www.longwoodgardens.org is no ordinary garden.
900,000 people visit every year. 1,000 acres, 20 gardens outdoors, and 20 gardens indoors. It’s open every day. They do world class horticulture research, and have developed some extraordinary technology in everything from fragrance to color. Everyone from the Nikki to the Financial Times says they are the best display garden in the world. Aside from all of this, it’s really exciting see what a $2B endowment with some great leadership can do.
I’m lucky enough to be a director of Longwood and thought I’d share the results of some great research (and Open Innovation) done there – that is on display now. The Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum (known in Japan as Ozukuri) refers to a technique, originating in China and expanding to Japan several hundred years ago, for growing an extremely large Chrysanthem. Longwood is working hard at setting a world record. Take a look at this Video:
What’s really impressive? They have a backup plant, in case there is an issue with this one. Wow.
