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Welcoming fall at Longwood Gardens

By Mara 13 Comments

When I travel to a new city, I always make a point of learning where the nearest public garden is. Over the course of my travels I have visited many of them with one or both of my children including the Public Garden in Boston; the gardens at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; the Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy; the Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris; Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin, Texas; and Rotary Botanical Gardens in Matt’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin.

I’m very lucky, however, to live about forty minutes away from one of the best public gardens anywhere in the world and my own personal favorite: Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. There are so many things about Longwood that make it a fabulous place to go with children. It is huge and offers a wide variety of terrain from forest to the meadow. It has a tower and a waterfall. There are multiple ponds, dozens of fountains, and two children’s gardens, one inside and one out. There is an enormous conservatory that offers everything from a desert to a tropical garden to say nothing of roses in January (a salve to my soul many a time). It is a place of tremendous intentional beauty.

I love visiting here and it has even inspired me to do up my garden and try and make it look as beautiful as this! The water features, including the ponds and fountains, are very tempting and have definitely had me thinking about what they’ll add to my garden. I’ve even looked into a water feature supplier to perhaps add a fountain or another gorgeous water asset to my yard. I accept my garden will never look like this public garden, but I can at least take inspiration from it!

Don’t get me wrong I’m not an expert in gardening and aesthetics, which is why I’ve checked out a california lawn care service to help me out with the basics like getting rid of any pests, shrubs etc. but then I’ll see what I can come up with. It’ll be great to try to replicate this garden but then add my own personal touch at the same time! One of my friends did actually mention that I could get a Landscape Design NJ company to help me enhance my own garden to make it look as close to this one as possible. Apparently, most landscape companies can help with all sorts of garden designs, so they should be able to help me. I’ll keep them in mind, but I’m going to try and have a go myself first. It would just be lovely to have something like this in my garden!

That being said, there are a couple of trees that will need to be taken down in our backyard first. I was actually speaking to an old colleague of mine about this a few days ago. Apparently, she managed to get some help with taking down some old trees that had started to rot in her garden from an Oregon City tree service. I know that you can find some amazing arborists online these days, so I think I am going to have to do some research to find a company that specializes in tree services in our area. Honestly though, I cannot wait to get stuck in! Our garden is going to look fabulous once it is complete.

There isn’t a bad time of year to visit Longwood with your children, but mid-September may be the best time to do so. The place is a riot of color and bloom and you can usually find a cool day. There are many, many pumpkins. And most importantly for my family, there is a large display of electric trains. Actually, I can’t imagine anyone not delighting in the train display, which includes miniature models of buildings from around the garden and the area (including the conservatory), streams, bridges, flowers, and of course a variety of different engines and cars, both passenger and freight.

Teddy and I started with the trains at his insistence. I lost count of how many times he circled the track, waving to the trains, peering at all of the little fountains and the fanciful mixture of pansies and shiny peppers that decorated the miniature landscape. (The picture I’ve included here are actually from our visit last fall, as I accidentally deleted the dozens I took of Teddy enjoying himself on Friday from our camera. I was especially disappointed that I did this given that the display was even larger and more fanciful this year.)

After a good forty-five minutes watching the trains, we made our way over to the Sunflower House in the outdoor children’s garden. Teddy was delighted to sit at a table just his size and run his hands over the pumpkins of all colors and textures. We looked inside the compost bin for the large vegetable garden whose produce goes to local food banks, and then he tried out a variety of different pumpkins to see which one was “the best to sit on.”

I hope that the management won’t revoke my membership for writing this, but I always sneak snacks into Longwood despite the stern signs warning visitors not to do so. I’ll justify myself by saying that I would never do this if I was there alone, and I’m fastidious about picking up every crumb, respectful that they want no contamination of their carefully planned beds and paths. But it’s a huge interruption to go over to the cafeteria and sit inside with the kids (they of course would like nothing more than to do this every time and are always happy when I buy us lunch there because they can choose a meal that ends with green Jello). Instead I act casual, find a bench, and feed them little bits of granola bar or dried fruit all the while looking furtively around for the gardeners. On Friday Teddy and I had the place mostly to ourselves and so sat out in the open in the children’s garden, next to the fountain where children are invited to splash and play. I know that Teddy is getting older because his shirt was not completely soaked by the time we got up to leave.

Fortified, it was on to the conservatory where we saw a dazzling variety of water lilies from the palest yellow to the deepest magenta. Teddy insisted on asking a man in waders who was working in the middle of one of the ponds if there were frogs in there. “Yes,” the gardener replied without cracking a smile, “but they are hiding.” I got the impression he himself would have liked to duck down under one of the large green platters that surrounded him, but my son wanted to keep chatting in his inimitable three-year-old way. “Why?” he asked (his go-to question at the moment), “why are they hiding?” I lured him away by tempting him with an exhibit of spun glass pumpkins tumbling out of a huge cornucopia made of woven grass and flowers. Some of them were lit from within so they glowed like jewels, much to Teddy’s delight: “they’re so bright Mommy!” Then he had to take a tour around the indoor children’s garden a completely magical place that I fear I cannot do justice to with its many fountains (including a huge smoking dragon head that Teddy refuses to walk by because it scares him) and more flowers and hidey-holes.

We finished our visit by touring two tree houses, part of a temporary exhibit called “Nature’s Castles” that has been built and is on display this summer and fall. First we visited The Birdhouse, a tall and narrow aerie in the middle of the trees designed to make one feel like a bird. Teddy of course peeped his way all around informing me that “Little Chick likes it up high.” The second, is named the Lookout Loft and is a sprawling pavilion at the edge of the forest that overlookes one of Longwood’s large meadows, which is changing from green to gold like a magical carpet.


