The Chrysanthemum Show at the Lyman Conservatory at the Smith College Botanic Garden opens Nov. 5, offering the public an opportunity to savor one of autumn’s loveliest gifts in all its glory. The annual display features floral walls of blooms of almost every color of the rainbow.
These are not your garden-variety mums; they’re a different level of magnitude altogether. Oversized blooms reaching 8 inches across appear atop plants 5- to 7-feet tall. The stunning showcase includes chrysanthemums grown in the traditional Japanese style, painstakingly trained to cascade downward and form a “waterfall of flowers” gushing down the greenhouse wall.
The upcoming Chrysanthemum Show represents a century-old tradition of Smith College students working in horticulture. The show originated in the early 1900s as a showcase for the hybridizing experiments of the horticulture class. Horticulture was introduced in 1900 as part of the well-established botany curriculum.
Since then the Chrysanthemum Show has been a popular college and community tradition. Today, the tradition continues with a display of chrysanthemums that were hybridized by last year’s students. Visitors are invited to vote for their favorite blooms.
On Nov. 4, the evening before the show opens, Laurie Sanders naturalist, writer and producer of Field Notes for our local NPR affiliate WFCR (now NEPR), will give a virtual tour of the natural history of Northampton, with special emphasis on the Smith College campus.
Sanders, who graduated from Smith in 1988, will showcase Northampton’s rich and varied geologic and human history and explain how the natural surroundings we tend to take for granted came to be as they are. She will also discuss the life and work of Edward Lyman, benefactor of the Botanic Garden’s Lyman Plant House.
The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m., in Seelye Hall 106. A reception at the Lyman Plant House with a preview of the Fall Chrysanthemum Show in the illuminated Lyman Conservatory follows the talk.
While you’re there enjoying the mums, don’t miss the wonderful exhibit in the Church Exhibition Gallery in the Lyman Plant House, “Plant Adaptations Up Close: A Biological and Artistic Interpretation.” The show explores how plants have evolved in order to survive and thrive in many challenging environments. Biological explanations and artistic photography by Joan Wiener, who uses a powerful microscope as her lens, allow viewers to examine the resourcefulness and beauty of the plant kingdom in microscopic detail. Viewers will also be provided with 3-D glasses to enhance their visual experience.
The Chrysanthemum Show runs from Nov. 5 through Nov. 20. Regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily with special hours on Nov. 11 and 18, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The suggested donation is $5.
The Chrysanthemum Show is wheelchair accessible, and parking is available along College Lane in front of the Lyman Conservatory for the duration of the show. For more information on the show, visit the Botanic Garden website at www.smith.-edu/garden.
The 2nd Annual Berkshire Natural History Conference will take place Nov. 5 from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) on Church Street in North Adams.
The event features a series of fun, inspiring and informative presentations by regional naturalists who love what they do — and the place they study.
The conference features Pam Weatherbee, Joan Edwards and Alyssa Bennett, in addition to local field biologists and naturalists, exhibits, a book sale and more to explore.
Presentations on a wide range of topics include the Northern Berkshire Diurnal Raptor Survey, salamander mimicry and Berkshire flora. Lunch is included.
General admission: $25, students: $15. Purchase tickets at shop.berkshirecc.edu or call 236-2127. Pre-registration is required. Storm date: Nov. 19.
The Japanese floral arrangement technique of ikebana is deceptive: a few select flower stems or branches arranged in an austere yet aesthetically pleasing design.
But despite the simplicity of materials, the art form is anything but simple and its mastery can consume a lifetime. Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston is offering two classes in Sogestsu Ikebana, an internationally recognized school of Japanese flower arranging, taught by Kaye Vosburgh, a master judge and design instructor for the National Garden Club and a Sogetsu Ikebana teacher of the highest rank.
Vosburgh teaches in New York and Massachusetts and has demonstrated her art all over the East Coast and in Ecuador. She has traveled to Japan several times for conferences and classes. Her favorite activity is sharing creative moments with other designers and students.
The Nov. 10 class is from 9:30 a.m. till noon; the Dec. 1 class is 10:30 a.m. till 1 p.m. Cost per class: members, $35; nonmembers, $50. For more information and to register, go to towerhillbg.org.
Mickey Rathbun can be reached at foxglover8@gmail.com.