What's in Bloom: August What's in Bloom: August Image August at the Morris Image plumleaf azalea Rhododendron prunifolium Native Azalea Collection One of the latest to bloom, this native azalea produces deep red/orange flowers. There are only a handful of natural populations of plumleaf azalea. Image Pink summersweet clethra Clethra alnifolia ‘Rosea’ Along creek in Azalea Meadow Native to eastern North America, summersweet clethra is a late summer bloomer that thrives in shady, swampy areas. Unlike the white flowers of the straight species, the ‘Rosea’ cultivar displays showy, fragrant light pink flower clusters on vertical racemes. Image Chinese arborvitae Platycladus orientalis Hillcrest Pavilion Small, spiked, blue-green cones adorn this evergreen tree. This plant was once considered a member of the genus Thuja (arborvitae) because of its very similar scale-like leaves. Image anemone Anemone tomentosa Mercury Loggia Native to northern China, these perennials bloom as late as October. Their grape-like leaves have white, fuzzy undersides. Image swamp rose mallow Hibiscus moscheutos Wetlands Large white flowers on these tall, native perennials line the border of the Wetlands. Although each individual flower only blooms for several days, the plant produces many new buds and will flower through early …

Weddings Weddings Image Image Image   Weddings at the Morris Arboretum & Gardens Welcome to your garden wedding!   Set among sweeping landscapes, vibrant blooms, and historic charm, Morris offers a truly unforgettable setting for your celebration. We invite you to explore our ceremony and reception spaces, preview wedding locations , and follow us on Instagram for a glimpse of real events. To learn more or schedule a tour, please contact our Rentals Team at 215.247.5777 x158 or email rentals@morrisarboretum.org . Image Photo: Moon Honey Photography Full Weddings  Your wedding at Morris Arboretum & Gardens is a fully immersive experience, with exclusive access to 92 breathtaking acres and a choice of five unique ceremony locations. Begin with a picturesque ceremony, followed by a delightful open-air cocktail hour, and continue into dinner and dancing beneath the beautiful glow of bistro lights under the reception tent. You’ll arrive at 5 pm with the gardens all to yourselves for photos, with festivities from 6-11PM. The venue accommodates up to 175 guests (155 with a designated dance floor), and includes parking, ceremony chairs, and reception tables and seating. A golf cart and driver are also provided for three hours, allowing you to explore the grounds and capture unforgettable moments throughout the evening. A variety of enhancements are available to further personalize your celebration. We’d love to share more during a tour. We invite you to get in touch to schedule your visit.      Image Garden Ceremony  Our Garden Ceremony option offers an intimate garden experience with private access to 92 breathtaking acres and a choice of five unique ceremony locations. Set within the beauty of the Morris, your ceremony unfolds in a setting that feels both personal and unforgettable. From 6 – 8 pm, the gardens are exclusively yours, allowing your guests to explore the grounds while you capture stunning photos throughout the landscape after your ceremony. The package …

Reflecting on Four Years of Exuberant Blooms Horticulturist Trevor Schulte shares his experience of designing Exuberant Blooms , evoking wonder and excitement through plants, flowers, and deadwood.  Image An aerial view of the eight paisley-shaped beds that make up Exuberant Blooms, 2024. Image Trevor Schulte, Azalea Meadow Horticulturist. When I joined Morris as a horticulturist, the space that is now Exuberant Blooms was nothing but turfgrass. Simple, easy, and boring. Then, seemingly overnight, we were removing the turf, dumping cartloads of compost, adding rows of drip irrigation, and planting thousands of annual and tropical plants into paisley-shaped beds. The nearby statues of John and Lydia Morris watched over us as we installed beds inspired by the Victorian bedding style that was popular during their time on the Morris estate. The first year of the garden in 2023 was bereft of beginner’s luck as we battled May frosts, roving groundhogs, and an early summer drought. Despite the setbacks, the plants persevered and by late July the memory of struggling plants was replaced by the sight of cannas and Mexican sunflowers towering overhead. Salvia cultivars like ‘Blue Chill’ and ‘Wendy’s Wish’ offered consistent flowering and vigorous growth. In the fall we removed the summer display and buried a moody palette of tulips in swoops and swirls for the coming spring. Some of the bulbs didn’t stay buried for long as heavy early winter rains washed soil and bulbs out of beds as far away as the stream feeding into the Morris Pond. The repeated sight of dislodged tulips prompted us to later change the bed shapes to better channel the water. Image A moody spring tulip display in Exuberant Blooms , 2024. Image A tropical summer display in Exuberant Blooms , 2024. The second summer’s bold and tropical theme was punctuated by plants like a species of banana, Musa balbisiana var. balbisiana , which grew from knee-high to around 15 feet tall in a single year. We also grew a …

