Nearby: Tower Hill Botanic Garden

Early May is the time of the forsythia and daffodil, when the color yellow reigns over the New England landscape. At Tower Hill Botanic Garden in nearby Boylston, you can find both in abundance, though the woodland trees are still bare against the spring sky. It's an hour's drive west from Boston, and the daffodil field, containing 25,000 bulbs, is worth every minute of it. It was like a dream, even with clouds threatening rain. 

There is an apple orchard, numerous gardens, and two very romantic greenhouses, including an Orangerie and Lemon House, better known to those with green thumbs as a "Limonaia." From the highest point, one can see Wachusett Reservoir in the distance. This is a place of not only quiet, introspective walks like the one I had myself, but also of weddings and flower shows and concerts.  Even yoga. 

Then there are the woods. The trails are wonderfully maintained (no doubt due to the high entry fee), with an intriguing mix of classical elements, including various sculptures and shrines like the "Folly" or the "Temple of Peace." It was cold when I went, but I lingered in the "Inner Park" and beside the mossy steps, wishing I had brought along Edith Hamilton's Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. Instead, I delightfully studied the little fairy houses along the pathways, constructed in honor of Sibylle Olfers Story of the Root Children -a very nice surprise.  Go to Tower Hill Botanic Garden to chase the whimsical, but also to embrace the color of the season. Go to seek the daffodil. 

The Fenway Victory Gardens

In the midst of a several week apartment search (that has now, thankfully, come to a successful close), I learned of the existence of the Fenway Victory Gardens. As its name suggests, these gardens trace their origins to the days of WWII. In fact, these plots comprise what is the only continuously operating Victory Garden left. But what a joy to walk past plot after plot, observing the work of a hundred gardeners (some luckier than others). There are tracts of land that seem shockingly untamed for their city address and still other plots that are as trim and proper as the nearby brownstones. The diversity of the gardens and the sheer amount of them brought to mind the garden colonies of Berlin that endlessly fascinated me during my stay there-though in Berlin, each allotment possessed a small shed like structure which these of course lacked. Not to mention the gnomes and elves-
I lost hope that we could ever import something similar, but the Fenway Victory Gardens were a reminder that something similar has been here for a very long time.