Living moss chair, giant fairy kingdom are highlights of Arboretum Spring Flower Show

February is that month where winter can start to drag on a bit. Many of us start longing to get our hands in the dirt, to walk past budding trees, to stick our noses in a fragrant hyacinth or tulip, for spring to just arrive already. 

So it feels magical to venture through the snow and cold into the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and see spring instantly come in full and colorful bloom. The Arboretum Spring Flower Show features more than a dozen displays that spread across the interior of both the Oswald Visitor Center and Snyder Building, and it’s a feast for the senses.

Along with providing an escape from winter and a way to connect with nature, the show this year explores a deeper theme: how the circle of life ultimately drives and connects all growing things, from the earliest buds to the decomposition helped along by nature’s recyclers, fungi.

The show runs through March 16.

The Enchanted Spring Gardens theme starts with tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and other spring charmers in different stages of bloom. Fanciful bouquets scent the air. The welcome heat and humidity of the Meyer-Deats Conservatory nurture more than 100 orchids in all their glory. A joint exhibit with the Minnesota Mycological Society explores fungi and features a living chair upholstered in moss and mushrooms.

Along with the mushrooms, there are a number of other new displays this year that are getting a lot of buzz. Dramatic weavings made out of grasses and branches gathered from the Arboretum grounds and naturally dyed cornhusks hang from the beams of the vaulted ceilings. The curving leaves of Tillandsia, air plants that get their nutrients from the air rather than soil, dot branches in a new display colored bright orange, yellow and blue.

The fairy garden and terrarium craze shows no signs of stopping, and here, you can see one of these miniature worlds blown up to kid size with homes made out of a giant hollow tree found on Arboretum grounds. This Enchanted Woodland Village features many of the famed tiny gardens too – look for a roof tiled with pinecone, fairies made of flowers, and succulents galore as small as a quarter.

Dozens of terrariums and dish gardens dot the show, offering lots of inspiration for people to try this at home. If you don’t think you have a green thumb, a terrarium or dish garden offers an especially low-maintenance way to have a lovely tiny garden indoors – with minimal watering and no raking!

This year, for the first time, a rotating cast of local florists and designers will create displays, resulting in two to three brand new designs every week. 

Art is woven throughout the entire show, and visitors can watch for birds in bronze and ceramics as part of the “Birds and Botanicals” exhibit, ranging from the colors of the sky and land, to primary Crayola crayons.

All of this beauty is created by the Arboretum’s horticultural staff, volunteers, and community partners who started working on the show last summer. 

Of course, everything in nature has its season. And when the Spring Flower Show is done in mid-March, staff will return the grasses, branches and hollow trees to the Arboretum’s grounds, where they will decompose and nurture future generations of plants, for generations to come.

Learn more and get tickets at arb.umn.edu/flowershow.

---

Editor’s note: Lynette Kalsnes is the public relations strategist at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska. She is a master gardener intern in training who cannot wait to get her hands in the dirt outside.

Kalsnes’ column on happenings at the Arboretum will appear periodically on the Eden Prairie Local News website. Contact her at arbpr@umn.edu.