Our Plants

Our Floriculture team embraced the challenge of growing Jasminum polyanthum, a fragrant vine native to southwestern China, in a new way, training plants generally cultivated as hanging baskets into striking, oversized twelve-foot towers. These specimens required more than ten months of careful cultivation, beginning with vegetative cuttings that grew outdoors in the container field through spring and summer before being moved to a cold greenhouse for fall and winter vernalization, a necessary period of cold that initiates flowering. Three weeks ago, the plants were transferred to a warm greenhouse to encourage them into bloom. As you walk through the Main Conservatory, enjoy the sweet fragrance of the jasmine flowers. 

One of the first blooms to appear in the new year, Eranthis hyemalis has sunny yellow flowers with a sweet honey-like fragrance. Its flowers look like solitary buttercups sitting on a circle of lacey green leaves. They open wide on sunny days from late winter to early spring and thrive in the shade of deciduous trees.  They will naturalize in well-drained, fertile soil under deciduous trees.