Longwood Gardens — Attraction in East Marlborough Township

As a long-time paying member, I have mixed feelings about Longwood Gardens. There's no question it's a beautiful place, with knowledgeable, talented staff who care deeply about horticulture.

Unfortunately, the garden management has chosen to make Longwood more & more about spectacle. What fabulous, famous British garden master Monty Don likened to a circus.

To pay for the numerous changes, Longwood has put on a major push for new members, resulting in a more chaotic, crowded place with many people attending who have little to no interest in or respect for horticulture. Their main interest in the living, growing things at Longwoid is as a backdrop for their selfies, which often involve them mishandling & often damage.

Longwood has raised rates substantially, yet diminished the value of membership in many ways. Most obviously, they've lowered value of membership by one seventh as they are now closed every Tuesday, when over it's long life of being open to the public, Longwood prided itself on being open every day of the year, then please and they still were able to maintain world class status.

While any class of member used to be free to visit at any time, now all but the most expensive memberships (priced to benefit only those with large families) require reservations for the majority of the year. With the overselling of memberships, this means there is a non-negligible chance that members will be shut out on many dates during popular displays.

Also, the gardens are increasingly closed for private events, these days.

The self-serve dining area has been devalued, as well, becoming more of an expensive cafeteria. They have eliminated the more creative meals served fresh. Almost everything is prepackaged. They've switched from stainless flatware to prepackaged plastic sets and from plates to plastic frozen dinner type containers. They removed the self-fill beverage option, where one could get fresh-made iced tea, along with the usual fountain beverages.

Meanwhile, the they've spent big to please the elites with a fancy new trendy restaurant with fancy new, trendy outrageous prices.

Longwood Gardens still has much to offer, but most of the many "reimaginings" that supposedly justify the negative changes are of little or no value to me and many others who contributed to Longwood's operation for many years. In fact, many beloved areas have been torn down, ripped out,...

I can't even explain how amazing this place was. We stayed nearby in the mushroom capitol of the world aka Kenneth Square and went in our late morning slot and were already at the back of the parking lot but they ushered everyone in pretty fast.

We chose to go left and around the garden in that way. We ended up by the bell tower at quarter till the hour able to hear them ringing. Then by the time the noon bells tolled I was happy to be farther away as they had a long show of sound. Stunning display from farther away!

Everything we saw was just beautiful even when things weren't fully ready. The veggie garden was mixed in with beautiful flowers but wasn't fully open to walk around yet. The fountains were still mostly winterized and empty but just beautiful. The main house was cool to see with lots to learn inside with videos and pictures and other historical items inside.

We didn't check out the restaurant and I wish we had just seen it! We had pizza and hotdogs by the cafe (from the two different vendors outside the cafe) we luckily got a table. I enjoyed my mushroom pizza and the family liked their hotdogs/burger, brats. We continued our journey to the different tree houses. We didn't go fully to the end of the meadow area but walked to the Land bridge and across the pond back to the main area.

The gift shop is the most amazing gift shop full of all the typical things but somehow more elevated. They had seeds and plants for sale. My middle (10 year old) child walked around for almost half an hour and was done with the gardens after our 5.5 hour stay. They love plants but allergies were getting to them and my spouse. The gift shop was still keeping us from going home! Even with the expected allergies from two family members we all still had an amazing trip and I can't wait to go back again someday!!

Professional photography is allowed with a pass purchased well in advance. It would be amazing to go back with my professional gear but this trip was just with my phone camera and zero edits! It was a stunning location with amazing flowers and buildings/structures and paths. I don't think I will ever get over how...

I'm not a huge fan of botanical gardens in general, and this one is no exception.

The place is huge - we spent several hours going all over the gardens, and we left before we could see everything. I'm not sure how much a benefit that is, though. A lot of that real estate is taken up by huge, concrete pavilions and bare lawns, which offer no shade or comfort on a hot day. (No, there was no seating on the lawns; they're for looking only!)

The gardens were beautiful, I suppose, but not quite my style. Once you've seen one hydrangea, you've seen them all. The perfectly-manicured hedges, the rose gardens, the labeled invasive trees as though you can't just see a hundred of them lining any highway, and the English ivy blanketing the ground all scream "British colonialist." However, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few native plants mixed into the gardens, like rattlesnake master, butterfly weed, and several varieties of coneflower. But as always, there could have - and should have - been more.

The water features, including the grotto, were pretty cool, but the water absolutely reeks with chlorine. It also is deeply upsetting to me that the water is totally devoid of life because of that. How can you call yourself a garden and reject the life that exists in it?

The conservatory was disappointing, containing houseplants that I could buy for myself at my local Home Depot.

The highlights of the trip were the kitchen garden; the student exhibition, which was the only garden there that truly felt like art; and the meadow garden. The meadow garden actually looks like a well-maintained meadow; it's chock-full of beautiful native plants, and not just overrun with the same invasive weeds that plague the rest of the state. Joe-pye weed, goldenrod, coneflowers, asters, queen of the prairie, and more. Truly, this is the only maintained place I've seen that claims to be a meadow and actually is one.

That alone doesn't make up for the $32 I had to pay for a SINGLE adult ticket. That is robbery. I've been to bigger gardens with cheaper admission. You're not special, Longwood. I don't think I will ever go back, not even...