The pandemic may have disrupted our everyday lives, but it didn’t stop the tulips from blooming in the Boston Public Garden or the trees from blossoming around the city during this crazy spring of 2020. The Boston Public Garden traces its origins to marshland that Bostonians avoided in the 19th century. In 1837, a visionary named Horace Gray led an effort that transformed the swampy area into the first botanical garden in America. The first bed of tulips and the first poinsettia in the U.S. were planted in the Boston Public Garden. Over the next century, the Public Garden deteriorated and was almost beyond saving by the 1960s. Flowerbeds and trees were diseased, the fountains were inoperable, and the bridge over the lagoon was deemed unsafe. In 1970, the Friends of the Public Garden formed and with generous private donations…
May 11, 2020