My friend and I headed out to the Smith College Bulb Show at 9:30AM on Monday morning. I’d brought my parking placard, but the single space was taken. We drove around a couple times and finally parked way down the road in another venue’s disability place.
It was hard to determine what the theme was this year, something with woven nets and fabric fishes hanging from above. These were the forced pussywillows.
The show takes up 2 main houses as you enter. In the first one I found these striped oranges. I couldn’t determine if they are bred to be striped, or if they had grown really fast and split the skins.
The layout of bulbs wasn’t as well done as in the past, making seeing ones in back more difficult.
They had a new labeling system with only numbers on the markers in the pots. They had left a listing of what the numbers corresponded to on a bench but that soon disappeared. So I didn’t find out what these were but they were stunning.
They had been massed with great effect, but again the back flowers were hard to see.
With the bright sunny day, the tulips were wide open and this display was impressive.
I loved the shape of the inner petals on this narcissus.
There was a smaller display of yellow plants of the type.
This was a shot of the first house.
Upon entering the second house, this was the focal point. Later I realized it was a fountain.
This was a stunning display at the end of the second house, well presented.
I had worn a mask, just in case there were a lot of people. But I was very disappointed the heavy scent of spring bulbs had not greeted us at the door of the first house, as in all previous shows I’d been to.
There were small displays of hyacinths which are a large contributor of scent.
This is a shot of the second house.
When I got to the far end of the second house, I realized this was a fountain. We walked both houses a couple times and I was ready to find a bench to sit a while.
So I moved on into the greenhouses and found a bench in the Cool Temperate house. The greenhouses will have to be a separate post.