When my two sons were young we spent a lot of time in winter exploring the Talcott Greenhouse at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley. Unlike their other favorite haunts, pay-for-play indoor germ incubators like Kidsports that were guaranteed to send the whole family home with head colds, the greenhouse was a place I could enjoy, too. To step into the quirky glass house was to enter another world. The warm, steamy air, the pungent odors of plants and soil, and the proximity of exotic shapes and colors and textures created a unique sensory experience. It still does.
“Deep winter is a really good moment to visit the greenhouse,” says Talcott manager Jimmy Grogan. “There’s a ton of stuff blooming and a lot of color.” Of particular interest are the abundant winter-blooming orchids, including those of the cymbidium, oncidium and Stanhopea genuses.
Cymbidiums, commonly known as “boat orchids,” come in a wide range of colors, from white and green to red and black. Grogan explains that these orchids are native to South East Asia and bloom in the cool, dry season, which coincides with our winter. “We give them cool conditions and stop watering them and they go crazy,” said Grogan.
Oncidiums are a New World orchid native to South America and the Caribbean. They have large clusters (technically known as inflorescences) of small flowers, often bright yellow speckled with red. Oncidiums are sometimes known as “dancing lady” or “golden shower” orchids.
Stanhopeas are native to Central and South America. Many of them are highly fragrant. They have complex, spectacular, often multicolored, flowers that last only a few days. Despite their short lifespan, they have a long blooming season. “They bloomed all through the fall and are still going strong,” says Grogan. They are named for 4th Earl of Stanhope, an eccentric British aristocrat who was president of the Medico-Botanical Society of London in the early 19th century.
In addition to the extensive orchid collection, the Talcott Greenhouse has a number of camellias that are just coming into bloom as well as gesneriads, a family of plants that includes gloxinia and African violets. Grogan reports that many different species of aloe are in bloom in the succulent house.
Other colorful notes in the greenhouse are the pansies and other annuals that are just coming into bloom in time for the March Flower Show (March 4 through 19, more on that in a future column.)
The greenhouse itself — a miniature Crystal Palace with a rectangular domed glass roof — reminds me of a Faberge jewelry box. The building has an interesting history. When Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837, the idea of teaching science to women was downright radical. Lyon’s vision was to make the campus an outdoor laboratory for botanical study. One of the college’s earliest professors was Lydia Shattuck, who taught botany from 1851 until 1889. She was responsible for designating the campus a botanical garden in 1878 and for hiring a head gardener to oversee it.
The college’s original greenhouse from the mid-1800s was destroyed by fire in 1896. Soon thereafter construction began on a more elaborate greenhouse to accommodate a broader range of botanical study. Under Shattuck’s auspices, the college’s greenhouse was completed in 1899, her last year on the faculty.
James Talcott, a New York philanthropist, contributed funds for the west wing of the greenhouse “for studying nature,” and the complex is named the Talcott Greenhouse in his honor.
The Talcott Greenhouse has been in nearly continuous use since its opening. In the 1990s the college substantially renovated it. Today, the 6,000 square-foot space houses the Botanic Garden’s collection of non-hardy plants from all over the world. These include orchids, cacti and succulents, ferns, begonias, bromeliads, aquatic plants and other warm temperate, tropical and subtropical plants. Plants in the collection are used primarily as teaching resources and may be representative of particular genera, families or geographic locations. Other plants may be in the collection for their economic importance, interesting morphological characteristics or ornamental value.
This is not the time of year for garden tours. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get out and enjoy some living, flowering plants.Mount Holyoke’s Talcott Greenhouse, with or without kids, is the perfect destination for a cold, gray day.
On Saturday, Winter Fare will take place at the indoor Amherst Farmers Market at the Amherst Middle School on Chestnut Street from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. There will be vendors, demonstrations, delicious food, music and activities for kids.
The event is organized by CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture). It’s a great way to celebrate our hardworking local farmers and to beat the winter blues.
Hadley Garden Center’s winter gardening clinic Saturday will feature University of Massachusetts plant pathologist Nick Brazee talking about what insects and diseases we should be looking out for this season. The clinics fill up fast. Be sure to arrive early. 1 p.m. at the garden center, 285 Russell St. (Rte. 9) Hadley. 584-1423.
Join Kestrel Trust and Amherst College for an evening with Harvard University faculty member David R. Foster to talk about our region’s environmental challenges and ways we could solve them.
Foster is an ecologist and author of “Thoreau’s Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape” (1999), “Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1000 years of Change in New England” (2004), and “Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge” (2014).
Foster is also a co-author of “Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the New England Landscape,” which lays out an ambitious plan for the protection and conservation of forest and farmland across the region.
The talk takes place Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. in the Beneski Museum of Natural History,Paino Hall, Amherst College. A reception begins at 6 p.m.
The event is free, but donations to Kestrel Trust are welcome. Pre-registration is required. Go to kestreltrust.org.
Mickey Rathbun can be reached at foxglover8@gmail.com.