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A Visit to Longwood Gardens

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Last week, for four days – including the weekend that Tropical Storm Ophelia decided to make her wet and windy appearance – I visited “America’s Garden Capital”, gardens of the Philadelphia region, along with almost 100 fellow garden bloggers. We call this annual adventure the Garden Bloggers’ Fling and it is all that: tours, fun, friendship (and no classes). It began with a visit to fabulous Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA, and a rare behind-the-scenes tour of the high-tech production facility, courtesy of Longwood’s Conservatory Manager – and the one-man organizing committee for this Fling – Karl Gercens III.  He shepherded us around a large greenhouse…..

….. showing us what seemed to be acres of chrysanthemums being readied for Longwood’s annual Chrysanthemum Festival, Sept. 30-Nov. 12 this year. Some of the rare cultivars originated in Japan 45 years ago and are propagated to keep them available for use each autumn.

Karl told us about the pruning and training techniques that prepare the mums for show-time….

…. and we watched a gardener patiently training mums into Christmas tree shapes.

These looked like octopuses to me, but I believe they’re called mum cascades and are ultimately suspended from above in the Conservatory. This greenhouse featured blinds that enable the gardeners to control the light/dark balance needed for the plants’ physiological photoperiod, in order to have them all bloom on time.

Michelle demonstrated the high-tech overhead trolley line that moves hanging baskets around the greenhouse to facilitate watering, fertilizing and correct light exposure.

Pierre du Pont was very fond of citrus trees and grew them in the Conservatory in a section then called the Orangery. So espaliered citrus trees have become part of Longwood’s tradition.

Then it was outside to a talk by the gardener of the aquatic plants occupying temporary pools while major construction takes place around their regular pools.  Prominent was Victoria amazonica with its platter-shaped leaves, the largest floating leaves in the plant kingdom, famous for supporting small children in Victorian-era conservatory photos. 

Native to the Amazon Basin, their vascular architecture creates a stiffness that enables the big leaves to float in large networks, maximizing photosynthesis. The spines deter hungry herbivores.

 Waterlilies had been assembled in pretty aquatic arrangements.

Then it was into the Visitor Center for a presentation on “Longwood Reimagined: A New Garden Experience”. It began with the garden’s mission statement….

…..the legacy of Pierre Samuel du Pont (1870-1954), great-great-grandson of the founder of the chemical company DuPont, who purchased what was then a 202-acre arboretum and farm from the Peirce family in 1906.  Today, Longwood ranges over 1,077 acres (436 hectares) and welcomes 1.6 million visitors yearly.

We saw artist renderings of the new football-field-sized greenhouse taking shape near the Conservatory. Opening in fall 2024, the $245 million 17-acre Reimagining project features, in Longwood’s words: “Stunning new buildings, wondrous new indoor and outdoor gardens, surprising new guest experiences, and much more await. We’re expanding our grounds, connecting them from east to west in a beautiful, unified journey of lush, formal gardens to open meadows to winding paths to breathtaking Brandywine Valley vistas.”

Next up was a visit to the beautiful Flower Garden, beginning with this lovely mauve-and-plum container design on a patio designed in the 1970s by the renowned California landscape architect Thomas Church.

The 600-foot-long Flower Garden walk is gorgeous in September, with annuals at their peak. It was Longwood’s very first garden, designed by Pierre S. du Pont who described it as “the old-fashioned plan of straight walks and box borders at the edge of the flower beds”, using colourful plants chosen with the help of his wife Alice, now memorialized in Mandevilla ‘Alice du Pont’.

Combinations are fine-tuned to hit just the right colour note, like this Persian shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus) surrounded by globe amaranath (Gomphrena globosa ‘Ping Pong Purple‘).

The fuzzy, pink flowers of Bolivian sage (Salvia oxyphora) were attracting lots of bees.

I loved this soft combination of peach zinnias and bronze carex grass.

Stairs led down to Pierre du Pont’s “Compartment Gardens”, including the 1908 Square Fountain surrounded by luscious coleus and begonia plants, among others.  The stunning chartreuse coleus is Flame Thrower™ Salsa Verde.

