Blooms, Butterflies, and Quitting Plastic Flowers

Until last month, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to willingly visit a greenhouse or botanical garden. I’m a founding member of the Black Thumb Club, meaning that I struggle to keep plastic plants alive. You know those “fail-proof” orchids that thrive on three ice cubes a week? I’ve killed five of them. But a few weeks ago, seemingly out of nowhere, I started weeding and planting with fury. And I liked it. 

Our modern planet is wonderfully connected, but it’s easy to feel trapped by technology. Sometimes I need to disentangle from the wires and focus on things that transcend status updates, like playing in the dirt. Yesterday, amid a fit of technological suffocation, I zipped over to the Franklin Park Conservatory to see the Blooms & Butterflies exhibit. For one hour, I marveled at the wizardry of patterns in nature and forgot all about to-do lists. Plastic flowers: Love you, mean it — but we both knew this wasn’t going anywhere.

Blooms & Butterflies is on display through September 3, and there are butterfly releases at 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. daily. Click here for more photos.