Did Roger Williams ever see flora like this?
PROVIDENCE - Think of it as a zoo for plants, where the floral equivalent of African elephants, South American parrots, and Asian monkeys share a vast, sunlit space behind glass. For exotic effect, these plants rival their animal counterparts in the nearby Roger Williams Park Zoo. Towering toward the sky and hunkering around fountain pools, they sport the similar diverse camouflage of jungle and rain forest: fronds and tendrils, spots and stripes, ruffles and colors.
The Roger Williams Park Botanical Center, which celebrated its first anniversary in March, houses the largest public indoor display gardens in New England. The new conservatory building and two older greenhouses encompass about 12,000 square feet of gardens, artfully grouped in regularly changing arrangements.
"We want to give people a reason to come back," says Alix Ogden, who served as the city's parks superintendent during the garden's construction.
More recently, Jo-Ann Bouley, educational program manager for the University of Rhode Island Outreach at the botanical center, echoed this intent, a savvy summation of what today's "been-there, done-that" visitors want. Variety is a constant with plants, simply because they grow and have life cycles. And with such a large and diverse collection, from tropical palms and cloud-forest orchids to the wild, carnivorous pitcher plants of Rhode Island's bogs, variety is a given. Even so, the center staff rearranges the plant groups and moves the fountain pools on a regular basis, assisted by volunteers from the several garden organizations that maintain the collections.
The plants flower in a staggered sequence dictated by nature. "It all goes in waves," Bouley says. "The best time to see bloom is mid-February to May, then we see another surge from September to November." After that, most of the species go into dormancy, with some exceptions. "Even in winter there are some flowering plants, including several palms," she adds. At that moment, variegated ginger was blossoming in white, grape-like clusters. And many of the species in the collection maintained by the New England Carnivorous Plant Society were sending forth flowers as mysterious as their waxen stems and leaves.
Flowers can be as fleeting as sunshine in April. But the lavish show of foliage never quits. Fan-shaped palm fronds bristle in the sun, and near a quiet waterfall, a deep-purple philodendron dangles heart-shaped leaves over a Japanese-style koi pond. In a sunny spot near the entrance, canna leaves curl out from maroon lances. A clump of glossy, crimson ginger sepals with mustard-yellow stamens pops against a backdrop of glossy green at the base of a low fountain pool.
"You look at the shape of the leaves and the leaf scars wrapping around the trunks like eyes," says Bouley, who spends many hours in the company of plants as she runs educational programs and tours. She points out that the old man palm, so-called for the shroud of whitish fibers around its trunk, looks like Cousin Itt from "The Addams Family" TV show.
The presence of water is a constant throughout this environment, composed of adjoining spacious rooms which provide diverse experiences, and all of it built to be low key. The waterfall and a flowing runnel provide a barely discernible backdrop of sound in the Mediterranean room. A 68-foot linear pool runs the length of this greenhouse, which houses camellias, succulents and cacti, lavender, rosemary, and the carnivorous plants, among other collections.
At the moment, even the tallest palms don't quite reach the 40-foot-high glass ceiling inside the conservatory. Automatic sensors raise and lower electronic shades to maintain the optimal climate and control the natural light filtering through the glass. The shades, and the constantly shifting clouds above, create shifting patterns of shadow cast by the curves and spikes of leaves.
On the outside grounds, a tent and two restored Lord and Burnham greenhouses, built in the 1960s, are used for events. This spring, after its first full year of operation, the center will break ground on a rose maze behind the conservatory and a new entrance garden, part of a three-phase plan to extend the center's collections outdoors.
"We're concentrating first on the area between the ticket booth and the front entrance to the main greenhouse to set the tone," says Lalla Searle, a landscape architect and owner of Searle and Searle Landscape Architects and Planners in Providence. She says the plan will add year-round beauty around the buildings, which stand atop a hill. "We're working to create different habitats to work with what's already there. We've observed the drainage patterns to match plants to the site," she explains. "We hope this will have some educational value for visitors."
The four-season plantings near the entrance will include dwarf conifers and plants with interesting structure and bark, and others with fall color, Searle says. "We're weaving these effects together."
Behind the conservatory, the landscape architects will plant a low maze of shrub roses, chiefly white- and pink-blooming varieties. "It will have a ring of arches outside to create a sense of enclosure, and on the arches we'll plant climbing roses, clematis, and honeysuckles," says Searle. Later phases will include a grass garden, rain garden, wet and dry meadows, and other gardens containing plants that reflect the contributions of the center's partner groups, such as hostas and begonias.
Formally structured gardens will shield the tent from view and buffer noise from the road that winds through the large and heavily visited park. Along the perimeter, a woodland dell will screen some of the outlying buildings. "Maybe we'll have a kids' area with a circle of ferns and blueberries, to provide another vignette along the looping path system," Searle says. She hopes the outdoor gardens will be a resource for people who are grappling with issues in their own gardens.
Meanwhile, inside the conservatory, the only thorny issue is deciding on which bench to rest while watching the show of light and color beneath the glass.
Jane Roy Brown, a writer in Western Massachusetts, can be reached at regan-brown.com.
