Longwood Gardens will bring back its autumn Chrysanthemum Festival later this month after skipping last year’s display of the stunning “thousand bloom” plant and other varieties of fall’s favorite flower.
The botanical preserve in Kennett Square said this year’s festival will run from Oct. 24 to Nov. 16 with a new exhibit explaining the science behind growing and artfully shaping the colorful plant.
The species is one of the few that naturally blooms during cooler fall months, but cultivating them for vibrant displays is a rigorous process that can take upwards of a year. Longwood Gardens took a break from last year’s festival to devote more attention to the opening of its new West Conservatory and other exhibits from the $250 million Longwood Reimagined project.
During a December lecture for Longwood Gardens members, staff said the beloved 1,000 bloom chrysanthemum became a challenge in recent years due to difficulties with flowering. The exhibit in the Main Conservatory showcases a single plant with a thousand or more perfectly grown flowers, a process that took about 1,800 hours of labor in one recent year.
“This is really the most intensive horticultural effort that we engage in here at Longwood,” Jim Harbage, the preserve’s director of floriculture, says in a video explaining the complex method used to create the 1,000 bloom chrysanthemum.
In years past, Longwood Gardens has abandoned the festival’s highlight — despite months of preparation — when the flowers fail to thrive due to root-borne pathogens and other complications.
The displays shown during the Chrysanthemum Festival rely on techniques that trace back more than 400 years to China and Japan, where some of Longwood Gardens’ experts have traveled to study the art of growing the plants. This year’s festival also will include mums shaped into a variety of forms such as baskets, spirals, columns and clouds. Past festivals also have featured chrysanthemum bonsai in rich fall colors.
Attendance at the Chrysanthemum Festival comes with a regular ticket for timed admission to Longwood Gardens. The renovations at the 1,100-acre attraction include the new West Conservatory with its Mediterranean garden, a new bonsai home, a revamped waterlily display and an upgraded overlook for fountain shows.
Every year, the Philadelphia Flower Show seems to expire as quickly as a cheap bouquet in a discount vase after Valentine’s Day.
But the closing of the 195th installment of the massive horticultural event doesn’t mean an end of your opportunities to be one with nature. There are plenty of gardens, arboretums and greenhouses in the region to visit and celebrate the arrival of spring.
If you’re still looking to get a floral fix, here are six botanic gems in the Philly area.
Jeff Tomik/PhillyVoice
Tyler Arboretum features multiple treehouses.
Tyler Arboretum
With 17 miles of trails through woodlands and meadows, fragrant and edible gardens, a butterfly house, a StoryWalk (pages from a children’s book placed along a path) and a gnome scavenger hunt, Tyler Arboretum is acres of adventures.
LOCATION: 515 Painter Road, Media, Delaware County
FEE: $10-$18 for general admission; $65-$300 for annual membership
BEST TIME TO GO: May 3-5 for the annual plant sale. The fundraising event, which includes a members-only day on Friday, has experts available to offer gardening advice and a wide range of flowers and plants for sale.
PHOTO OP: In 2008, artists and architects designed Totally Terrific Treehouses for an exhibit and a few wacky structures remain – including the Crooked Goblin Shack, Thoreau’s Cabin, Strummin’ and Drummin’, and Fort Tyler.
Courtesy of/Morris Arboretum
Morris Arboretum features gardens, sculptures and fountains.
Strolling through the 92-acre, 19th century Victorian arboretum is a walk through history. The grounds include a 100-year-old rose garden, an English Park fountain that dates back to 1916 and a six-foot wall made from Wissahickon schist filled with perennials that was built in 1924.
LOCATION: 100 E. Northwestern Ave., Philadelphia
FEE: $12-$20 for adults depending on the season, with discounted tickets and memberships available
BEST TIME TO GO: A warm spring day is the perfect time to sign up for a guided tour of Morris Arboretum or explore the 1.4-mile loop trail on your own, taking in the old trees and unusual plants from around the world. With all the gardens, sculptures and fountains, there’s something to see at every turn. During the holiday season, Morris builds a model train railway with thousands of lights on a third of a mile of tracks.
PHOTO OP: The white marble Love Temple on Swan Pond, an artificial lake that was made in 1905, is a fan favorite to snap pics, but just be warned that you might get photo bombed by Flora and Fauna, the swan sisters who call the pond home.
Jeff Tomik/PhillyVoice
Ott’s Exotic Plants in Schwenksville has a greenhouse with an indoor waterfall and koi pond.
Ott’s Exotic Plants
Whether you’re looking to take a picture by the indoor two-story waterfall and koi pond, buy a massive fruit tree or start a succulent garden, Ott’s Exotic Plants is the perfect place for any gardening enthusiast — or anyone trying to find a spot for a cheap date.
LOCATION: 861 Gravel Pike, Schwenksville, Montgomery County
FEE: Free
BEST TIME TO GO: In autumn for “Mum Mountain.” In the 1960s, dirt excavated to build Ott’s parking lot was used to form a 40-foot hill behind the greenhouse. To avoid it looking like an eyesore, Ott’s owners began covering it entirely with chrysanthemums every fall, and the pile of dirt quickly transformed into a tourist attraction along Route 29. The only thing that cuts through the splashes of autumn colors are rocks that frame a cave-like underground tunnel and a meandering path to the top of the hill.
