Longwood Gardens – WaterLilies

The water lily court at Longwood Gardens was open and beautiful. I am always fascinated by the large Victoria waterlily (the ones at Longwood are ones that they created in 1960 – a cross between Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziana). The pads unfurl from the center and the outer edge stays vertical – showing the red underside of the pad. The flowers look like crepe paper as they unfurl rather than the spikey flowers of the other waterlilies. The buds have bristles. Look through my Victoria images by using the forward and backward arrows at the sides.

Of course – the other waterlilies are almost as exciting to photograph and they have brilliant colors. My husband had provided a polarizing filter for my camera which helps to surround the flowers with black background – sometimes. There were not many bees (late in the season for waterlilies) but I did notice one bee butt when I got home and selected images to use in this post. And there is one hibiscus in the slide show; I couldn’t resist the flaring of the petals…the color and shadows.

I always enjoy the waterlily court so I’m glad we got to see it during the first time back to Longwood since before the pandemic (I almost said post-pandemic but we’re not quite there yet!). It’s a great place for photography and has lots of benches to just enjoy the pools of waterlilies…and other water-loving plants lining the walls of the court and in pots standing in the water.

Longwood Gardens – October 2021

We took a day trip to Longwood Gardens in mid-October. The website was encouraging ticket purchase before coming and cautioning that it is no longer possible to leave/return as we had usually done for lunch; the gardens also open an hour later than pre-pandemic. We arrived a few minutes before our ticket time and the garden opening at 10. There were others that had the same strategy…a line formed. I took a few macro pictures of the plants near our place in line while we waited. It was a little disconcerting that only about half the people put on masks inside the visitor center and there were several busloads of children that arrived - enlarging the crowd in the building. We exited to the gardens as quickly as we could and headed to the conservatory.

We chose to wear a mask in the conservatory too – as did about half the people in the building. There is construction closing the west end but still plenty of mums, tropical plants, children’s garden, and cactus to see in the part that is open. Even the hallway of bathrooms in the conservatory was very lush with green walls. Enjoy the slide show of zoomed pictures from the conservatory!

I’ll post about the water lilies and fiddleheads and macro photographs later. There were a few pictures I took as we walked about through the forest and meadow and then enjoying the display of fall squash and gourds…but I spent most of my time experimenting with macro photography with my phone.

We spent about 3.5 hours in the gardens…then were tired and hungry enough to call it a day. We stopped at a fast-food drive thru…then parked and ate…before continuing home.