Though the peony garden was out-of-season, there were a few pretty combinations for late summer, like the pink Japanese anemone with Ageratum houstonianum, below.

Handsome aquamarine urns punctuated this long foliage border, backed by a tall arborvitae hedge.

I hurried up from the Flower Garden past the Peirce-DuPont House (1730) towards the Meadow, but stopped under a native franklinia tree (F. alatamaha) to admire the few remaining blossoms.  Many of Longwood’s towering trees are part of a rich arboretum, established in the late 18th century by the sons of William Peirce, who acquired 402 acres in 1700 from agents of William Penn (1644-1718). Penn was an English-born Quaker who made treaties with the region’s Lenape Native Americans in order to develop the property he acquired from King Charles II, eventually naming it Pennsylvania. In 1682, the first Pennsylvania General Assembly was held.  Penn would later found Philadelphia. As for franklinia, it was discovered growing on the Alatamaha River in 1765 by John and William Bartram; the latter collected seed a decade later and named the tree for his father’s friend, Benjamin Franklin.

Then it was down the gently curving boardwalk through Peirce’s Woods….

…. to the native plant meadow featuring late summer goldenrod, white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), and asters, as well as the seedheads of wild beebalm and Joe Pye weed.  (I turned on my Merlin app here to identify the gray catbirds calling in the trees nearby).

In the shade, orange touch-me-not (Impatiens capensis) was attracting bumble bees.

Now it was time to visit the 4.5 acre (1.8 hectare) Conservatory (1919), with its fine collection of 4,600 tropicals, orchids, desert and Mediterranean plants and trees, featured in 17 theme gardens, many containing fountains or pools.  

I loved these Siam tulips (Curcuma alismatifolia)….

….. and this striking combination of Caladium ‘Carolyn Whorton’ with orange Bouvardia ternifolia.

Pink anthuriums (‘Anthewuch’) and variegated sansevierias were growing amongst cycads.

This pool featured a waterfall.

And this one had fountains seemingly emerging from ferns.

Potted tree ferns (Cyathea cooperi) occupy handsome Versailles tubs in the Fern Floor hall, all reflected in the shallow water. However, when events are held in this hall the water is drained.

Windowboxes containing Aechmea fasciata flank the Fern Floor.

The Acacia Passage, below, is such a perfect setting, I had to wait for a professional photographer to finish a shoot with an engaged couple. The trees forming the lacy arch are cinnamon wattle (Acacia leprosa).

A vast expanse of emerald-green lawn stretches across a large hall in the Conservatory.

Early-blooming cultivars of chrysanthemum were celebrating the onset of autumn here.

It’s always fun to find a handsome-looking bird-of-paradise (Strelitzia reginae) to photograph.

In the West Conservatory Complex, in what was originally a space to grow fruit trees and in the 1950s the Geographic Garden, California landscape architect Isabelle Greene created the Silver Garden in 1987, featuring plants from Mediterranean and desert climates. Its sinuous, curving lines were a departure from the formal, geometric style of the rest of the conservatory.

How soft and restful this garden is, and how evocative of a natural landscape.

Several Agave victoriae-reginae, the Queen Victoria agave, punctuate a silvery carpet.

Of all the agaves, Agave parryi is my favourite photo subject.

Karl said that this is not the best time of year for orchids, but the Orchid House was resplendent nonetheless.

Laeliocattleya Roitelet-‘Paradis’ is a 1949 introduction from the French orchid nursery Vacherot and Lecoufle. Isn’t she stunning?

Gombrassiltonia Mervyn Grant ‘Talisman Cove’ is a three-way cross between Gomesa x Brassia x Miltonia. Orchid hybrid names are a world unto themselves!

Our Longwood visit culminated with a spectacular Illuminated Fountain show.

Because it is very special to watch the fountains dance – as indeed it is very special to visit Longwood itself – I will leave you with this taste of the music of Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ from my YouTube channel.

The Joyous Alma VanDusen Garden

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This post has been almost 9 years in the making! It was August 29, 2011 and I was in Vancouver to visit my mother, who was living in a care home in the suburbs.  As I have done every time I travel “home” to Vancouver from Toronto, I set aside several hours to walk through Van Dusen Botanical Garden, a place I know well and one for which my late mom and I shared a deep affection. As you can see from the map below, its 55 acres (22 hectares) make quite the journey.

