As much as our winter-chilled bodies might sense something wrong with the notion, there is a restorative power to seeing flowers amid frigidity.
“It’s alive,” says Gabe Hutchison, a curator at Chicago Botanic Garden. “It doesn’t feel like Chicago winter. It’s not taking a nap. It’s not cold.”
And now that Hutchison’s employer’s annual orchid show has joined Garfield Park and Lincoln Park conservatories as sources for off-season flora, February is an especially rewarding time for those seeking the swampy smell of greenery, the flash of a petal, the delicate interplay of pistil and stamen.
The Botanic Garden opened its fourth annual Orchid Show over the weekend, and the theme is new: “Orchids in Vogue.” This primarily plays out in a few dress forms festooned in the exotic flowers and other organic materials. Especially impressive among these fanciful garments is the birch bark bodice.
But the essence of the orchid show is the same: thousands of the storied flowers brought in to decorate the garden’s public greenhouses. A massive bamboo “wind chime” interwoven with flowers hangs from the ceiling as you enter. Photographs and drawings of orchids line the walls.
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The first full-on orchid room is decorated with quotes and prized specimens. The labels tell of “Mystery Orchid,” “Samurai Orchid,” “Butterfly Orchid” and, for the first time at CBG, a favorite of Hutchison’s, the “Waterfall Orchid.” There is the “V3” orchid, too, brought in from the Netherlands, a cascade of white flowers said to be a rarity at botanic gardens.
The show is running two weeks longer this year, which means the garden is expecting 35,000 people seeking a jump-start on spring, instead of the usual 25,000.
And when it’s over more than two-thirds of the specimens will make their way into a plant sale, Hutchison said. Those who bring the flowering plants home can take on what many housebound northerners consider one of the toughest tasks in home horticulture: keeping an orchid alive.
“They’re not so tricky,” though, Hutchison counsels. Keep them warm, don’t overwater and remember to provide what can be elusive in the year’s early months: Orchids, too, thrive on lots and lots of light.
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When: Through March 26
Where: Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe
Tickets: $12; 847-835-5440 or www.chicagobotanic.org
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