Longwood Gardens is one of America's premier public gardens, located less than an hour outside of Philadelphia in the lush suburbs of Kennett Square. It is based on some of the more spectacular British public gardens, such as the infamous Kew Gardens. One of the highlights of a visit to Longwood Gardens for many is watching and listening to the musical main garden fountain. Although there are many changing exhibits at Longwood Gardens, the musical garden fountain is a permanent attraction.

A Brief History Of Longwood Gardens

First owned by William Penn, the vast area that eventually became today's Longwood Gardens was then sold to the Pierce family and then sold to Pierre S. duPont in 1906 in one of the first efforts of land conservation applied before the 1970's. Pierre duPont originally wanted to just leave the land alone, but then realized the potential and decided to have some fun with it and add the best features from other places he had seen in his travels about Europe.

One of these additions was the main garden water fountain. It is a huge five acre man-made lake with a weir and many large jets to make water sail into the sky up to 130 feet high. The garden fountain is estimated to hold 10,000 gallons of water and over 380 fountains, scuppers and spouts.

Bells And Whistles

Although visually spectacular, the various effects of sudden jets into the air in many directions just wasn't spectacular enough for Longwood Garden's charismatic and incredibly rich owner. Pierre duPont decided that the show should have a backing soundtrack. The sudden jests of water were choreographed to music. This tradition is still kept today, although the music is recorded and the garden fountain is controlled by computer program.

There are also many colored lights along the musical garden fountain so that the show can be enjoyed to a whole new level at night. There are now twenty garden fountains around Longwood Gardens, but none hold the magnetic attraction and all of the special effects as the main musical fountain. However, even the smaller man-made garden fountains are now programmed to spout in a way that compliments the main fountain's choreography.

Other Longwood Garden Attractions

What? The musical garden fountain isn’t enough for you? There are many more things to see at Longwood Gardens, both indoors and out. There are about twenty hothouses and heated buildings where exhibitions of rare plants like tropical orchids are a big draw to nature-starved modern humanity. During the Christmas season, you can drive around the arboretum and find about trees decorated with incredible lights.