A Longwood Christmas

December 11th, 2012

If you’re looking for a gardeny/Christmasy thing to do this year, may I suggest Longwood Gardens?

I’ve been there numerous times in December, and I’m always astounded at what this Chester County horticultural wonderland does with its 4 acres under glass — not to mention hundreds of thousands of outdoor lights.

No wonder so many people make it a point to get there every year.

Who’d guess that December is actually Longwood’s most-visited month? You’d think May would be the big month for a public garden.

Longwood is so popular this time of year that it’s had to resort to timed tickets. And those often sell out during peak times, so I’d highly recommend going online to reserve your tickets ahead of time. Here’s a link to Longwood’s timed-ticketing web page: http://www.longwoodgardens.org/TimedTicketingPYV.html.

My wife and I took a full busload down last Friday (Lowee’s Group Tours trip), and the big hit this year is the humongous Christmas table set up in the sunken area of the conservatory.

It runs nearly the whole length of this big room and has seating for more than 50. It’s covered with a bright red tablecloth, which is topped with a runner of live green moss and giant milkglass vases stuffed with white-painted curly willow branches.

It’s all set up on a floor of living turfgrass and landscaped with potted palms and leafless winterberry hollies packed with red berries.

As with so many sights at Longwood, people walk in, their jaws drop, and they go, “Oh my!”

That’s Longwood. It’s a wow kind of a place, if you’ve never seen it.

Turns out the tables are ones that founder Pierre du Pont used to use when he would entertain for Christmas. And it’s not even all of them.

Once you pick your jaw back up and move on, the east part of the conservatory is all white this year… white lilies, white amaryllis, dusty miller, white cyclamen, white hellebores and a live tree decorated completely in white.

The central section has its share of poinsettias, but it’s got a few curveballs this year, like the blue hydrangeas fronted by ‘Blue Ice’ Arizona cypresses (a lacy blue-needled conifer).

Outside, the Gardens still have one section of fiber-optic lighting left behind from this summer’s spectacular light show done by British light artist Bruce Munro.

The Meadow of Lights display is still set up on the opposite side of a lake to give the effect of a meadow garden that glows at night with color-changing lights substituting for the flower heads.

If you missed that whole exhibit, this is your last chance to see what it was all about. Even those lights come down after Christmas.

Always a hit are the gazillion lights that Longwood staff attaches to trees throughout the gardens. And the fountain show that features lighted water jets dancing to Christmas music is another hit that everyone sees (sometimes more than once).

My favorite natural sight this year was from the lower end of Longwood’s stone chimes tower. Planted on the slope leading down from the tower is a mass of about two dozen winterberry hollies, and they were all dressed in their red winter fruits to make a singular splash of fire on the slope.

Amazing.

Put Longwood at Christmas on your bucket list if you can’t get there this year. And if you’re getting out-of-town visitors for the holidays, this place is worth the drive time (2 hours) and the bucks ($25 during peak times).