The Chrysanthemum Festival, a riot of color featuring more than 16,000 mums nurtured and transformed by horticulture experts into clouds, balls, spirals, columns, pagodas, and even a cascading fountain, opens on Saturday, Oct. 24, at Longwood Gardens.
The Chrysanthemum Festival runs through Nov. 22, but a bonus for early visitors is that it will overlap for less than a week with “Nightscape: A Light and Sound Experience,” the popular multisensory exhibit that closes on Oct. 31.
According to Longwood officials, gardeners work daily throughout the seasons, grooming and training the plants using the traditional growing techniques from Japan and China, where chrysanthemum displays are a highly respected art form.
The Chrysanthemum Festival is the largest display of exhibition mums in the U.S., and showcases the largest Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum grown outside of Asia. Longwood’s Thousand Bloom Mum boasts more than 1,500 perfectly arranged flowers on one plant.
Longwood Gardens, located on Route 1 near Kennett Square, is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with extended hours until 11 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday during the Nightscape exhibit. To purchase or reserve tickets, visit longwoodgardens.org.
