The first part of the Longwood Reimagined project is ready for the public. Longwood Gardens redesigned Orchid House is open to the public as of Saturday, Feb. 26.
Trish Evans, Longwood’s public relations director, said there will be a familiar feel to the room. “We brought back the original grandeur…We redid the orchid house as it was originally designed in the 1920s.”
The redesign allows for more than 500 of the plants to be on display at one time, said curator Gregg Griffis. He stressed, however, that that is an eventuality. Right now, there are just a little less than 300 orchids on display.
Griffis said some orchids can live almost indefinitely. There are some at Longwood that are 100 years old and some in the United Kingdom are more than 200 years old.
He said the allure of orchids is rooted in their beauty and mystery.
“They’re such a unique plant,” he said. “They tend to live where very few other plants live, so they have a niche cultural aspect to them.”
He explained that’s to avoid competition, “trying to find places to live where they don’t have to fight with other things to survive ... They can grow on trees or in rock outcroppings."
He added that orchids also have incredible diversity. There are more than 30,000 species of the plant and more than 150,000 man-made hybrid species. He said they grow on every continent except in Antarctica. And they are sneaky.
“They trick pollinators into pollinating them.”
Some species, he said, offer the pollinator a little bit of nectar. Others send out false signals, such as sending out an aroma of a bee looking for a mate. Another bee will come by to mate but pollinate the plant instead.
Visually, orchids show myriad colors and Griffis said Longwood’s collection has pretty much every color in the orchid world. The only color they don’t have represented in the collection is a true blue – at least for now.
On Feb. 26 and 27, Longwood will have an Orchid House opening weekend. Visitors this weekend can be among the first to not only experience this extraordinary space but also to meet the brains behind the beauty.
Redesigning the orchid house is just one part of the larger multi-million-dollar Longwood Reimagined project that includes several new buildings. One of those is a new West Conservatory that will look as if it’s floating on water. For now, though, only the new Orchid House is ready. The whole project is expected to be complete and ready for the public in the fall of 2024.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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