Exuberant Blooms Exuberant Blooms Image Image The Morris reaches new heights in  Exuberant Blooms , where reclaimed wood is transformed into bold, elevated structures alive with texture and color. This year’s display weaves vibrant seasonal plantings with striking architectural elements created from wood reclaimed through our own arboricultural work—giving pruned limbs a thoughtful second life in the garden. Shaped into striking arches, trellises, and sculptural forms, these natural structures add height and movement, inviting you to explore nature in new ways and celebrating the beauty of responsible stewardship while adding structure and story to the landscape. Vines climb overhead, birds find places to rest, and in some areas, you can wander beneath and around these structures. Surrounding these forms is the lush mix of tropical foliage and vibrant seasonal blooms that defines  Exuberant Blooms . True to the spirit of the garden, more than 10,000 annuals burst into bloom, creating the richly layered spectacle inspired by classic Victorian displays. Bold plants like palms, eucalyptus, and bromeliads pair with bright favorites such as salvias, cupheas, and angelonia to create an immersive summer garden filled with color at every turn. Abundance, sustainability, and horticultural excellence come together in Exuberant Blooms this year, offering a garden that delights the senses while reflecting the best practices of a modern public garden committed to caring for its plants, its resources, and its future. Celebrate the opening of Exuberant Blooms on Saturday, July 18 & Sunday, July 19 with Wander Through Color Weekend → Exuberant Blooms is sponsored in part by Ball Horticultural Company. Image Previous Exuberant Blooms Image Exuberant Blooms with a monarch butterfly, 2025. Image Members at our Member Exhibition Night wandering through Exuberant Blooms, 2025. Image Exuberant Blooms with a spring tulip display, 2025. Image An aerial view of Exuberant Blooms , 2024.  …

What's in Bloom: October What's in Bloom: October Image October at the Morris Image strawberry bush Euonymus americanus Native Azalea Collection Inconspicuous spring flowers become showy seed pods in early fall. The textured pink seed pods of this native shrub burst open, exposing striking orange fruit that contrast against its bright green leaves and stems. Image stiff dogwood Cornus foemina Morris Pond Clusters of deep blue fruit adorn these small trees native to the southeastern United States. The genus name Cornus means “horn” and is in reference to the tree’s strong wood. Image Chinese osmanthus Osmanthus armatus Orange Balustrade Small white flowers produce a sweet, wafting fragrance throughout this area of the garden. This large evergreen shrub is similar to the evergreen hollies ( Ilex ) planted nearby, but the leaf arrangements on Osmanthus are opposite, while Ilex is alternate. Image false holly Osmanthus heterophyllus Hillcrest Pavilion Blooming from late fall into early winter, this evergreen tree produces small, fragrant cream-colored flowers. Unlike Osmanthus armatus , this species’ leaves tend to have toothed margins rather than smooth. Image common baldcypress Taxodium distichum (common baldcypress) This stately deciduous conifer produces a showy display of fall color, with needles turning a deep orange color before falling off. When growing near water, baldcypress trees produce cone-like, above-ground root shoots called “knees”. Image American beautyberry Callicarpa americana Native Azalea Collection These native shrubs produce clusters of bright purple fruit along its branches, hanging on to the plant into early winter after the leaves fall …

