Longwood Gardens

Sunday was almost unbearably hot.  But I didn't know that it would be when I agreed to meet friends at Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.  That was several weeks ago, and although I suspected that mid-July wouldn't be fun, I was hoping for cooler weather.  As it happened, the day was mostly overcast and there was a lovely intermittent breeze.  Without those, I would have melted, despite a wide-brimmed hat and my Ray Bans and a cool dress.

Longwood Gardens are what was once one of several old du Pont estates in the area.  It's over 1,000 acres set in rolling southeastern Pennsylvania countryside.  There are gorgeous formal gardens, but our focus this visit was the meadow.  It has recently been expanded and there are many new pieces of hardscaping  -  bridges and walkways and a nature center gallery.  With air conditioning, a bathroom, and two drinking fountains.  Just what was needed after hiking through the meadow.

There are so many flowers tucked into the meadow grasses.  Black-eyed susan, butterfly weed, blazing star, coneflower.  We admired the red-winged blackbirds balancing on the tops of the waving stems.  There was even a 'green roof' bluebird house!  How ecologically sound!

It was nice to get back to the lake at the bottom of the meadow and into the woods.  There's a tree house I'd kill for, and the Italian gardens with their fountains were so tempting!  I'm sorry I forgot to take photos of these.  You'll have to visit Longwood yourself, or at least look at their web site:  http://longwoodgardens.org .

Our friends were just coming home from a week long vacation at the Delaware shore, so we ended our visit with lunch at the 1906 Restaurant at Longwood Gardens.  Excellent!

This is cheating, but here are some photos I took when we were there in April 2013.  They always have such gorgeous borders.  In the spring, they're almost overwhelming.