Photo of the Day: Angel’s Trumpet

I took this photo while on vacation three weeks ago at marvelous Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley.  I’m glad I didn’t touch this striking flowering plant (especially common in California), though, as its secretions are poisonous. (Teens, in their nutty experiments in getting high, are also discovering just how dangerous this can be.)

Photo of the Day: Water Magic

Three weeks ago, on my visit to Longwood Gardens in the Brandywine Valley, I heard a blast of joyous music at 3 pm. I hurried to the source of the sound, the open-air theater in that onetime du Pont country estate.

The music was “Stars and Stripes Forever,” except that, instead of the spectacular fireworks associated with that Fourth of July perennial, visitors here were treated to an equally dazzling water display.

A little later that afternoon, I learned, from an exhibit at the Peirce-du Pont House on the grounds, why that particular piece of music was so appropriate. The composer of that patriotic march, John Philip Sousa, was a friend of Longwood owner Pierre du Pont, and an occasional visitor to these majestic surroundings.

Photo of the Day: Quill Mums

This photo comes from one of the garden of earthly delights that makes up the visual cornucopia of Longwood Gardens, one of the prime stops on my vacation in the Brandywine Valley in eastern Pennsylvania two weeks ago.

Photo of the Day: Funny Bunny

I almost burst out laughing at the sight of this, just one of several whimsical bits of what I think of as landscape sculpture in the topiary garden at Longwood Gardens in the Brandywine Valley, which I visited two weeks ago.  I couldn’t stop taking pictures throughout my long walk there (as you may have guessed from the multiple images I’ve posted on the site already).

Photo of the Day: Majestic Scene, Majestic Day, Majestic Estate

I took this photo nearly two weeks ago while on vacation in the Brandywine Valley, at Winterthur, the country estate of several generations of the du Ponts. The last of the industrial dynasty to occupy the house, Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969)--probably America’s greatest collector of Americana in his time--was also, at heart, a horticulturalist. The estate, located six miles northwest of Wilmington, Delaware, exemplifies a naturalistic style of gardening, in contrast to the more formal landscaping another estate owned by the du Ponts in the valley, Longwood Gardens.

Photo of the Day: Wowed by Water Lilies

I took this shot of gigantic water lily pads while visiting, more than a week ago, in Longwood Gardens, the estate owned by Pierre du Pont in Kennett Square, Penn.