Beyond Wild Expectations is a new series exploring exceptional public gardens of every scale, from grand formal parterres to intimate community plots. We reveal the design vision, planting choices and defining details that bring the garden to life, and show how each one gives fresh perspectives on how we connect with nature and outdoor living.
With over a thousand acres of land, there is a never-ending supply of planting to discover at Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania. Vast collections of towering trees, wetlands, and meadows comprise the natural backdrop to award-winning botanical displays in breathtaking glasshouses. Step inside and you’ll be transported to something other-worldly, bursting with garden ideas to ignite the imagination.
Pennsylvania is well known as the American horticultural hub. It’s where the nation’s seed trade began and gardening culture was born, and today the state is home to many magnificent public gardens that millions of tourists swarm to each year. The largest and most renowned is Longwood Gardens.
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Famous for its exquisite botanical spectacles, Longwood is home to North America’s biggest Chrysanthemum Festival. Every fall, visitors can explore the wonder of these colossal floral art exhibitions, where giant orbs of mums hang from conservatory ceilings. The flowers are the building blocks for dazzling installations, and every inch of vertical space is painted in chrysanthemums of all colors. It’s not just something to see, but somewhere to experience a living masterpiece.
The Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum is a central feature to the festival each year
(Image credit: Hank Davis courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
Fall color explosion: America’s largest chrysanthemum celebration
‘We preserve over 200 cultivars of chrysanthemums for this show in tissue culture, and we grow them out each year,’ says Jim Sutton, Associate Director of Display Design for Longwood Gardens. ‘They’re all exhibition mums, not garden mums.
‘These are your big football mums, incurves, and your spiders. We also have cascade mums that we collected from Japan in the 60s,’ he explains.
Mums take on an incredible 66 specialty forms at the festival. Alongside the iconic spheres elevated from the ceilings, towering columns are covered, tall single stems showcase the beauty of these flowers, and jaw-dropping topiary shapes put chrysanthemums on display in a way you’ve never seen before.
The jewel in the crown is the ‘Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum’, known as ‘Ozukuri’ in Japan. It’s a historic technique of growing a large singular mum with as many blooms as possible, typically over 1000.
It first debuted at Longwood in 2009 and is now a central feature to the festival each year, requiring an 18-month long process for the Longwood horticulturalists who meticulously grow, pinch, and train the plant to a dome-shaped frame from scratch.
For many, this event is fundamental in celebrating fall gardening and the very best of fall flowers.
Incredible forms of chrysanthemums are on display each year
(Image credit: Hank Davis courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
Christmas is just as impressive as the fall season comes to an end.
‘Our visitors love what we do at Christmas. We always have a theme which is reflected both in the glasshouses and out on the grounds,’ Jim says.
Think uplit trees showcasing wonderful silhouettes in different colors, and winding paths leading you through different illuminated planting displays, towards spectacular light shows over fountains.
‘Every tree branch is outlined from garden lighting,’ says Dan Sekowski, Associate Director of Outdoor Landscapes at Longwood Gardens. ‘It’s great because where there are taxodium trees you may not otherwise notice for example, the lights showcase how beautiful their shapes are.’
Inside, elevated orbs take center stage again, alongside impressive displays of Christmas plants like poinsettias.
Plants become living Christmas decorations at Longwood Gardens
(Image credit: Hank Davis courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
It all began with tree conservation: Pierre du Pont’s first love at Longwood
What’s here today stems from the original passion project of one man: Pierre du Pont. The industrialist and philanthropist purchased the land as a farm in 1906 with the intent to preserve an already incredible collection of trees there. Now a public botanical garden, Longwood Gardens is a place Pierre couldn’t have even dreamt of a century ago.
You may be familiar with the name du Pont if you’ve ever visited the other du Pont family estates in Delaware. Longwood Gardens is the only venue to be found in Pennsylvania. It was somewhere for Pierre to bring his ambitious horticultural goals to life.
‘He originally bought the gardens to save the trees,’ says Jim. ‘He actually considered investing in land to be a bad investment. So, we were the only property he ever bought because he fell in love with the trees here.’
Peirce’s Woods is a woodland area of Longwood Gardens, containing the original collection of trees Pierre adored. Many of the trees were first planted by the Peirce brothers between 1798 and the mid-1800s, who were stewards of the land before Pierre purchased it.
