On the Map with LGBT Senior: Visiting the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia

 

On the Map with LGBT Senior: Visiting the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia
By Mark McNease

We’d planned the trip for weeks and hoped the weather and circumstances would cooperate. They often don’t — plans with friends, a little back and forth, someone checks the weather, someone else checks the drive. But yesterday we made it happen, and it was the perfect day for it. Frank and I, Doris and Beth, all tucked into the RAV and off to the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill. The town is in Northwest Philadelphia and less than a drive away. What we found there was one of those places that comforts you with its beauty and its quiet. Read more about it, and enjoy the photos! – Mark

A Victorian Estate Turned Public Treasure

The Morris Arboretum began as the private estate of siblings John T. Morris and Lydia T. Morris, who purchased and began landscaping the property in 1887. Both were world travelers with a genuine passion for plants, and they spent decades transforming their summer home into something extraordinary. When Lydia died in 1932, she left the estate to the University of Pennsylvania with instructions that it become a public arboretum. Today it serves as Pennsylvania’s official state arboretum — a fact that somehow feels both surprising and entirely fitting once you’re walking the grounds.

The arboretum contains more than 11,000 labeled plants of over 2,500 taxa, representing the temperate floras of North America, Asia, and Europe. But the numbers don’t prepare you for the feeling of the place — the winding paths, the canopy overhead, the sudden surprise of a Japanese garden or a classical fountain around a bend you didn’t expect.

The Grounds: Something Around Every Corner

The 92-acre Victorian arboretum integrates art, science, and the humanities, and you feel all three as you move through it. The English park sections give way to Japanese gardens, formal rose gardens open up into meadows, and sculptures by well-known artists appear throughout as if they’ve always belonged there.

The Japanese Hill and Water Garden, created in 1905, is designed in the Tsukiyama-niwa style, with hills, rocks, water, trees, bridges, paths, shrines, and lanterns. It’s one of those spots where you slow down without deciding to. Equally striking is the Mercury Loggia and Ravine Garden, a classical loggia housing a sculpture of Mercury at rest, with a grotto and picturesque rock garden in the valley below.

History buffs will want to seek out the Fernery — the only remaining freestanding Victorian fernery on the continent. It’s a remarkable survival, an eight-sided glass house that feels like stepping into another century entirely.

Out on a Limb: The Canopy Walk

If there’s one thing that sets Morris apart from other gardens, it’s this. The Out on a Limb canopy walk stretches 450 feet through the treetops at 50 feet above ground, with suspension bridges and platforms connecting everything together. Walking it with friends turned into something genuinely fun — a little swaying, a lot of pointing at things below, and that particular giddiness that comes from being up in the trees like a kid again. It’s become extremely popular, so busy days can mean waits — worth keeping in mind when you plan your visit.

The Garden Railway

The Garden Railway features trains and trolley cars running through a miniature landscape and typically runs from April through October, as well as during special holiday events in December. It’s officially a hit with children, but I’d argue it has a fairly universal appeal. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a perfectly rendered miniature world go by.

Know Before You Go

Morris Arboretum is located at 100 E. Northwestern Ave. in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood, about 14 miles from Center City. Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors 65 and over, and $10 for children ages 3 to 17. Parking is free. You can save $2 per ticket by purchasing online in advance. Plan on at least two hours to do it justice — more if you linger, which you will.

For information and tickets, visit morrisarboretum.org.

On the Map with LGBT Senior