Last month I had to spend several weeks in Detroit. I don't know what the second prize was, possibly four weeks. It did, however, give me the chance to visit the Matthaei Botanical Gardens Conservatory in Ann Arbor. This conservatory is but one of a seemingly infinite number of gardens and arboreta of the University of Michigan.
At home I have a terrarium in a 20 gallon glass tank. During our long, cold, hard winters I raise the terrarium's cover and stick my head in to inhale the forest aroma, and with my eyes closed imagine I am in some tropical paradise. As you enter the conservatory by way of its Tropical House you do not have to imagine, you are in a tropical paradise. One of the first things that caught my eye was a Tillandsia Bromeliad that stood out from among a throng of Bromeliads, all in bloom. In addition, this area was rife with orchids, also in bloom. The papyrus there was a different variety than the one I have, but with the same burst of minute flowers sprouting from its umbrella-like fan of leaves.
One of my dreams of glory is to have my own conservatory, about an acre or more in size. It too, like the Matthaei, would have real banana trees, with bananas. My dwarf bananas do not flower nor fruit. The packet of seeds I purchased years ago showed a photograph of a flowering plant. When I returned home I read the fine print which stated that my purchase was a variety that did not flower.
This was not my only surprise in gardening. I have often been deceived by glowing terms, artfully taken photographs, some negative characteristic left out of the description of an item for sale and my own unbridled expectation. Undaunted, I carry on with more positive results than disappointments. But, back to those bananas. . .
Several times while I was in the Tropical House, parents with little children would point out the bunches of bananas to them. They enjoyed the sight as much as I. I give away my age when I say I remember a movie, before late night oldies on TV, where this guy reclining under a tree with a Vahine, reached up out of the screen and brought down a banana. Was it the first Mutiny on the Bounty? I would also like to pick my own bananas even if Kay will not let me share them with some young woman in a sarong. Surprise, bananas are closely related to grass; they are not trees. When mine get too