That late summer day, just months before the formal opening of the new Visitors Centre, colour abounded throughout VanDusen. There was the most amazing planting of colourful annuals out by the entrance, below: a textural mixture of Salvia patens ‘Cambridge Blue’, Zinnia angustifolia ‘Profusion Orange’,yellow coreopsis, purple Verbena rigida and fuzzy bunny tails grass (Lagurus ovatus).

Inside the garden, I was happy to see the carnivorous pitcher plants (Sarracenia flava) thriving in their beautiful urn.

I sauntered slowly through the Fragrance Garden, sniffing the sweet peas, Auratum lilies and chocolate cosmos.

As always, the Black Border with its contrasts of dark and chartreuse foliage was simply sensational.

The Southern Hemisphere garden looked spectacular, with its Fuchsia magellanica, big-leaved Gunnera manicata and Nicotiana sylvestris.

The Perennial Garden featured bands of orange crocosmia, white echinacea and orange helenium.

I explored the big hydrangea collection, so lovely in late summer.  This was Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Europa’, just changing colour sumptuously, as mophead hydrangeas do.

Hours after entering, my feet tired and ready to head to my car, I came to the very back of VanDusen, as far away from the entrance as you can get in this big garden. (See the red arrow in the map above.)  I’m usually a spring visitor, when the rhododendrons, camellias and blue poppies are in flower (you’ll meet those in my next blog), so I was surprised and intrigued to see a mass of colourful flowers, all annuals, in a wildish, meadow-like garden. I waited a few minutes while a bride-to-be finished her wedding photos, then wandered in along the bark chip path. It was like walking into a Willie Wonka flower factory. Past the dark-leaved fountain grass entrance, there were sunflowers towering over my head; pink, white and mauve spider flowers; bronze canna leaves; gloriosa daisies; wine-red, feathery amaranth; and a bright edging of ‘Lemon Gem’ marigolds. All of these flowers are grown from seed!

But unlike many public gardens where they grow in soldierly rows, here they were grown more like a tapestry of perennials.

It wasn’t until I started gathering the images for this blog that I realized that almost all of these annuals are native to the Americas. For example, Amaranthus cruentus, below is a native of Mexico and thought to have been wild harvested before spreading to the southeast U.S.and domesticated for agriculture by Arizona’s indigenous Hopi people around 4000 B.C. They called it komo and used it not just as a grain for flour, but harvested the bracts of the feathery magenta flowers as “Hopi red dye” to colour the dough for their cornbread.  Yellow signet marigold, i.e. Tagetes tenuifolia ‘Lemon Gem’, below, is native to Mexico, Central America and Peru and Argentina. It was used in traditional medicine and its flowers are edible and often used today as a salad garnish. Slender vervain (Verbena rigida), below, originates in Brazil and Argentina.

Spider flower (Cleome hassleriana), below, comes from South America.

I loved the combinations in the garden.

The native American sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), especially, were gorgeous in late August and seemed to have been grown from many seed strains.

Van Dusen Botanical Garden has beehives and the honey bees were all over the sunflowers…

…. enjoying gathering nectar from the tiny disk flowers in the centre. Did you know that there’s a honey in Burgundy, France made from sunflowers? It’s yellow and buttery and is called Miel Tournesol.

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The garden makes extensive use of gloriosa daisies, the tetraploid form of biennial black eyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta), another plant native to a wide swath of the Americas.

This one looked like the cultivar ‘Autumn Colors’.

As I came to the end of the path that day in 2011, I looked back and noticed castor-bean plant (Ricinus communis ‘Carmencita’), native to the Mediterranean basin, and the tall South American vervain (Verbena bonariensis).  Everything here was at its peak, and I could see the foliage of delphiniums in the mix as well.

East of the flowery garden adjacent to the Maze was a border filled with brilliantly coloured perennials and annuals beneath bright-gold ‘Frisia’ black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia).

I couldn’t help but think of all the kids who would have been wowed by these giant sunflowers!

This was a fun combination: tall cup plants (Silphium perfoliatum),  yellow Sinacalia tangutica, white Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) and blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’).

