fiddleheads — 2016 — The 21st Century Matriarch

The fiddleheads were another sign of spring at Brookside Gardens last week. I enjoy seeing how the fronds of different ferns start out so tightly packed and then unfurl in graceful curves.

Some start out very fuzzy looking. It is hard to image the frond from the fiddlehead form.

Some of the fiddleheads are further along and the expansion of the frond nearest to the stem happens rapidly enough to make it look like the tip of the frond is a knot…but is simply has not expanded quite yet.

Sometimes I imagine other things that look a little like fiddleheads - like intricate round earrings heavy enough to weight their wire

Or the tentacles of an octopus.

I generally thing about fiddleheads being near circular but there are exceptions – the oval shape shows up almost as often.

Fiddleheads are another sign of spring – the harbingers of the lush ferns of summer.

I am interrupting the rest of of Hawaii blog posts for two Longwood Gardens posts. We made the trek north to the garden last week. It was more crowded than on any previous visit both because of the season and it was the first non-rainy day in a while. One of the staff told me that they thought there were about 15,00 people in the gardens; the crowd is felt most keenly in the conservatory where the staff set up a one-way path to handle all the people and the visitor center where there are extra staff around to assist people in moving toward the gardens or the exit.

We made our way to the conservatory when we got there since they allowed tripods until noon and the crowds had not arrived yet. Somehow I noticed several fiddleheads just after entering the conservatory – which brought back memories of Hawaii!

Then we focused on winter holiday displays in the conservatory: paperwhites (also near the entrance

Then poinsettias in several colors. I like the color and shapes of the center of the blooms.

The flowers were arranged all around the edges of the central conservator and in hanging shapes overhead.

They were also in the sunken garden with lots of surrounding greenery and sprinklers that kept everything wet.

Sometimes the poinsettias have a very different form; these had layers of smaller petals…still the brilliant red color that was paired nicely with the paperwhites.

There were pink poinsettia’s too

2016 01 IMG_8682.jpg — With interesting centers.

2016 01 IMG_8671.jpg — Another red flower used to make a tree were anthuriums – another reminder of Hawaii.

The third ‘red’ flower that I noticed were dark red amaryllis.

And there were lilies – both white and pale pink. I suspect these will be part of the display into the spring.

Continuing outside – there were trees decorated with sprays that were edible by birds. What a great idea. They looked like the birds had nibbled – but not nearly as much as I expected. I wondered if the gardeners had refreshed the sprays.