Sunday, February 19, 2017
YOUNGSTOWN
Lush green plants pop out from every corner.
Bright blooms peak out from the foliage.
Tree limbs stretch into the air.
This scene is not from a rainforest, but from the D.D. and Velma Davis Visitor & Education Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens.
For the annual Jewels of Winter orchid display, a longtime tradition at the Gardens, Mill Creek MetroParks Gardens Director Andrew Pratt decided to go tropical.
“We did something different than previous years. Typically it was just a conventional orchid display,” he said. “I wanted to try to kind of create orchids at home, in their native environment.”
Pratt was inspired by a recent trip to Costa Rica, where he observed a fact about orchids that might be surprising to those who are used to observing them in plant beds or lined up on tables at an exhibit: Many orchids are epiphytic, meaning that they grow on top of other plants.
“When you come to an orchid show and see them at eye level, that is not what you experience” in nature, Pratt said. On his trip, for example, he spotted orchids 30 feet in the air, attached to trees.
“We wanted to mimic that,” he said.
Pratt also sought to incorporate into the exhibit orchid species and other plants that are endemic to tropical regions.
“Jewels of Winter” features, for example, heliconia, an exotic tropical plant. The plant’s vibrant red petals burst out from the greenery surrounding it.
“They’d oftentimes be found in conjunction with orchids,” Pratt explained.
As for what he hopes visitors will take away from the display, he said, “Just seeing orchids in an indoor, native environment, where they kind of experience where they’d be found in the tropics. That’s our whole goal.
“And exposing people to a splash of color when we badly need it, during the doldrums of winter.”
“Jewels of Winter” runs through March 12. Visitors can check it out during the education center’s hours, which are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
After the show ends, some of the plants will be for sale.