We wandered back out through the Flower Garden Walk, always full of blooms arranged in order by color with purple at one end and moving through the rainbow to white on the other side. Here Teddy pretended to gallop like a horse; found a flower he christened an “octopus flower” for its many narrow, leg-like petals; wore another flower as a hat; and protested as only a child his age can when I told him it was time to go.

Why is visiting gardens such a wonderful thing to do with children of all ages? There are many reasons. For one thing, each garden, no matter its size, is its own self-contained universe and a safe place to explore. And it’s easy – you don’t need a plan to have a good time. Actually, it’s not even necessary to pick up a map when you arrive (although as I mentioned earlier this week, maps can be a lot of fun for children who are learning to read them) but can simply choose to wander around and be surprised. You are out in the fresh air getting exercise, as are your children. There are many opportunities for observing nature and for learning in a garden, whether it is reading the names of plants, finding caterpillars, splashing in a fountain, or smelling flowers. And some gardens, like Longwood, offer equally beautiful indoor spaces that can enliven dreary winter days and also offer a chance for little legs to wear themselves out before naptime.

But for me the overriding reason is that children of all types – those who love princesses and those who love Pokémon – are sensitive to beauty. What better way to help them keep this alertness, this wonder? And what better way to return to a childlike state yourself?

Philadelphia Family Travel Tips

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Filed Under: Easy outings from Philadelphia, Kid-friendly gardens, Longwood Gardens, MidAtlantic adventures, Nature fun, Pennsylvania, We've been here

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Comments

  1. Rachel says

    September 14, 2008 at 1:51 am

    You’ve inspired me, Mara! We have a ton of beautiful gardens in the Melbourne area, but I’ve been meaning to take Jess to two outside of the city for awhile – both owned by the Diggers, a seed/plant catalogue company that features organic/heritage seeds. They have two showpiece gardens – Heronswood and St. Erth. Both are about the same distance from us as Longwood Gardens is from you, but in opposite directions. I really ought to take Jess now, while it’s spring.

    Reply
  2. jamie says

    September 14, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    Great post. It looks like you had the whole place to yourself too!

    Reply
  3. Becky WJ says

    September 15, 2008 at 9:08 am

    What beautiful pictures and prose! and what a beautiful boy!

    Reply
  4. Mara from Motherofalltrips says

    September 15, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    Rachel – both of those gardens look fabulous! Maybe next week I’ll have to dream of coming to Australia (actually, that is definitely on my list).

    Jamie and Becky, thanks for the praise about the entry – Teddy makes it easy to take cute photos. It really was strangely deserted the day we were there, maybe because we got there pretty early and it was a little overcast.

    Reply
  5. Mary Ann says

    September 25, 2008 at 4:40 pm

    I absolutely love Longwood Gardens. I usually take my kids there at least two or three times each month. I, too, sneak granola bars, fruit and other snacks to avoid the cafeteria, although the mushroom soup is yummy. If you ever want to join me and some other moms on a playdate there, just let me know!

    Reply
  6. Mara from Motherofalltrips says

    September 25, 2008 at 8:35 pm

    Note please, that Mary Ann is right – they do have excellent mushroom soup in the cafeteria at Longwood. I recommend it highly.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Family travel in Pennsylvania: the 50 state series | Family Travel Guide says:
    August 5, 2009 at 2:21 am

    […] ***  From Mara Gorman on Facebook  –  Where to start? OK, I’ll pick one: Longwood Gardens, which has both an outdoor and an indoor children’s garden, one of the world’s most beautiful conservatories, and enough fountains to satisfy young and old (some of them are even coordinated to music). See my post about it at https://www.motherofalltrips.com/2008/09/out-and-about-with-kids-welcoming-fall-at-longwood-gardens.h…. […]

    Reply
  2. Travelers Company » Family travel in Pennsylvania: the 50 state series says:
    August 5, 2009 at 4:59 am

    […] ***  From Mara Gorman on Facebook  –  Where to start? OK, I’ll pick one: Longwood Gardens, which has both an outdoor and an indoor children’s garden, one of the world’s most beautiful conservatories, and enough fountains to satisfy young and old (some of them are even coordinated to music). See my post about it at https://www.motherofalltrips.com/2008/09/out-and-about-with-kids-welcoming-fall-at-longwood-gardens.h…. […]

    Reply
  3. Fall Fun at Longwood Gardens says:
    October 11, 2010 at 10:13 am

    […] and giant pumpkins!) and beauty for adults. You can read in more detail about one of our visits here. And if you’re looking for pumpkin patches and spooky places to visit around the United […]

    Reply
  4. The first frog of spring at Longwood Gardens says:
    April 28, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    […] been unusually warm here this week, more like summer than spring. On Monday I took the boys to Longwood Gardens where we caught the tulips on what was probably their very last good […]

    Reply
  5. Dreaming of local adventures | The Mother of all Trips says:
    October 10, 2011 at 10:14 am

    […] it was time for annual fall visit to Longwood Gardens to play hide and seek in the Topiary Garden, admire the pumpkins (we saw one that was over 700 […]

    Reply
  6. MidAtlantic fun: A day with kids at Hagley Museum | The Mother of all Trips says:
    October 27, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    […] built the gunpowder mills that were the origin of their fortune. Along with nearby Winterthur and Longwood Gardens, both created by du Pont heirs, it represents an important piece of the history of the area which […]

    Reply
  7. MidAtlantic fun: The best ice cream in America at Woodside Farm | The Mother of all Trips says:
    October 27, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    […] are an easy drive from any of the Brandywine Valley attractions including Winterthur, Hagley, or Longwood Gardens. It’s definitely worth the trip (and the wait in […]

    Reply

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I'm a family travel expert & award-winning writer who loves to eat. Explore this site and you'll find lots of stories about my adventures, and family travel tips. More about Mara

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