Smith College – Flowers and More
The older I get the more I long to understand what it is that I am looking at. Books help, but do not totally satisfy. For that reason I celebrate Smith College which has turned its whole campus into a botanic garden comprised of the Lyman Plant House, adjacent perennial and specialized beds and an extensive collection of magnificent trees, all carefully labeled so that the most casual passerby will gain something of a botanical education.
I just attended the popular annual Spring Bulb Show which fills two greenhouse rooms with every type of bulb and spring flowering plant. Set against golden sprays of forsythia and broom are all types of tulips, hyacinths, narcissus, aconite, snowdrops, cyclamen, guinea hen flower, tiny irises, and tall pink spikes of Velthimia. The air is cool but damp and perfumed. That fragrance makes us believe that spring is just around the corner in spite of the deep drifts of snow outside.
It takes the labor of many staff members and students, as well as the artful management of temperature and light to fool these different spring bloomers to appear together in early March, a great gift to all the gardeners of the broader community. And flower lovers were out in great force, many of them with cameras like me.
After breathing in the color and perfume of spring, I wandered through the other sections of the greenhouse, the cool camellia hallway which shares space with exotic orchids, the steamy palm house, the succulent house with all manner of cacti. I walked past ferns and fragrant pelargoniums, past pools with water lilies, pitcher plants and goldfish, and finally rested on a bench in front of a splashing waterfall.
The exhibit in the Church Exhibition Gallery gave an idea about the place of the botanic garden in the life and curriculum of the college. Botany was considered an important field of study when Smith was founded in 1871, along with other sciences like chemistry, anatomy and physiology. I have to say that I never would have imagined those first classes of young ladies bent over microscopes dissecting plants, but so it was.
In 1895 a small greenhouse was enlarged to hold a collection of exotic plants. At the same time Frederick Law Olmsted, who was elderly at the time, and his firm, Olmsted, Olmsted and Elliot, laid out a plan for the campus, siting buildings, laying out paths, and creating planting schemes. One of Olmsted’s ideas was to plant Systematic Gardens, collections of plants organized by plant classification. In fact, according to Dr. Michael Marcotrigiano, Director of the Botanic Garden, he wanted all plantings to be systematically organized, but that turned out not to be feasible because of the soil conditions of the various sites and requirements of the plants.
Some systematic gardens still exist on campus although they were reconfigured in the 1980’s to reflect the changes in taxonomy. Researchers are always deciding that errors have been made, and move plants from one family to another. It is quite a job for us amateurs to keep up with it all.
Biology and botany are part of a Smith student’s liberal arts education. Some of the students work with a full time manager and the staff of the living plant collections to keep the data base up to date. Plants die. Plant names change. New plants are added. All this has to be documented. There is a GPS system that helps map plant locations. Students make a definite contribution to the care of the Botanic Gardens.
About ten students are invited to spend the summer in an internship program that rotates them through the different gardens, giving them a varied experience. Dr. Marcotrigiano says they could not operate without the skill and participation of the students.
There is now a landscape studies minor for students who are interested in landscape design. Dr. Marcotrigiano says the college has been successful in placing many of its students in excellent positions including at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and the Cloisters in New York.
The Botanic Garden has always been seen as a blend of education, science and beauty. Right now visitors to the Lyman Plant House can also see a beautiful exhibit, Chrysanthemums: Lithographs and Monotypes. In a cooperative program between the Botanic Garden and the art department, Professor Dwight Pogue and his offset printmaking class spent a semester studying chrysanthemum anatomy and then creating the monotypes that are now on display.
It is always interesting to me how distinctive works of art can be even when they focus on a single theme, and use a single medium. Each artist brings her own unique view and sensibility to the project. In this case the result is a veritable bouquet of stunning chrysanthemums.
I love gardens, not just because I am fond of or interested in the plants, but because I am fascinated by the people who use plants, work with plants, and share their plants and knowledge. I love the Smith Botanic Gardens is because they show so clearly how gardens can lead us down so many paths, into science, history, and art. They share their love of plants and knowledge on a grand scale and we all benefit.
The Spring Bulb Show continues daily from 10 am – 4 pm at the Lyman Plant House until March 16.
March 8, 2008