gauzy blue sky: calm: 52ºF

The Latzer Fountain at the entrance to the Garden has resumed spouting tap-colored water from its jets. I asked one of the keepers of the Garden who was watering the plants around the entry plaza why the fountain had spouted flamingo-colored water last week. I said that speculation of visitors like me ranged from a salute to the opening home game of the Cardinals to a tribute to the passing of Pope John Paul II. After asking me if I knew that there had never been a Jesuit pope (I hadn't), he gave me the official explanation: the color was meant to raise awareness of breast cancer. He didn't know any more that that, but from the internet I found that the AMC Cancer Research Center was sponsoring a Day of Caring to inform and teach people about breast cancer. Perhaps had the other early visitors and I had stayed longer, we might have seen an information table set up in front of the colored jets.

Last week I chose two daffodils as my favorites. Two seems botanically unbalanced; odd numbers of plants are better. So this morning I added a third pick: 'Rose Garden' - an aptly named fluffy almost white bloom with orderly petals leading to a center of boiled-egg orange. 'Rose Garden' also has a light peppery fragrance that doesn't stray far from the bloom. The variety must be unpopular, rare, or expensive because it isn't offered in any of my freshly arrived bulb catalogs.

The local chapter of the American Daffodil Society had a sale at the Garden this morning. They were offering pots of unusual daffodils. Most of the blooms were a bit past their prime, but were still showy enough to tantalize buyers with a vision of what they could expect to see in their gardens next spring. I talked with a member who attended national ADS show last week. It was his first show. His highlights: an auction where a single bulb brought $400 followed by the auctioneer's question to the buyer, "And how many would you like?"; a juried competition with 1500 daffodils entered; an exhibition hall where the air-conditioner was turned down as low as it could go to make the blooms more comfortable; and a conversation with an overseas exhibitor who bought an adjacent seat on a trans-Atlantic flight for an ice-chest filled with prize daffodils.

If daffodils took center stage last week, this week the tulips edged them out. The tulips brought out droves of serious photographers. I got to the Garden at 7:30 a.m., a half-hour after it opened. By then I had to take my turn with the tripods and long lenses to get close to the more spectacular displays. As I waited my turn, I watched. More than one photographer wanted a close-up of a triumph tulip named 'Prinses Irene,' a red-orange variety with a zigzag washed-purple flame.

The keepers of the Garden know that any tulip will be more dramatic when it is combined with another that has a contrasting color or height or shape or blooming time. Anything paired with white is good; as is a palette of pastels or bed of tulips that all have deep, intense colors. In only one place--around the fountain in the Rose Garden--did I find a mass planting of tulips with just one color. The tulips with the color of coagulated blood are named 'Bastogne.' When I looked at the bed more closely, I saw a few tulips that looked like mistakes. They were yellow with prominent red flames. I asked a keeper who was nearby why the streaked tulips had been added to the bed of red. She explained that she bought all of these tulips and that when she placed the order the vendor assured her that each and every bulb would bloom red--all red. The outlaws were hit by a mosaic virus that caused the color shift and the flames, she explained. While looking down at the yellow interlopers, she said she decided to leave them there to surprise visitors like me and to make us wonder why they were there.

Each hosta seems to have its own idea of when it's safe to emerge. Oddly, some hostas are showing only pips while others have mature leaves. Large clumps of 'Gold Drops' hostas have formed cones that from above look like stacks of parchment rolls. Last year after all the hostas had leafed-out, many were pelted with hail. They then had to endure the whole growing season in tatters. I wish them a better year.

Visitors who get to the Garden before eight in the morning seem to like things to stay the way they were. They don't like it when the keepers tamper with what always was and always should be. I talked with several of the early visitors who stared in disbelief at the Latzer Fountain in the entryway plaza. The circular jets were spraying 18-foot tall spouts of flamingo-colored water. "It's just flat-out ugly. That's what it is," one man told me. "Disgusting," a woman said. "They've gone too far. Why can't they leave well-enough alone?" Another man said he thought they might have changed the color as a salute the home opener of the Cardinal baseball team. He added that he hoped that when the hoopla faded, the color would too.


Late morning visitors to the Garden had a different take on the fountain though. They seemed intrigued and drawn to colored water. I heard giggles and "Wows." Kids put their hands in the water to see if it would turn them an orangey-pink. Adults walked around the fountain to see how sun and shade would lighten or deepen the hue. Everyone seemed to want to take pictures of their friends and family posed in front this over-the-top tint.

Since spring itself is so over-the-top this morning, why not an overture of gaudy color as a prelude to the colors of the blooms that paint the whole Garden. And for good measure, why not ring the Plaza with a colony of plastic flamingos?

There are over 500 unique varieties of daffodils scattered throughout the Garden's two main plantings of spring bulbs. Except for the very early varieties, most are in bloom this morning. Last week the garden editor of the local newspaper asked the keeper of the Garden's bulbs to name two or three of his favorite daffodils. The keeper hedged with "a laugh of the unashamed daffodil nerd. There are so many. Where do I draw the line? After pausing to think about it for a minute or so," he picked three: 'Pink Silk,' a two-tone trumpet variety with a salmon cup and white petals; 'Tahiti,' a frowzy variety of yellow and red that blurs the line between what is cup and what is petal; and 'Trena,' a two-toned traditional looking daffodil with a yellow cup and white petals that look windblown. 'Trena' costs about $6.00 a bulb, but the keeper of the daffodils at the Garden says, "it's a rabbit, a multiplier. Two or three years ago, I had a few as a trial, and now I have hundreds of them."

The American Daffodil Society anointed a breathtaking daffodil called 'American Dream' as its gold ribbon winner for the best standard daffodil of 2005. I missed the ADS show, so I didn't get an up-close look at American Dream. But, with all this choosing going on, I got caught up with picking my own favorites this morning. I can't say that I looked at all 500 varieties that the Garden says it has because many are blooming so deep within the bulb beds that I would have had to have had binoculars to see their subtleties. But, among the easy to see varieties, my ribbons go to a two-toned puckered-cup variety called 'Bandesara' and a large-trumpeted bloomer with oh-so-subtle graduated coloring named called 'Lorikeet.'

The Mayapples in the English Woodland Garden have spread their unbrella-like leaves, but have not yet flowered. They look like the canopy of tropical forest as seen through an airplane window on its final approach.

Art work that spills from the wall on to the floor is very much in vogue now. Polly Apfelbaum makes pieces of dyed fabric that flow from the walls and drape themselves over the floor. Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui made a 'cloth of gold' from thousands of flatted bottle tops and metal bands from bottles of wine that flows over the floor like a bridal train. Not to be outdone, the Garden has planted hundreds of white daffodils at the base of a giant magnolia tree. From a distance the tree seems to spill and puddle its blooms to the ground just beneath it.