Afternoon Adventure: Longwood Gardens

A month ago my family met up in Philadelphia to celebrate my sister's graduation. We had some free time before the festivities began, so we drove about an hour outside of the city to the Brandywine Valley, former home of painter Andrew Wyeth and current location of some absolutely beautiful estates and gardens.

We spent the early afternoon at Longwood Gardens, a stunning estate with acres of gardens and a classic conservatory. Because it was Mother's Day, we had to navigate wandering crowds, but the whole place is so big that we hardly noticed most of the time.

Longwood began as a farm and arboretum built by the Peirce family, who purchased the property from William Penn way back in 1700. As Quakers, the Peirces respected the land and focused on planting and preserving native trees. By the time industrialist Pierre du Pont purchased the land from the Peirces in 1906, Longwood was already known for its collection of trees and aesthetic beauty.

But it was Pierre du Pont who slowly molded the property into what we see today. He used his immense fortune and his interest in conservation to develop the property, designing a range of gardens, building a gorgeous conservatory to house indoor plants, and installing of-the-moment fountains around the grounds. Inspired by the world's fairs he visited in his youth, he referenced the architecture and horticultural designs he saw at these fairs, making for an estate that is at once rooted in the past and forward-looking.

We could have spent all day at Longwood. Because we wanted to check out another estate (and eat lunch), we had to drag ourselves away after a few hours, but I definitely want to go back. We wandered through the fountain gardens, where my dad marveled at the 1930s-designed pumps.

I took a few too many pictures of utterly indulgent garden fixtures that I really, really want in my someday-garden, like follies and walls of sculpted fountains.

We spent a long time in the vegetable and fruit gardens, where I took copious notes on scenic fencing and supports for climbing vines. (And I crushed on rows of raspberry bushes.)

Horticultural Dome, Chicago World's Fair

Just before we left, we stopped in the conservatory, which reminded me of all those long-ago photographs of the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, with its huge hanging plants and light-filled rooms. (It also made me feel like I'd stepped into the steampunk world of Bioshock Infinite, which begins at an alternate version of the 1893 Exposition.)

Longwood is the perfect place to slow down and relax for a day if you're in the Philadelphia area. We left inspired and refreshed, and that's exactly what we needed on a busy graduation weekend.


Works cited: Longwood Gardens History. Paul V. Galvin Library, World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Spring greening

Ah, spring! When a young lady's fancy turns to...plants?

Yes, it is all plants, all the time around these parts. When Josh and I go for a walk, I coo over the tiny purple stars blooming in the myrtle. I envy the flocks of daffodils cheering up the still-drab grass. I tend lovingly to the starts toughening up under my grow light.

Now that the weather is warming up, I'm slowly getting the plants ready to go outside. This is a process called hardening off, and you have to take the plants outside in the sun over a period of days, letting them stay out longer each time to get used to wind, sun, and fresh air. I've also started moving some of the biggest starts into actual containers for the official growing season. (You can see the results of using Cow Pots below--the roots just grow right through the pots!)

So far, I've had mixed results. The plants are hardening off just fine, but last week I left some of the snap peas and peppers outside during a rather serious few days of rain, which meant the plants went swimming. The poor guys got so waterlogged that I had to pour off rainwater on more than one occasion. But they seem to be perking right up now that the sun has returned, and I'm looking forward to moving more starts into containers.

And perhaps the most exciting news around here is that I got permission from our landlords to spruce up the yard! I've been busily drawing up plans and completing soil tests to prepare the yard for planting. Because we live in an old house (danger of lead) and the yard isn't huge, I'll be sticking with the container plan for my edibles and planting only ornamentals in the actual yard. But it's still tremendously exciting. Plus, it gives me more of a reason to admire other people's plants...right?

The wearing of the green

Almost all the seeds I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted, and my seed tray is now a veritable wonderland of tiny green sprouts and tendrils.

While I love all the phases of the growing season (except perhaps pest control--haven't figured out a green way of combating aphids yet), this is definitely my favorite. I kneel down in front of the seed tray at least once a day, murmuring sweet nothings into the seedlings' unfurling ears. Maybe this makes me crazy...but that's fine.

Looking at the moss-like cover of the tiny lobelia sprouts puts me in mind of lush gardens and winding paths leading to secret hideaways. It's my someday dream to build a Secret Garden, as magical as the one at the end of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, and meanwhile I have to be content with filing away inspiration and images for later. The website Gardenista has been particularly fun to pore over--it's full of beautiful gardens from around the world, as well as advice on how to create your own.

Tell me, do you save ideas for someday gardens or someday houses? And is Pinterest good for this sort of thing? I'm tempted, but so many kinds of social media make me wary.