Timing is everything for the display that runs from March 2 through March 17.
Getting 7,000 bulbs to bloom simultaneously for the Botanic Garden’s Spring Bulb Show at Smith College in March is no accident.
In fact, the manipulation process takes months to coordinate and involves horticulture students from the college, under the direction of Rob Nicholson, conservatory manager, to pull it off, said Madelaine Zadik, manager of education and outreach at the Botanic Garden on the Northampton campus.
“That is really what makes this show so very special. You could not go out to a regular garden and see all these varieties of flowers blooming at the same time,” she said.
To achieve the proper blooming timing for the March 2 through March 17 show, students put the bulbs into pots in October and then store them in a giant cooler on campus until January when they move them to greenhouses.
The cooler acts as “winter cold,” which is a necessary part of the normal growing process for them to bloom come springtime, Zadik said.
With years of experience preparing for the show, Nicholson is able to manage the timing of the plant materials, Zadik said, noting that crocuses, for example, if moved to a greenhouse in January would be past blooming by March.
“Even though we control the temperature of the greenhouses, how sunny or how snowy it is outside can affect what’s going on inside of them. Part of this is a giant juggling act,” she said.
“Rob is constantly moving bulbs around from one greenhouse to another to speed up or slow down the process to get them all blooming at the same time.”
The show has been a fixture on the campus since the early 1900s.
This spring’s event features 3,000 tulips, 1,500 narcissus, 400 hyacinths, and 2,000 other bulbs such as crocus, iris and freesia, all purchased primarily from a Connecticut importer who gets them from the Netherlands.
By the time the show arrives, “everybody is desperate for spring,” Zadik said.
“And it’s not just the color of the flowers. You walk into these greenhouses and the fragrance is just amazing,” she said.
“We don’t realize how we’re really lacking fragrance outdoors at this time of year.”
The bulb show will kick off with a lecture by Michael Marcotrigiano, director of the Botanic Garden, on March 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Carroll Room of the Campus Center on Elm Street on the college campus.
The lecture, titled “New Trees for the Landscape: From Plant Exploration to Genetic Manipulation,” is free and open to the public and will focus on an overview of the origin of new trees and will highlight what trees consumers should expect to see at nurseries in coming years.
The talk will be followed by a reception and preview of the bulb show in the illuminated Lyman Conservatory.
A display of contemporary poetry selected by Janan Scott, a senior majoring in African-American studies, and Liliana Farrel, a senior English major, both interns at the Smith College Poetry Center, is also on view in “From Petals to Paper: Poetic Inspiration from Flowers.”
The exhibit opens March 1 and is on view daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Church Exhibition Gallery in Lyman Plant House.
Poets represented in the exhibit include Li-Young Lee, Jean Valentine, and Louise Gluck. Janan Scott is a senior majoring in African-American studies, with a concentration in poetry.
In a release, Scott and Farrel, who both have a concentration in poetry, are quoted as saying, “the shapes, colors, smells and textures” in the plant display “are reflected in poetry’s rhythms, sounds, and images.”
IF YOU GO
Event: Spring Bulb Show
Where: Lyman Plant House, Smith Botanic Garden, Smith College, Northampton
When: March 2 to 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; also, on March 8 and March 15, 4 to 8 p.m.
Cost: $2 donation requested
More information: http://www.smith.edu/garden/Home/events.html