Here, you can find lots of native planting, including oak, ash, and maples. Today, the woods house over 200 species and cultivars of trees, shrubs, and the best groundcover plants, including tiarella and creeping phlox.
It’s a fiery treat for fall, with the best trees for fall color showing off their most vibrant hues.
The Chimes Tower District has a celebrated collection of award-winning trees
(Image credit: Becca Mathias courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
But, Pierre’s vision extended beyond the trees.
‘He travelled through Europe quite a bit and was inspired by the gardens there, so he brought a piece of that back to Pennsylvania,’ Jim notes.
It was during this time Pierre became fascinated with an impressive display of water pumps at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, when he was just a child. This is the inspiration behind much of the water garden features found at Longwood.
‘Pierre had a fascination with flowing water, so we have a beautiful Main Fountain Garden, an Italian Water Garden, and lots of water features throughout the garden,’ Jim describes. ‘We even have water features within the conservatories as well.’
Pierre originally intended for Longwood Gardens to be a private family estate, but this grew into a fantasy of creating a public attraction.
‘Pierre left us an endowment to open the gardens to the public and we still run on it today,’ Jim says.
And its evolution continues, now existing as a collection of gardens showcasing the very best in horticulture. Many notable garden and landscape designers, such as Roberto Burle Marx and Isabella Greene, have worked on projects at Longwood, leaving their own mark on its history.
Abundant year-round planting: somewhere to intentionally get lost
Color blocking at the Flower Garden Walk is a feast for the eyes in spring
(Image credit: Scott Hummel courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
If there’s one thing to be sure of, it’s that you can never get bored at Longwood Gardens. Each season is filled with beautiful plants to see, stunning formal garden design, and exquisite indoor garden displays.
The Flower Garden Walk was Pierre du Pont’s very first garden at Longwood and features 600 feet of blooms to explore from spring to fall.
‘In our flower border, there’s annual traditional planting with color blocking along the brick walkway,’ explains Dan. ‘We go through a system of red and yellow, then orange, purple and white.’
This is particularly dazzling as a spring garden, abundant in tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths, among others. ‘It’s very traditional annual spring flowering plants with just over-the-top amounts of color,’ Dan describes.
Dan reveals there are 500,000 bulbs being planted across the garden for spring this year. ‘In spring, the garden is erupting outside,’ Jim says.
It’s these large-scale showcases that bring so many people to Longwood each day – they’re currently on track for 1.6 million visitors this year. Yet, Dan and Jim note the sheer scale of the gardens also provide plenty of quiet corners to escape to.
‘If you want a more solitary experience, you can head out to the Meadow Garden, for example. There are these moments here where the garden seems like it’s just for you,’ Jim describes.
Traditional spring bulbs are planted each year to put on a dazzling show
(Image credit: Becca Mathias/Hank Davis courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
As summer settles in at Longwood, the outside landscape continues to wow.
New for 2025, Longwood Reimagined saw the opening of 17 acres of grounds with a brand new West Conservatory. In the summer months, the gardens surrounding the conservatory are in full glory.
‘This project allowed us to increase our waterlily presence tremendously,’ says Jim.
The Waterlily Court outside the new conservatory was first designed by the renowned landscape architect Peter Shepheard in 1989. The Longwood Reimagined project has allowed for the spectacle to be renewed and enhanced.
It’s home to approximately 100 varieties of waterlily specimens, as well as lotus flowers, and other aquatic plants from around the globe. Here, visitors can view astounding aquatic cannas reaching up to eight feet tall. Many of them come from Longwood’s own breeding program.
Futureproofing science: conserving Longwood’s rare collections
The pools in the Waterlily Court are full of elegant planting
(Image credit: Holden Barnes courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
Something that also makes Longwood such a special place is the active science department here.
‘We do a lot of virus testing, especially on our chrysanthemum and orchid collections,’ Jim says. ‘If anything does get a virus, we try to clean it up through tissue culture.
This means we can use it again in our collection so that we’re displaying virus-free plants,’ he explains.
There’s also a lot of work around conservation and breeding at Longwood Gardens.
