Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Wonderland Park, just outside Boston, was all atwitter last week. Above the splashing of the fountains could be heard the squeals and coos of the visitors. "Peek under the rhododendrons, Lavinia, and see if they're using peat moss," whispered one. Burbled another: "I can never really face up to spring until there are pussy willows in the house."

The pussy willows may have been forced, but the enthusiasm was not. Spring had come to New England. Its harbinger: the 91st annual flower show of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The place was packed with busloads of garden clubwomen (and a few dedicated men) who stood ogling the floral displays like mourners at a gangster's funeral. The highlight of the show was the formal garden of acacias and fountains from the Great Hill Farm of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stone of Marion. Mass. The gold-blossomed acacia trees, insured with Lloyd's of London for $100,000. had survived beautifully their recent trip to Manhattan's Coliseum, where they had dazzled visitors to the 45th International Flower Show.

Rites of Spring. Flower shows are an annual rite of spring* all over the U.S. Manhattan's closed a fortnight ago after setting an alltime attendance record of 250,000 visitors in nine days. The trend at the Coliseum was toward bigger blossoms and smaller plants (one new product called Phosphon promised to produce "compact plants with full-sized blooms and shorter, stronger stems that do not fall over). The leaning to gigantism was reflected in row upon row of colossal amaryllis plants and roses the size of softballs. The New York Botanical Garden copped the "best in show" trophy for its tropical rain-forest garden--a miasma of brackish water beneath a Dorothy Lamour-type waterfall bordered by orchids, palms, creeping vines, and a rude-looking plant called Amorphophalliis titannm, which stood 8 ft. high. The Amorphophalliis produces a single 3-ft. blossom resembling a chocolate-covered jack-in-the-pulpit ("the largest flower in the world") once in twelve to 20 years, then dies from the enormity of the act. Such exoticism is not for all: said one lady from Rumson. N.J.: "You wouldn't catch me with one of those things. Our night-blooming cereus is good enough for me.''

At last week's Massachusetts show, compactness was the key word. Small gardens that take less money and less work were featured. Harvard's Arnold Arboretum brought in an educational exhibit of miniature evergreens and shrubs; on view were dwarf pines, holly, juniper, azaleas, rhododendrons, all of which have been trained to grow slowly and lowly. But some old favorites were holding their own nicely. Said George Taloumias. Horticultural Society spokesman: "African violets are still the No. 1 house plant, as far as I can make out.''

Roses & Red Man. Around the U.S.. nearly 40 million amateur gardeners spend an estimated $4 billion annually on plants, seeds, sod, fertilizer, bug sprays, sprinklers, tools and gadgetry. The biggest men in a big business are Jackson & Perkins, rose growers, and W. Atlee Burpee Co.. seedsmen. Jackson & Perkins expects to sell 11 million rosebushes this year from its beds in California, Arizona and New York. is touting a giant hybrid tea rose. South Seas. Unlike many of the new show-bred roses. South Seas smells good. Said Charles Perkins: "We breed fragrance into our roses. How can a rose be a rose unless it smells like a rose?" Burpee, which sold 50 million packages of seeds last year and mailed 3,.000,000 catalogues for winter-bound gardeners to pore over, is featuring a 50-c- packet of seeds guaranteed to produce a new strain of zinnias called Red Man that will look like crimson dahlias.

In the face of azaleas and chrysanthemums and orchids and roses in such startling sixes and colors, some flower-show visitors felt like throwing in the trowel. Said one lady in sturdy galoshes: "Honestly. I think they go out and buy them somewhere. Who ever heard of anybody raising anything like this." But under every hat, both flowered and sensible, lay a secret resolve to go home and start digging.

* Other shows this month: Philadelphia, Washington. Chica.iiO. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Charleston, S.C.. and Houston.

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