About this time of year, I start getting restless. March is the transition from winter to spring, which brings my garden to life & gets me thinking about what herbs & veggies I want to grow, which plant combinations will look best in my containers & whether this is the year I will finally plant my rose garden (probably not, but I can hope). In my "real life," I'm a horticulturist at Phipps Conservatory. It is one of my favorite places in Pittsburgh - even if I do work there! The original conservatory, a gift to the city of Pittsburgh from Henry Phipps, was designed by Lord & Burnham and constructed during 1892-93. After sitting empty for several months, the first plants were purchased from the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which closed in late 1893. Imagine shipping all of those plants from Chicago to Pittsburgh in 1893 in winter - I wonder how many plants were lost on the trip! Phipps remains one of the few Victorian-style conservatories to feature large, seasonal flower shows, which brings me back to the topic of my first blog post.
It has been a while since we've had flowers at Phipps and it is quite exciting for us to get back to it. We had been living with the Chihuly: Gardens & Glass exhibit since last May - a long time for a place that usually changes dramatically every few months! The crew from Chihuly's studio arrived early on a Monday to begin packing up the thousands of pieces of glass that had to be shipped back to Washington. It was really amazing to watch them work. In less than a week, the stunning glass displays were all crated up & loaded on the trucks. This left the conservatory feeling empty & in desperate need of a color other than green. We immediately got to work installing the thousands of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, snapdragons, delphinium, & pansies that had been waiting in the greenhouses. The show opens on Saturday, March 15. So, if this winter weather's got you down, head over to Phipps for a glimpse of spring!