‘We have one person on staff whose job it is to scour the globe for new plants,’ Jim says. ‘The most recent one was in Tanzania and he brought back a yellow waterlily (Nymphaea stuhlmannii) that most people thought was extinct. That yellow waterlily is in our collection this year,’ he adds.
Jim notes they are continuing work on breeding Disa orchids, too, a unique type of orchid native to South Africa. Longwood was the first in the US to flower Disa uniflora in 1963 and has become specialized in breeding hybrids since.
‘The Orchid House displays between 300-500 orchids on any given day,’ Jim notes. ‘For that to happen, we have about 5000 back-up plants.’
There are also plenty of plant trials happening on the landscape at Longwood.
‘We’re looking at what trees are going to be here in thousands of years time,’ says Dan. ‘We’re managing invasive species, too.
‘There’s a lot of thoughtfulness going into planning for the future through our science,’ he adds.
The conservatories are rich in color in spring
(Image credit: Becca Mathias courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
Marrying together innovation, artistry, and botanical science, Longwood Gardens continues to stand as a symbol of horticultural excellence, driven by the same passion founder Pierre du Pont had for the amazing things you can do with plants and nature.
‘We consider every day a flower show,’ Jim says. ‘We always have a large floral presence and there’s not a day that you can’t come and see something.’
Ideas to steal from Longwood Gardens
The famous Chrysanthemum Festival at Longwood Gardens is the largest of its kind in the US
(Image credit: Holden Barnes/Amy Simon Berg courtesy of Longwood Gardens)
‘We actually have an Ideas Garden where we explore historic gardening mixed with new gardening,’ Dan shares. ‘It’s a place where you can come along with just a 10x10ft garden space at home and leave with ideas to maximize a small garden and a container garden.’ he adds.
Here are three ways to recreate some of the magic of Longwood Gardens in your own backyard:
Bring water bodies to life
It’s no secret that water is a core element of what makes Longwood Gardens unique, and of course it was one of the things most favored by founder Pierre du Pont.
You don’t need a large amount of space to have a thriving water feature in your yard. If you have a garden pond, use centerpiece plants, like growing lotus flowers and aquatic cannas (like this hardy water canna plant from Amazon), to bring it to life. You can even grow some aquatic plants in pots.
With water pumps (like this submersible pond pump from Amazon) and garden fountains, you can easily incorporate running water for a sensory experience, too.
Mix evergreen trees with deciduous trees
The woodlands at Longwood are painted orange, red and yellow by the time fall rolls around. But, this striking color palette would be incomplete without the reliable evergreens that remain a staple throughout the year.
When the deciduous trees drop their leaves, evergreens will ensure your garden’s backdrop doesn’t become bare. In fact, those bare branches sitting in between evergreens dusted in frost will give you a magnificent winter garden display.
Some of the easiest evergreen trees to grow include junipers (see the range of juniper trees at Fast Growing Trees) and hollies (see the range of holly trees at Fast Growing Trees).
Create a botanical spectacle
The iconic hanging orbs Longwood create throughout the seasons is a dynamic, innovative way to display plants. You can take inspiration from this in a few different ways at home.
For indoor gardens, try making kokedama with houseplants, or use a spherical hanging planter like this one from Amazon.
As Longwood displays, planting en masse is an easy way to get instant impact. Dedicate a border to spring bulbs (using this pack of spring bulbs from Amazon), or line a path with block color flowers, like in the Flower Garden Walk.
It’s all about shifting your mindset to see plants as art materials and working with them to create displays akin to exhibits.
Jim Sutton
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Associate Director of Display Design for Longwood Gardens
Jim is the Associate Director of Display Design for Longwood Gardens. Jim’s education in Horticulture is from Pennsylvania State University. He regularly judges at numerous competitions at other gardens. He also lectures and conducts floral demonstrations.
Dan Sekowski
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Associate Director of Outdoor Landscapes at Longwood Gardens
Dan is the Associate Director of Outdoor Landscapes at Longwood Gardens, overseeing the design and care of its renowned outdoor gardens. A landscape architect by training, Daniel has worked across public gardens, embassies, and design studios in the U.S. and abroad. He brings this wide-ranging experience to Longwood, where he and his team create inspiring seasonal displays that celebrate the beauty of the gardens throughout the year.
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