hint: Mom)? Follow along as Renee Tucci AIFD, PFCI  shares how to create beautiful floral designs using materials from your own garden. 

We’ve dug into our photo and video archives to share some of the inspiration and beauty from some favorite past displays. Enjoy spring splendor from 2018.