The Observer, February 22, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 18
Botanical Garden offers visually stunning exhibit with Orchid Mania
Bright, vibrant rainbows of color dazzle the eyes. Alluring and inviting scents, reminiscent of a spring morning, waft through the air. Quiet sounds of chirping birds accompany this sensory salvo. Is this some kind of imagined dream?
Actually, this is the mood created by the Orchid Mania exhibit at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, showing until March 9.
Appearing annually, Orchid Mania gathers hundreds and hundreds of orchids together in just about every imaginable color, fragrance, and type, and presents them in a multitude of styles and exhibits, showcasing the flower's incredible variety.
The main lobby of the Garden is the first decorated room, and it is one of the most affecting. Six orchids are placed inside mirrored boxes, creating the illusion of an "infinity" orchid and offering a great 360-degree view of the radiant flowers. Moving into the next room, individual orchids are placed along the wall in huge numbers, producing a veritable wall of slender beauty. In glass cases along the wall, miniature displays explain the functionality of the flowers, complete with an orchid cake straight from India, where the orchid is considered a delicacy. Amidst all of these displays, large clusters of orchids, grouped with beautifully green bushes dot the landscape of the exhibit hall.
In Clark Hall, a large meeting space with a superb two-story window which lets in copious amounts of natural light, more orchid plants are gathered, offering the perfect setup for photographers, both amateur and professional. Here the orchids and accompanying plants are grouped in bunches, creating a miniature maze for flower-lovers to navigate. Upstairs in the Guren Gallery, beautiful paintings of orchids by Andrij Maday are on display, and each one is actually on sale to the general public. (The prices are a little steep for a college student's budget, but at least visual admiration is free.)
Besides Orchid Mania, the rest of the Garden is also open for business. Featuring a dozen or so outdoor gardens (that even manage to retain their beauty in the dead of winter) and a dazzling set of two glass houses, the Cleveland Botanical Garden is a University Circle institution that is not just worthwhile in the spring and summer. The glasshouses feature animals and plants from both the Spiny Desert of Madagascar and the Cloud Forest of Costa Rica in two separate but attached structures. The Spiny Desert includes a variety of cacti and desert plants, in addition to turtles, hedgehogs, and hissing cockroaches. Occasionally, a Garden worker will have an animal, such as a millipede, out for closer inspection.
The Cloud Forest portion of the glasshouses offers some very stunning plant life, and vibrant butterflies and birds. Most of the animals in the glasshouses are not behind cages of any sort, and it is very possible to actually have a brilliantly colored tropical butterfly land on you.
The Cleveland Botanical Garden is a great way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon here on campus. Free tickets can be obtained in Access Services. Orchid Mania is showing until March 9, but the Garden itself is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
