Horticultural hocus-pocus at Longwood Gardens

Douglas Hunt
by Douglas Hunt
I went to Longwood Gardens just outside of Wilmington, DE, on a gray, rainy, and perfectly miserable day. But the weather is really irrelevant when you have 4.5 climate-controlled acres—some 20 separate gardens—under glass. In vast, soaring, greenhouses are flight after flight of horticultural legerdemain. Here’s some of what I saw.
Limonium sinuatum, wavy-leaf sea lavender
Dianthus caryophyllus "Blueboy," carnation
Espaliered peach trees, blueberries in flower
Lupines
Anemone coronaria "Mona Lisa," poppy-flowered
Cascading beds of nasturtiums
Mediterranean garden in full bloom
Euphorbia tirucalli, Kalanchoe daigremontiana
Strelitzia juncea; Echium candicans
Veltheimia bracteata; Plectranthus
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  • Mary Law Mary Law on Apr 15, 2014
    I went to Longwood Gardens years when on a trip to Philly. It was truly awesome!
  • Rosanne Rosanne on Apr 15, 2014
    Thanks for the tour, it's even more beautiful than our Botanical Gardens in Atlanta! Today is "supposed" to be the last day of frost here but there are warnings not to plant for another week.
    • Douglas Hunt Douglas Hunt on Apr 16, 2014
      @Rosanne I spend a few very happy hours at your botanical garden last summer. I can't believe we're talking frost in Atlanta in the middle of April!
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