Wedding Rates Wedding Rates Image Full Wedding Rental Rates 2026 July Friday: $3,000 Saturday: SOLD OUT Sunday: $2,600 August Friday: $3,800 Saturday: SOLD OUT Sunday: $3,300 September Friday:  SOLD OUT Saturday:  SOLD OUT Sunday:  SOLD OUT October Friday: $4,900 Saturday: SOLD OUT Sunday:  SOLD OUT November* Friday:  SOLD OUT Saturday: SOLD OUT Sunday:  SOLD OUT *First weekend in November only. 2027 April Friday: $3,200 Saturday: SOLD OUT Sunday: $2,900 May Friday: $5,400 Saturday:  SOLD OUT Sunday: $4,900 June Friday: $5,900 Saturday: SOLD OUT Sunday: SOLD OUT July Friday: $3,400 Saturday: $4,200 Sunday: $2,900 August Friday: $4,400 Saturday: $5,100 Sunday: $3,800 September Friday: $6,000 Saturday: $7,100 Sunday: $5,600 October Friday: $5,800 Saturday: $7,000 Sunday: $5,300 November* Friday: $4,900 Saturday: $5,800 Sunday:  SOLD OUT *First weekend in November only. 2028 April Friday: $3,700 Saturday: $4,700 Sunday: $3,200 May Friday: $6,100 Saturday: $7,200 Sunday: $5,400 June Friday: $5,900 Saturday: $7,200 Sunday: $5,400     Weekday Weddings Monday – Thursday: $2,800 Weekday weddings offer the same amenities as our weekend weddings with a time frame of 6PM – 10PM. Garden Ceremony Garden Ceremony Locations | Rate: $1,600 Rose Garden or Pennock Garden Locations | Rate: $1,900 Micro Ceremony  Various Garden Locations | Rate: $1,200 For more information, contact the Rentals Team at 215.247.5777 x158 or email rentals@morrisarboretum.org …

Meet the Plant Science Team Meet the Plant Science Team Image Plant Science Staff Image Dr. Morgan Gostel Dr. Morgan Gostel is the John J. Willaman Director of Plant Science at the Morris Arboretum & Gardens of the University of Pennsylvania. His research in plant systematics emphasizes diversity and evolution of what he refers to as his botanical A, B, Cs namely three families of flowering plants including A raliaceae  (ginseng and ivy), B urseraceae (frankincense and myrrh), and C ompositae (daisies and sunflowers). His work has especially been focused in tropical Africa and Madagascar, but the plants in these families are distributed worldwide. Dr. Gostel is also a research associate in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. Since 2015, he has led the Global Genome Initiative for Gardens (GGI-Gardens), an international partnership of botanic gardens dedicated to supporting the collection of genome-quality tissues from living collections and their preservation in biobanks to support genomics research. Image Dr. Cynthia Skema Dr. Cynthia Skema is a botanical scientist at Morris and her research centers on the evolution, systematics, and conservation of flowering plants. She enjoys conducting research in the field, the herbarium, and the lab, and believes working in all three arenas is necessary to best understand the plants she studies. Dr. Skema specializes in the systematics of the cotton family ( Malvaceae sensu lato ), especially the Dombeyoideae , and co-coordinates the Malvaceae Taxonomic Expert Network for the World Flora Online. She is also interested in the digitization and dissemination of herbarium data and coordinates the Mid-Atlantic Herbaria Consortium. Her other research interest is the evolution of separate sexes in angiosperms and she has a soft spot for the floras of Pennsylvania, Madagascar, and New Zealand. Image …

Plant Science Lab Plant Science Lab Image About the Plant Science Lab Featuring 1,500 square feet dedicated to wet lab space for our research team, this facility, which opened in 2025, supports ongoing active research projects in plant biodiversity, conservation, ecology, and evolution. Our laboratory is fully equipped to support modern plant molecular and morphological research. For inquiries about equipment in our lab, please e-mail Lab Manager Dr. Lulu Korsak . Image Image Active Research Projects Subtribal classification of Ironweeds in the Eastern Hemisphere Vernonieae is one of the most species-rich tribes in the sunflower family and notable for its challenging taxonomic history. A key challenge for taxonomists who work with this group has been characterized by what is referred to as “The Vernonia Problem,” which refers to a large and poorly defined core genus. Throughout much of its taxonomic history,  Vernonia was considered among the largest plant genera on Earth; however, it was significantly reduced in 1999 to comprise only 20 species from the Americas. Despite significant taxonomic revision for this tribe in North and South America, more than 300 species from the eastern hemisphere (largely Africa and Madagascar) remain in the genus Vernonia that await recircumscription and placement into an alternative, segregate genus. Vernonieae is currently represented by 12 subtribes and 66 genera across its range in the Eastern Hemisphere. A critical priority for advancing systematic knowledge of this group is a concerted integrative taxonomic effort that combines a well-resolved phylogeny and detailed comparative morphological analyses. This project highlights integrative taxonomic tools to develop a infratribal phylogenetic framework that will guide subtribal classification and taxonomic revision of this diverse group of plants in the Eastern Hemisphere. Image Ripariosida hermaphrodita Ripariosida hermaphrodita , Virginia mallow, is a plant of paradoxes. It is a …