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| 500+ mum flowers all from 1 plant, and on 1 stem! |
Whenever we're in the neighborhood (within 50-100 miles), we take the opportunity to stop in to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA (just north of Wilmington, DE). Every season, every year is different and a sensory treat. This year, we had looked forward to seeing a somewhat revised version of a nighttime light and sound show here that we had seen twice last year. Unfortunately, we discovered that the light show was only offered from Wednesday through Sunday, and we were visiting on Monday. But this was the start of Longwood's Chrysanthemum Festival in the conservatories, and we had never seen that, so we went anyway. Wow! More than 17,000
chrysanthemum plants were grown into ball, spiral, column, and pagoda shapes, and other forms as well. The amazing thing is that these forms are all trained from single stems! Longwood has one of the oldest chrysanthemum collections in North America, consisting of 230 different types. Since we were there early in the festival run, many of the plants were not in full bloom, and the 1000 + bloom chrysanthemum (on 1 stem in ball form) had not yet been put in place. It was going to be delivered from the greenhouse on the next day.
While in the Conservatories, we stopped in to see the fabulous Orchid Room, the Acacia Passageway, the fern wall room and the Chrysanthemum Bonsai (you have to see them to believe them).
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| One Chrysanthemum plant that has been wrapped around a column. We were told it would be in full bloom within a week or 2. |
Outside, we took a few hours to stroll among the trees, which are for us some of the most interesting features of Longwood Gardens, home to many National
and State Champion trees (the largest of their species). It is such a blessing to be able to walk among these perfect giants in the quiet of such a beautiful setting.
More photos here:
https://goo.gl/photos/Vqj8g5bCyN5kVFm29
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