Christmas Lights at Longwood Gardens

Believe it or not, all of the pictures I posted the last two days represent only half of the conservatory. I'm not going to post the photos of the rest of the conservatory right now. There is still weeks and weeks of winter left and I know that periodically I will feel the need for green. Those will be great times to revisit those pictures.

I would like to finish up with some pictures of the Christmas lights at Longwood. There are over 420,000 lights both indoors and outdoors. Sunday was the last day for the lights and there were still crowds streaming in when we left at 6 PM. I have to warn you. The pictures aren't very good. My camera isn't one of those fancy ones where you can vary the exposure and my batteries were on their last legs.

One of my favorite Christmas displays was of wreaths made by students. They were incredibly creative.

This one was my personal favorite:

After we finished our tour of the conservatory, we headed outdoors and did a very brief tour of the grounds. It was still light enough to see the gardens. Of course, I had to take pictures of the ornamental grasses.

Nope, they don't look any better than the ones I helped plant at Rutgers Gardens last spring. Right next to the ornamental grasses is a Children's Garden. I loved this "throne".

I had a tough time getting this shot because the children playing in the garden all wanted to pose in the chair for me! Further on are the veggie beds. There is nothing in them now, but I liked the birdhouse gourds.

See the lights in the tree behind it? What I want to know is, who climbed all the trees to put lights in them?
Here's a better shot of the "tree" to the left:

They had whole rows of these "trees".

This is a shot of the Italian Garden all done up in blue lights. You can't see any detail, but it gives you an idea of the incredible numbers of lights.

Here's a neat shot down an avenue. See the bright lights in the middle of the picture?

They're "lilac bushes"!

I'm dying to know. Did they use ladders or a cherry picker to get up there?
Oh, darn. I only got one side. This was an avenue with green and red "trees" lining both sides.

And remember the little flower lights outside the restaurant? Here's some more all lit up.

As we headed towards the Visitor Center (the bright light on the left) on our way out, we wondered . . .

. . . do they take the lights down each year or do they leave them up year-round and only illuminate them during the holidays?

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to going back during the growing season. Next time I'm going to bring more batteries and something to take notes on.