As I left VanDusen that August day in 2011, I asked a gardener in the Southern Hemisphere Garden who managed the colourful garden I’d just toured? “Oh, that would be Miguel,” he said. I wrote down the name somewhere and lost it. A few years later, when former VanDusen Garden Director Harry Jongerden became our Director at the Toronto Botanical Garden, I was asked to photograph him, below. When we were finished, I mentioned this amazing flower garden way at the back of VanDusen. “Oh, that would be Miguel Molina’s garden”, he said. This time I wrote his name down.

VanDusen Botanical Garden will be 45 years old this summer. Prior to becoming a garden, it was part of the old Shaughnessy Golf Course, leased in 1911 from Marathon Realty, at the time an arm of the Canadian Pacific Railway.  And yes, that’s actor Clark Gable (‘Gone With the Wind’), below, smoking his pipe while playing in a foursome at the club in 1933.

When Shaughnessy’s lease was up in 1960, Marathon’s plan was to redevelop the entire property as housing, commercial and retail. But in 1966, a group of concerned citizens got together and formed a charitable organization called the Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association (VBGA). They worked with the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and the Vancouver Foundation to come up with the money to buy part of the old golf course to create a botanical garden. The Vancouver Foundation had been started as a perpetual legacy in 1944 by the lumber magnate and philanthropist Whitford Julian VanDusen (1888-1979) and is now one of the largest in North America, worth $1.2 billion. Within the fund were several VanDusen family funds, including the Alma VanDusen Garden Fund. W.J. VanDusen himself made a $1 million donation to the garden’s development. In thanks, the garden was named for him, one of the few public references to his generosity and he was invited to cut the ribbon at the official opening on August 30, 1975, below, flanked by Premier Dave Barrett, left, Alderman May Brown and Vancouver Mayor Art Phillips.

Late last September, my husband and I made a fast run through VanDusen on an overnight stop in Vancouver before flying in to Cougar Annie’s Garden in the rainforest outside Tofino. I wrote a two-part blog about that fantastic experience.  As is my habit, I visited the flower garden, which I learned was named for W.J. VanDusen’s wife Alma VanDusen (1888-1969). The Alma VanDusen Garden is adjacent to the Alma VanDusen Meadow.  According to a Vancouver Foundation report, “Although she had a spirit of adventure, Alma was outwardly a quiet, private person similar to her husband. She was an artistic soul who enjoyed music and painting. A lover of flowers, Alma grew magnificent orchids in her greenhouse and later tended beautiful gardens at their farm in Langley.”

Given that it was now early autumn, the fountain grass was in flower and those…..

… seedling delphiniums had started to bloom, too. I noticed zinnias were being used to fill in the spaces between the tall flowers.

 

As we walked on towards the parking lot, I spied a gardener digging in the vegetable garden nearby. “Are you Miguel Molina?” I asked.  “Yes,” he answered. I asked if I could photograph him for my blog and he posed for me. Most importantly, at last I was able to thank the gardener who tends such a joyful, colourful garden of memory, dedicated to the generosity of two Vancouverites who helped to make this stellar botanical garden possible.

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I will be writing about VanDusen Garden in May in my next blog. If you want to read about another exceptional Vancouver garden, visit the blog I wrote on UBC’s David Lam Asian Garden.

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Other public gardens I’ve blogged about include Toronto Botanical Garden; Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton ON; Montreal Botanical Garden; New York Botanical Garden; Wave Hill, Bronx NY; New York’s Conservatory Garden in Central Park; New York’s High Line in May and in June; fabulous Chanticleer in Wayne, PA; the Ripley Garden in Washington DC; Chicago Botanic Garden; The Lurie Garden, Chicago; Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin TX; Denver Botanic Gardens; the Japanese Garden in Portland OR; the Bellevue Botanical Garden, Bellevue, WA; the Los Angeles County Arboretum; RBG Kew in London; Kirstenbosch, Cape Town; the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens, South Africa; Durban Botanic Gardens; Otari-Wilton’s Bush, Wellington NZ; Dunedin Botanic Garden, NZ; Christchurch Botanic Gardens;