Flower shows are a popular way to escape the winter blahs, especially this year with the snowpack so slow to melt. The flower show at Mount Holyoke College has been a campus and community fixture for more than half a century.
On the last full day of winter, Sherry Edelstein drove down from Keene, New Hampshire to visit the flower show at the Talcott Greenhouse on the Mount Holyoke campus in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
" I am just starved for color and warmth and spring and beautiful flowers and the smell of the earth. I am just in rapture here," she said.
The person most responsible for the flower show is Russ Billings, who has been the greenhouse manager for 33 years. This year’s flower show theme was “tropical oasis.”
" We went with the tropical theme because the winter was so bad. We thought it up last minute," he said.
The flower show I visited in late March was a sensory delight of bright colors, sweet smells, and the soothing sound of slow running water.
A long bench in the center of the greenhouse is covered with plants arranged in dark bark mulch. There are palm fronds, grape hyacinths, orchids, and a plant known as the stained glass flower, which Billings called this year’s “showstopper.”
" It is kind of a trick to get those to flower. We have those on 16-hour days in January to force them into flower. It is something a little different that most flower shows don't use," he said.
On either side of the bench with the tropical plants are rows and rows of pots containing daffodils, tulips, and other bulbs just coming into bloom. At the end of the bench is a cone-shaped object.
Billings explains that to enhance the tropical theme of the flower show a small volcano was constructed of wood and sod, but technical difficulties hampered the full effect.
" It is difficult to see the smoke, especially on a sunny day," he said. The volcano is suppose to "erupt" automatically, but a button has to be pushed to produce smoke.
" It was a last minute purchase," said Billings.
Few visitors seem to notice, or care, that the volcano did not work. The flowers are the stars of the show.
Visiting the flower show is an annual tradition for Mount Holyoke students. Elizabeth Fong, a senior, said she’s enjoyed coming here each of the last four years.
" It is so beautiful here. It is not spring anywhere else, but it is spring in the greenhouse," she said.
People in the community flock by the hundreds to the annual spring flower show during the two-week run in March. Katy Loving of Amherst came to get some expert advice from the greenhouse staff for the home garden she is planning.
" If you are hungry for spring, finding a little bit of time to come look at the flowers will give you that lift," she said
The Talcott Greenhouse is open to the public year round. It has a collection of plants from around the world, including a banana tree.
The greenhouse supplies plants for class studies and research at Mount Holyoke and other local colleges and high schools.
Billings explains the greenhouse is also the source of a traditional gift to each new student at Mount Holyoke.
" We produce about 800 small plants in four inch pots over the summer to give to each incoming student. If they grow, we repot ( the plants) for them," he said.
Legend has it some alumnae have kept their first-year plants alive for decades.
