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Waterfalls of Flowers Highlight Smith’s Annual Chrysanthemum Show
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.—As fall colors fade outdoors, a riot of color is unfurling indoors at the Smith College Botanic Garden’s Lyman Conservatory. A popular college and community tradition since the early 1900s, Smith’s annual chrysanthemum show features a variety of multicolor blossoms, including flowers resulting from the hybrid crosses made by the previous year's horticulture class.
The exhibit is open daily from Saturday, Nov. 6, to Sunday, Nov. 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible. Parking is available on College Lane during the show.
Highlighting the display, which has expanded this year to two greenhouses, are the cascades—chrysanthemums grown in the Japanese manner on a flat surface and hanging down several feet from the edge of the pot. In bloom, the cascades appear as a waterfall of flowers lining the side of the greenhouse.
Also featured this year will be an extraordinary arrangement of chrysanthemum “standards,” which are oversized blooms growing atop plants as tall as seven feet. The flowers, in a variety of unexpected shapes and colors, have been “coaxed” to their unusual size by removing all the side buds as the plants grow.
Kicking off this year’s show will be a slide lecture titled “Behind the Scenes at Rockefeller Center Gardens” by David Murbach at at 7 p.m. Friday Nov. 5, in Seelye Hall, Room 106. Murbach, manager of the gardens division at Rockefeller Center, will present an insider’s view of the Center’s gardens, including the rooftop and chrysanthemum displays, as well as discuss the process they go through to find and install the world-renowned Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
Following the lecture, there will be a reception and preview of the chrysanthemum show in the illuminated Lyman Conservatory. All events are free and open to the public.
For more information, call the Botanic Garden at (413) 585-2740 or visit https://www.smith.edu/gardens/home.html.
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Office of College
Relations
Smith College
Garrison Hall
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 |
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Marti
Hobbes
News Assistant
T (413) 585-2190
F (413) 585-2174
mhobbes@email.smith.edu
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