Wings, Wildflowers & A Weekend Deal at Morris Arboretum & Gardens! July 21, 2025 Philadelphia, PA—Join us at Morris Arboretum & Gardens for  Morris Discount Weekend:   Wings, Wildflowers & A Weekend Deal ,  Saturday, August 2 and Sunday, August 3 ,  2025 . Visitors get $10 off full-price admission both days! Tickets must be purchased on-site for the discount. ***  Get the buzz at  morrisarboretum.org !  Morris Arboretum & Gardens is a paradise for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators in its newest exhibition,  Bees, Butterflies & Blooms: A Pollinator Paradise , running through September 30, 2025.  See the miniature trains weave through sculptures of pollinators from around the globe in  Garden Railway: World Pollinators , wander through the whimsical pop-up meadow filled with larger-than-life-size butterfly-inspired sculptures by local artists in  Wings & Wildflowers , and see if you can spot a hummingbird at the  Hummingbird Hut !  Returning floral display  Exuberant Blooms  bursts with a riot of colors and fragrances, celebrating the variety and splendor of flowering plants. Visitors can almost steep themselves in flora—spread over more than a quarter acre of open garden, the large paisley-shaped floral beds contain more than 8,000 plants with heights ranging from a foot tall to over 10 feet.  There will also be programming all weekend long where you can learn about native and tropical flowers at the Morris, including our pawpaws, North America’s largest native fruit!  ***Tickets must be purchased on-site for the discount. Not to be combined with other discounts. Discount is for Adult, Senior, and Youth admission only.***   Throughout the entire season, visitors can enjoy a variety of fun events, from interactive workshops to engaging programs to specialty guided tours, making this exhibition a delightful and eye-opening experience for all ages. Press Release Image Teaser Summary See our new exhibitions, including  Garden Railway: World Pollinators,  at a …

The Essential Guide to Bulbs September 23, 2025 Image Jenny Rose Carey Philadelphia, PA—Join Jenny Rose Carey for a talk based on her newest book,  The Essential Guide to Bulbs . For any gardener who wants to grow bulbs in the garden or containers, Jenny shares her insights through her gorgeously photographed, comprehensive and inviting resource.   You will learn that, while many gardeners may be familiar with the early show of spring bulbs like daffodils and tulips or the late show of gladiolus, there are so many more bulbs to choose from that provide three-season color, drama, and spontaneity in the garden.   Jenny Rose has been lecturing nationally and internationally for many years. She previously worked at Temple University for over a decade, first as an adjunct professor in the department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and then as director of the Ambler Arboretum. Most recently, she served as senior director of Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Meadowbrook Farm. She is an avid hands-on gardener who has gardened in both England and the United States. Her Victorian property, Northview, in Ambler, PA contains diverse garden spaces, including a cutting garden, an herb garden, a dry garden, and various mixed flower beds. Jenny Rose and her gardens have been featured on the PBS series The Victory Garden, in the Wall Street Journal , the Philadelphia Inquirer , GROW magazine, and The Pennsylvania Gardener . She is co-author with Mary Anne Fry of A Century of Cultivation , the author and photographer for Glorious Shade (Timber Press 2017), and The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Guide (Timber Press 2022).   A limited number of books will be available for purchase. Participants who want to ensure they can purchase a book for signing at this event are encouraged to pre-order a copy here.  Please select the appropriate participant price, and also select "Book add-on”  during registration. Press Release Image Teaser Summary Jenny Rose Carey has been lecturing …

The Importance of Pollinators Over 80 percent of flowering plants and about a third of our food plants depend on bees for pollination. Image Aster in the Rose Garden. Photo by Lynn Weaver. At the height of the dinosaur age, roughly 130 million years ago, the first flowering plants appeared.  Whereas pinecones are suited for wind pollination, flowers are designed specifically to attract and accommodate insects, birds and, rarely, mammals. Flowering plants arose as if from nowhere in the fossil record and rapidly increased in variety over the next 50 million years. Today, they account for about 94 percent of plants on earth—that is nearly 400,000 species! Compare that to the mere 20,000 ferns, clubmosses, cycads, and conifers alive today. What happened 130 million years ago to facilitate this remarkable explosion of flowers? In a letter to his friend Dr. Joseph Hooker, Charles Darwin wrote, famously, “The rapid development as far as we can judge of all the higher plants within recent geological times is an abominable mystery.” While we may never know for sure, the answer to this mystery is likely bees. About the same time flowering plants began their rapid evolution, the first bees appeared in the fossil record. Sweat bees, bumble bees, leaf-cutter bees, miner bees, honeybees—over 80 percent of modern flowering plants and about a third of our food plants depend on them for pollination. Bees, along with other pollinators such as moths, butterflies, and hummingbirds, are exponentially more efficient than wind at transporting pollen, and for several reasons are much more effective at driving evolution and variety, too. Although the honeybee is not native to Pennsylvania, the Keystone State is home to more than 430 species of native bees, along with 125 kinds of butterflies, 350 types of pollinating moths, and one species of hummingbird! So far, we have documented almost 200 native bees, and, of course, plenty of ruby-throated hummingbirds on our grounds here at the …

Morris Arboretum & Gardens Announces 2025 Honorees for Moonlight & Roses Gala April 30, 2025 Philadelphia, PA—Morris Arboretum & Gardens will celebrate its 44th Moonlight & Roses gala on Friday, June 6, 2025 at 6 pm . The event provides a beautiful forum in which to recognize excellence and leadership in environmental stewardship. This year’s honorees are Rob Cardillo , esteemed garden photographer, and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Go Green program.   The gala, held in the Morris’s stunning Rose Garden, directly supports the Morris’s work as a renowned public garden and as a center for plant-science research and educational programming for all ages. Chairing the 2025 event is Margaret O’Neill, an attorney with Merck and longtime gala volunteer. Honorary chairs are Anna and Charles Woodward, Morris members and Chestnut Hill residents. Tickets for the gala are on sale now. If you are interested in sponsoring the event, please contact Kristen Casalenuovo at kcasal@upenn.edu . For more information and to purchase tickets, visit MorrisArboretumGala.org Image Rob Cardillo   Meet the 2025 Honorees 2025 Individual Honoree Rob Cardillo Rob has been photographing gardens, plants, and the people who love them for almost thirty years. He has more than twenty-five books to his credit, including Private Edens , The Private Gardens of South Florida , The Art of Gardening at Chanticleer , The Layered Garden , and his most recent book, Private Gardens of Philadelphia . He is a founding partner of Blue Root Media, which produces GROW , the award-winning magazine of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society. His work is also frequently seen in major garden publications and news outlets. Winner of numerous photography awards, he is also a member of the GardenComm Hall of Fame.   2025 Institutional Honoree Philadelphia Eagles’ Go Green Image The Eagles’ Go Green program is an internationally recognized multi-operational action plan that incorporates green energy production, recycling and …