Which is the third thing that strikes you about the children's garden, tucked inside Longwood's grand East Conservatory: For all the water, it's very Longwood in other ways, too.
"This is a display garden in the European tradition - majestic, elegant, dignified," says Tres Fromme, lead designer of the children's garden. Three words that might not naturally spring to mind when the subject is kids and horticulture.
And so, in addition to 17 fountains, a secret room, a square maze with obelisk tower, a grotto and cave, a bamboo maze, rain pavilion and central cove, the new garden abounds in artistry. It has exquisite bronze and stone sculptures, arresting mosaics, artisan metalwork, and 50 kinds of plants chosen for fragrance, texture, color and toughness.
The garden's been in the works for 10 years, cost $18 million, and covers 4,000 square feet. But it's the spirit of the place, rather than the practicalities, that fascinates.
Where did the ideas come from?
Fromme and others visited children's gardens in Atlanta, New York City and East Lansing, Mich. They attended symposiums on youth gardening and studied European gardens.
They considered playground equipment, taking note of bridges and tunnels, overlooks, ladders and caves. And they organized focus groups of "tweens" (12- and 13-year-olds) and adults, asking not about gardens, but about space: What do you like to do, or remember doing, in the outdoor spaces of your childhood?
The stories flowed - even from Fromme, who did planning and design at Longwood for eight years until joining MESA Design Group of Dallas about a year ago. He shared memories of the grove of sumac trees at his childhood home in Connecticut.
"I would go in there and play for hours," he says of the place that became his fort, castle and spaceship.
Slowly, Fromme says, as the groups' stories emerged, so did the realization that "what children love in gardens is not at all dissimilar to what adults love in gardens."
Except sometimes.
