Persimmon Party

I reported on my encounter with "Percy" at Longwood Gardens last fall here.  It turns out that Percy aka Persimmon is actually a huge internet start!

It all started with this viral tweet:

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D

@SarahMackAttack

Tonight I saw a massive orange cat get escorted out of Longwood Gardens. I asked “is he not welcome here?”, and the guy sighed & said “He shows up at the most inopportune moments”. So now, obviously, I want an entire sitcom about their relationship.

Hundreds people replied to Sarah to let her know the cat is a garden fixture and to share their own tales of seeing Persimmon at Longwood.

I think one of my favorite replies was this one:

He is actually a she and her name is Persimmon!! She likes to take long naps in the sun pic.twitter.com/NfHGXtKL9m

— no__caps (@no__caps) September 18, 2022

The Twitter consensus of why the cat was kicked out of that particular garden area (a nighttime event in the Conservatory) was that he was making himself a nuisance and possible trip hazard. Here is the thread summary at Bored Panda.

I'm looking forward to my next Longwood visit and catching up with Percy again. 

Why is No One Rubbing My Tummy?



Belin





















This was taken at Longwood Gardens by Diana Wind. Diana is a gardening chef and registered dietitian in New Jersey. She also submitted a homeless cat image from her garden a few days ago. She can be found on Twitter @GardenCuizine. Her food blog is at http://gardencuizine.com/.

I did a little googling and found out the cat's name is Belin and this is his favorite chair in the Peirce-du Pont house conservatory. He has been photographed  in it by many visitors to Longwood. According to Longwood's own blog, Belin is one of 11 cats that patrol this wonderful public garden. “Belin” (pronounced BEE-lin) is Ms. Alice du Pont’s maiden name.

I can't wait to visit Belin and the other 10 garden cats myself next month on a daytrip tour to see Longwood's holiday extravaganza. If you'd like to join me on the tour, see the full trip details here.

Spooky Electric

Patty Hankins of Fine Art Floral Photography (http://beautifulflowerpictures.com) submitted this photo of Spooky from her recent trip to Longwood Gardens in Kennet Square, PA.

She says, "He was sitting on the lawn rather than near the flowers and he is a member of the Longwood Rodent Control Team :-)."

Cats in Garden blog followers will recall that we have featured two other members of the Longwood cat family, Belin and Mulligan.

Percy's Gardens

 

Meet Percy. He is one of the Longwood Gardens cats. I am assuming he is named after the Peirce family, who owned the property before the Du Pont's purchased it and turned the farm and Peirce's Park into the famous public garden that is there today.

Previously, we shared other Longwood Cats on this blog, including Mulligan, Belin, and Spooky.  

I met Percy when I visited Longwood last month and was sitting on a bench near the idea garden. Percy gave my leg a little head bump as he passed, but otherwise kept to himself and seemed more interested in rustling noises coming from the foliage in nearby beds than the humans who approached and wanted to pet him.

Taking a Mulligan

Patty Hankins of Fine Art Floral Photography (http://beautifulflowerpictures.com) submitted this photo of Mulligan. He is new-ish part of the growing cat family at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA.

She said, "I ran into a member of the Longwood Gardens Rodent Control Team yesterday – in the conservatory where the cats aren’t supposed to be."

 

You may recall we featured Belin, another Longwood Gardens feline, awhile back on this blog -- here is a link.

Karl's Cats

Karl Gercens is a horticulturist and garden lecturer, who works at Longwood Gardens. He does a great deal of garden traveling and takes terrific photos. Here are a few of his shots of cats in gardens that he shared with us.

"The playfull garden kitty was Helen Bodian’s garden in (I think New York.) Her garden was open for the garden conservancy open days and the kitty was greeting every visitor that walked through the garden."



This kitten hugging a Carex was at the JC Raulston Arboretum in North Carolina:



This orange kitty yawning was at the botanical garden in Madeira, Portugal:



This colorful cat was at the Gibbs Garden outside of Atlanta, GA:

Go Away, Your Boring Me!

Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens took this photo of cat's yawn and he wrote: "It seems that garden kitties are so used to visitors that this one couldn't wait to get back to his cat nap! — at Jardim Botânico da Madeira."