Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Grapefruit
Originally uploaded by cce_photography.

Finally! Snow! We got a dusting overnight twice this week with more predicted for tomorrow. The total accumulation might be a half inch. I’ll take what I can get. I love waking up to snow falling outside my windows. I’m less fond of waking up to snow falling inside my windows for obvious reasons. (And yet, the one or two times it’s happened, I have giggled.)

It’s been a freakish winter across the continent it would seem. The citrus growers in California are righteously screwed. I’m not looking forward to the price of citrus fruit going up. Then again, I haven’t seen much tasty citrus fruit in stores this past year either. I need to get back to the Good Grocery store this week anyway so I’ll try to retain some optimism for decent fruit in general.

Another photograph from Longwood Gardens - this time, grapefruit on the tree. I want a conservatory so I can grow citrus trees too!

The Conservatory at Longwood is enormous. The current display is titled “Winter Escape” - there’s still not much winter to escape, but who can refuse pretty flowers? There are 20 distinct indoor gardens housing over 5,500 species of plants. (I didn’t count, I’m trusting their documentation on this.) The original part of the Conservatory was built in 1919 and has been expanded to cover 4.5 acres over the years. The architecture is fascinating in and of itself. Strolling through the Conservatory is an incredible tour! The first few spaces I walked through were comfortable, then I got to the arid rooms followed quickly by the more tropical gardens. One long hall felt like a proper rain forest with species growing every-which-way and water dripping here and there.

The Conservatory gardens are meticulously tended and plants are lovingly arranged, staked and labeled. Yay for labeling! One visitor remarked, “Why don’t my gardens ever look this good?” My response was, “We don’t have a staff of 350 working in our yards!” I’m looking forward to visiting the grounds when it’s not raining or threatening to rain. The afternoon I went was wet and gray and thus my camera and I chose not to take long strolls through the grounds.

tags: citrus, conservatory, fruit, gardens, grapefruit, longwood gardens, snow, weather, winter