Flower power: Rhody's biggest Rhody

Each year at this time, I have to marvel anew at the sight of this gigantic Rhododendron. It occupies the entire front yard of a house along Route 114 in Warren, and right now it's a regular mountain of blossoms. The rest of the year, it's just a pile of green leaves, but whenever I drive by it, I think: Oh, yeah— Just wait until June!

Bristol's Blithewold: 'Happy Woodland'

In this not-quite-winter, not-quite-spring interval, Bristol is the perfect destination for a day-trip. Its harbor being half-way down Narragansett Bay, the town has waterfront without actually being on the ocean, where late March is one of the rawest times of the year.
First stop: Blithewold, just to see what's poking up at the mansion's 33-acre waterfront grounds. Of course, it's too soon to see the famous daffodils in bloom. But the green clumps of their spiky leaves are there, promising a bright yellow carpet in two or three weeks. (Daffodil Days this year are Apr. 12 to May 4.)

The Moon Garden on the mansion's south side is where the most blooming flowers are right now: miniature daffodils nodding above brown leaves, purple crocus, pale yellow Helleborus and white snowdrops.

Marjorie Lyon, the grande dame who left her family's Tudor mansion and beloved gardens (her 'Happy Woodland," Blithewold) to the public, would be pleased to see how good it looks — the 1901 greenhouse restored, the cutting garden ready for a new season, and the Water Garden serene with its arched stone bridge and still-leafless Japanese maple looking sculptural on its own islet in the middle of the gurgling pond.


The mansion will not open until mid-April, but people can stroll the grounds year-round. There's an honor box for donations to help support Blithewold for future generations to enjoy.

Greenhouse effects: The Botanical Center

With ski season skidding to a halt in New Hampshire and reports drifting in of "wet snow," "loose granular," and the dreaded FLG ("frozen loose granular") conditions up there, we're sticking around home more on the the weekends. Yesterday I decided to check out the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center on Elmwood Avenue in Providence.
Opened just a year ago and billed as "the largest indoor garden in New England," the center is far more modest in scale than original visions called for, back in those heady economic times when the expansion of the old Smith Greenhouses in the park was first floated.

Basically, the Center is three large greenhouse garden rooms planted with tropicals and exotics arranged attractively around fountains, walkways, pools and stonework arches. There's a rock pond full of brilliant orange carp, and special displays are devoted to carnivorous plants and orchids. Admission is $3.
As soon as you enter, your glasses fog up to let you know you've entered a different climatic zone, one that's warm, green, and humid, with no FLG in sight.

Yesterday, dozens of members of two photography clubs were busy setting up tripods and cameras to practice their technique. A bunch of the guys were hoping to catch a Venus Fly Trap or Pitcher Plant in the act of cannibalizing a bug, but it looked to me as if it would be a long wait for an action shot like that.

If you like indoor gardens, check out two of the best in New England: The Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, Mass. and the indoor courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Border crossing to Connecticut: Logee's Greenhouse

Retired Guy and I took the TomTom over the border into Connecticut yesterday, in part to see how the little guy did in a strange country and in part to visit the tropical landscape inside the Big House greenhouse of Logee's in Danielson. A family business since 1892, Logee's is an institution in the plant world, specializing in indoor tropicals, many of them grafted from stock that's more than 100 years old. The most famous of these is a 108-year-old Ponderosa lemon tree that grows 5-pound lemons the size of footballs.
We weren't buying, just looking and drinking in the fragrant humidity in anticipation of spring. The jasmine was in full bloom, the tree camellias were showing a last burst of color, and the hibiscus shown here looked luscious enough to eat. We chatted with owner Byron Martin, third generation of the Logees to carry on the business, and noted he had not only a green thumb but a green forefinger, these he said, an occupational hazard from the dyes in the fertilizer he had been using.


Oh, and TomTom did just great, getting us from Providence to Danielson in about a half an hour. Next, we challenged him with a detour to East Hartford, but more on that later.