Winter Escape: The Warm World of the BBG’s Conservatories – Gardenista

In the cold months we crave a holiday. Just a break. A different view. New smells. Exotic plants. An atmosphere that draws the chill from our bones. And we can’t always travel. But—at least for those of us who live in big cities—there is often a botanical compromise: a local green house, or conservatory, a place where plants are kept under glass in conditions that defy the weather outside and mimic, instead, the climates where their progenitors were born. In Brooklyn, on the east side of Prospect Park, the conservatories of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden offer respite from the cold—and a therapeutic immersion in fragrant steam.

Come for a stroll through a handful of climates worlds away from winter.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Puffer jackets can be unzipped, woollen hats removed, gloves peeled off.

Within the massive, clear panes of the conservatories’ great glass houses, the transition from outdoor cold to moist heat is instantaneous. To acclimate, I head for the Bonsai Museum, the most moderate and airy room, where a rotating bonsai collection invites quiet admiration.

And then I go home. Not across the park, to where I live, but to my homeland, South Africa: Downstairs.

In this familiar climate (not too warm, not too cool), it is spring.

Lachenalias in bloom give a visitor a tiny taste of the spectacular spring effusion that envelopes South Africa’s West Coast and Northern Cape, in the Southern Hemisphere’s spring.

The Warm Temperate Pavilion’s climate, characterized by cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers (often better-known as a Mediterranean climate), is shared by other, diverse geographic regions, including southern and southwestern Australia, central Chile, coastal California, and the Mediterranean Basin. Here, they are under one domed roof. And it’s a riot for the senses. Citron may be fruiting, and always, there is an intense scent.