PHOTO OP: Climbing the few stairs to Mum Mountain’s “peak” provides you with a bird’s-eye view of the store’s whimsical cottage-like stone structure and its multicolored slate roof.
Jeff Douglass/PhillyVoice
Longwood Gardens’ annual Christmas display, including here in 2019, draws huge crowds.
Pierre S. du Pont purchased the land in 1906 to preserve trees on the farm, and in 1921 the entrepreneur opened the 1,100-acre estate to the public. Now more than 1.5 million people (about the population of Philadelphia) every year come to see the gardens, fountains, woodlands and meadows on the vast grounds.
LOCATION: 1001 Longwood Road, Kennett Square, Chester County
FEE: $25 for adults
BEST TIME TO GO: The holiday season draws huge crowds to Longwood Gardens – and it’s totally worth fighting through the masses to see each year’s new theme. About a third of Longwood Gardens’ annual visitors come for the decorations, trees and lights of its elaborate Christmas display.
PHOTO OP: Longwood is endlessly instagrammable, but the challenge is all the people. The best spot to capture Longwood Gardens’ beauty – and not its crowds – is the main fountain. With 1,719 jets, including some the shoot water as high as 175 feet, it provides plenty of opportunities to take a picture that makes it seem like you’re in a secluded enchanted garden.
Source/Awbury Arboretum
The Francis Cope House at Awbury Arboretum was built in 1854.
Awbury Arboretum
The Germantown estate was formerly home to a wealthy Quaker family and has been open to the public for more than 100 years. The Victorian-style Francis Cope House, built in 1861 out of Wissahickon schist, is the epicenter of the grounds, which feature gardens, meadows, ponds, streams and wetlands. The Awbury Arboretum is across Washington Lane station on SEPTA’s Chestnut Hill East Line, so it’s easily accessible by public transit.
LOCATION: 1 Awbury Road, Philadelphia
FEE: Free
BEST TIME TO GO: On a late spring day, magnolias, tulip trees, orange-leaf hydrangeas and many more of Awbury’s blossoming beauties can be enjoyed in full bloom on a walk through Haines Field.
PHOTO OP: The wildflower meadow offers a backdrop of bright colors and an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the many feathered friends on the grounds.
Chanticleer Garden
The 48-acre botanical garden that’s built on the Rosengarten estate dates back to the early 20th century. The grounds, which are closed to the public during winter, will be open Wednesdays to Sundays from March 27 through Nov. 3. Seven horticulturists are each responsible for the design, planting and maintenance of an area, which can feature perennials and seasonal, tropical and subtropical plants.
LOCATION: 786 Church Road, Wayne, Chester County
FEE:$15 (13 and older)
BEST TIME TO GO: During the summer on Friday nights, guests to Chanticleer Garden are welcome to bring food and drinks and have picnics at the estate.
PHOTO OP: The Teacup Garden has a Mediterranean look, with olive trees that frame a fountain and white flowers of clary sage.
Orange-juice futures posted a drop of nearly 11% for the week on Friday, the largest such percentage decline since late March 2017, just days after settling at their highest price on record.
“The weather is good and the hurricane season is almost over,” Jack Scoville, vice president of The Price Futures Group and author of the Grains and Softs Report, told MarketWatch on Friday.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. It can impact crops in the region, and Florida is among the top orange growing states. The season started off strongly but was relatively quiet in October.
The speculators in the market tried to take profits and “found out that there was no buying interest under the market, so it went down hard,” said Scoville.
The most-active January contract for frozen concentrated orange juice posted a weekly loss of 10.6% on Friday, the worst weekly performance since the week ended March 31, 2017, according to Dow Jones Market Data. It settled Friday at $3.4925 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange, down 1.4%, for the session, after dropping 5.2% Thursday.
The big mover among the futures contracts is November, said Darin Newsom, Barchart senior market analyst.
That contract was down around 14% from this past Tuesday’s high of $4.3195, he said. The first notice day, the day buyers of futures contracts receive a notice that a seller intends to make delivery of a commodity, was Nov. 1, he said.
Given that, anyone holding long futures who didn’t want to take delivery had to get out of their position — leading to a sharp selloff, Newsom explained. The January contract saw some “spillover selling” from the November contracts.
Prices for frozen orange juice had marked a record high settlement of $4.008 a pound on Oct. 30. They trade a whopping 71% higher year to date, on track for the best year since 2009.
It’s “hard to buy when a market goes to new all-time highs,” said Newsom.
Key reasons for the rally are post-COVID demand for vitamin C, and the worst Florida citrus crop since the 1920s, due to a disease called citrus greening, said James Roemer, publisher of WeatherWealth newsletter.
However, the lack of Florida hurricanes this fall and a potentially large 2024 orange crop in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, are “potentially bearish longer term,” he said.
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
Constellation Brands‘ earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations as the company reported strong beer sales for the latest quarter on Friday. The stock fell anyway.
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
