Mt. Holyoke Spring Flower Show

  • Post published:03/06/2018
  • Post comments:4 Comments

The Mount Holyoke Spring Flower Show, “Gateway to Spring" is open. Now in its 47th year, this beloved College tradition features a thoughtfully designed display of thousands of colorful and fragrant spring favorites, including tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, pansies, cinerarias, pocketbook plants and more to entice and inspire those eager for spring's arrival. This year's show also features a large fountain created by three Mount Holyoke students, Deb Kelly,  Stella Chepkwony and Samiha Tasnim,  evocative of the Fidelia Nash Field…

Mount Holyoke College Flower Show

  • Post published:03/15/2017
  • Post comments:6 Comments

The Mount Holyoke College Spring Flower Show is blooming and continues through Sunday, March 19. The Greenhouse is open from 10 am - 4 pm. Winter had come back to give us a ferocious bite on the day I met Tom Clark, the new Director of the Mount Holyoke Botanic Garden. We walked through the Talcott Greenhouse door into the fragrant woodland glade of this spring’s Flower Show. The title of the show, Spring Pools, refers to the…

Dreams of Spring and Giverny

  • Post published:01/25/2017
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We have been have nightmarish ice on the walkways and roads, so I dream of Giverny and other landscapes that are warm and painted in shades of spring. I'm counting the days to the Smith College Bulb Show which will open this year on Saturday, March 4. Mark your calendar. In 2015 the theme was Claude Monet's beautiful gardens in Giverny. I wonder what the theme will be this year.

Smith College Bulb Show

  • Post published:03/10/2016
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The theme of this year's Smith College  Bulb Show is The Evil Garden of Edward Gorey. There is more black and white in this show than usual, but the tongue-in-cheek tableaux next to various Gorey drawings, a dark but humorous look  at the garden. The photo above is a reference to a Gorey drawing Great Uncle Franz being strangled by a snake. But I ask you - how evil could any garden be  with all that fragrant pink?…

Talcott Greenhouse and the Spring Bulb Show, Mt. Holyoke College

  • Post published:03/10/2013
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While the rest of us have been shivering in our snowy landscapes, Russell Billings, Director of the Talcott Greenhouse at Mt. Holyoke College, has been busy cooling and slowly warming hundreds of bulbs and other blooming plants coaxing them to a perfect stage of bloom. On Saturday, March 2 the doors of the greenhouse will open to the public to present Primavera, this year’s bulb show featuring glorious tulips and daffodils as well as many plants of the…

Smith College Chrysanthemums

  • Post published:11/05/2011
  • Post comments:2 Comments

Sometimes a chrysanthemum is just a mum, but sometimes a chrysanthemum is Art. Artistically grown chrysanthemums will be on display during Smith College’s annual Fall Chrysanthemum Show which will run November 5-20 in the Lyman Plant House. A $2 donation is suggested. On display will be the stunning chrysanthemum cascades and other skillfully pruned and supported chrysanthemums, some in pillars, and some trained to a single stem with a giant bloom. Like the spring Bulb Show the Chrysanthemum…

Lyman Plant House and Smith College

  • Post published:10/24/2011
  • Post comments:5 Comments

Last week I visited the Lyman Plant House at Smith College in preparation for a column and post about the Annual Chrysanthemum Show which begins Friday, November 5 with a talk by Smith alum and author Paula Dietz about the gardens she has visited and written about in her book, On Gardens. The Smith Botanical Garden and the Lyman Plant House are treasures for the whole community to use. The Lyman Plant House is open every day (except Thanksgiving and…

Spoons and Quills – Mums that is

  • Post published:10/07/2011
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Nurseries and roadside stands are filled with tidy pots of tidy chrysanthemums, but I planted a collection of these fall bloomers in my Circle Garden this spring. The chrysanthemum family is so various in form, as well as color, that I wanted to branch out a little. My collection of six from Bluestone Perennials got whittled down to three because of rabbits! Fortunately, a reader suggested black netting which discouraged the bunnies, but ineptly placed as it was,…

A Wild Garden – Grrrrrrr!

  • Post published:03/28/2010
  • Post comments:1 Comment

There were a lot of young children at the Boston Flower Show, some clutching a parent's hand, and some being wheeled about in stroller splendor. It might not always have been exciting, but the youngsters and their parents enjoyed this jungle garden with a grassy lion . . . a giraffe made of flowers . . .  . and a really scary crocodile right at the edge of the exhibit. No one wanted to touch - and a…