No matter the weather, Smith College’s annual Bulb Show is a harbinger that Spring is here. For nearly 100 years, staff and students at Smith College have worked to present a blooming array of familiar daffodils, tulips, crocuses and more exotic plants from around the world.
I visited the Lyman Plant House on a sunny day last week and saw the bones of the show with golden orange trees in place, corners stuffed with silky pussy willows and cherry blossoms in bud. Ranks of tulips, not yet blooming, marched down one side of the room and some very mysterious plants were growing on the other side. The Chinese witch hazel, with its twirly red flowers, is stunning. The budded freesias promise delicious fragrance.
Jimmy Grogan, Conservatory Curator, met and introduced me to Daniel Babineau and Steve Sojowski, the current staff members who care for the Northampton college’s Plant House all year. They gave me a tour to show what it takes to create the glorious Bulb Show.
My tour began with the Bunker, a controlled refrigerated room with ranks of shelves to hold at least 5,000 bulbs. Potting those bulbs is a lot of work, especially when you consider that different bulbs will need different soil mixtures.
Fortunately, four students help pot up and store the bulbs in the Bunker in November. The temperature there is 38 degrees to begin. Temperatures are moderated as the winter wanes, and in January bulbs leave the Bunker. The bulbs then go to live in two cool room that are never open to the public. These rooms provide space and appropriate temperatures for the different tasks and plants that need care during the year.
It is the ever warming temperatures and increasing sunlight that make the bulbs begin to grow. And grow. Every room in the greenhouse has sensors to keep temperatures and humidity at the proper level. All this care and work brings the plants into bloom exactly in time for the opening of the Bulb Show on the first Saturday in March. The show is open every day until the third Sunday of the month.
While I was being shown the Bunker, Babineau, who has worked in the green house for six years, said, “I enjoy working in the greenhouse. We’re laid back but we keep everything clean and there is no downtime. I also like getting to learn new things.”
Sojowski’ has worked at the college’s gardens for 34 years. “This will be the third show the two of us have worked on together. We keep learning more about the bulb seasons every year.”
Sojowski pointed to the potted narcissus and other blooming plants on the cement floor and explained that this is an additional way of keeping them cool.
Babineau and Sojowski play down their work, but, even surrounded by beautiful and fragrant plants like the camellia corridor, it is clear there is no downtime.
Neither are they the only people at work in the greenhouse. They showed me the classrooms for horticulture students and the very sunny and green student greenhouse. I thought about the many Smith students who have been studying horticulture, experimenting and hybridizing plants in those rooms forbidden the public, for more than 100 years.
When Sojowski and Babineau said their good-byes and went back to work, I had time to wander through the rest of the greenhouse. I love to sit in the cool temperate house by the waterfall. It is a peaceful spot and, while sitting there, it is hard to remember that you are on a busy campus in a busy town.
There are other special rooms heated or cooled to the specific needs of ferns, palms, or succulents. There is a lot of beauty to take in.
There is more to the greenhouse than plants. The entryway provides exhibition space. This year, the exhibit is “The Art and Science of Dyeing: A Collaboration between the Botanic Garden of Smith College and Textile Artist Michelle Parrish.” Long, dyed panels of silk, wool and linen are hung to show off a range of dye colors created by using plants like madder, marigolds, woad and even parts of shellfish. Visitors are invited to touch, gently.
The Bulb Show is open every day from Saturday, March 7, through Sunday, March 22. The Lyman Green House is open 9 to 10 a.m. for Friends of the Botanic Garden only. Then, it opens for the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, there are extended hours until 8 p.m. The Bulb Show has become so popular and is such a beloved precursor of spring that those extended hours are very welcome.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening since 1980. Readers can leave comments at her website: commonweeder.com.