Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
An old arboretum, a garden-maker’s fountains and a collection of living plants offer several ways into the story of Longwood Gardens.
On this page
An arboretum before the garden
The Peirce family farmed here from 1700, and in 1798 the twins Samuel and Joshua Peirce began an arboretum. Their farmhouse survives as the Peirce-du Pont House.
Pierre S. du Pont bought the farm in 1906 to save those trees from being felled for timber.
Fountains, glass and music
Du Pont built the Open Air Theatre, the Conservatory, the Italian Water Garden, the Chimes Tower and the Main Fountain Garden between 1914 and 1931, and ordered the 10,010-pipe Aeolian organ in 1929.
The Main Fountain Garden reopened in 2017 after a restoration that began in 2014.
A living collection
The gardens cover more than 1,100 acres and hold more than 13,500 kinds of plants. In November 2024 the Longwood Reimagined project opened the West Conservatory.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
