A tropical retreat in the midst of a snowy city

January 21, 2011|Michelle Theriault Boots

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In late January, Anchorage’s landscape is reduced to a handful of familiar elements: bare-limbed willows, moose and spruce trees buried in snow.

It’s around this time that locals with means tend to decamp for Hawaii, where green things grow out of the earth and where the air smells like flowers all the time. The rest of us linger at supermarket floral departments and potted office ferns, sniffing wistfully.

There’s a better, and less creepy, way to get your botanical kicks: a little known city oasis where winter-weary city dwellers can step into a tropical greenhouse bursting with cacti, orchids, succulents and lime trees.

The Mann Leiser Memorial Greenhouse is located on Lidia Selkregg Lane, in the driveway of the Selkregg Chalet at Russian Jack Park. It’s run by the municipality’s horticulture and gardening division, the same people responsible for the city’s amazing summer show of hanging baskets and landscaped green spaces.

The greenhouse is divided into two sections: a natural exhibit of tropical plants that features koi points, chirping birds (in a large enclosed habitat) and benches for sitting. Temperatures are in the 70s and the place is moist, chlorophyll-scented and alive with creeping branches, huge fanned leaves and blooming flowers.

You’ll find exotic plants like blue ginger, bird of paradise, agave, rubber tree, hibiscus, orchid, avocado, lime, weeping fig, banyan trees and dwarf bananas. It’s the closest you’re going to feeling like you’re in the tropics without a lot of air miles.

Anchorage resident Annalisa Hood was taking a midday walk around the greenhouse, part of a new resolution to get out more during the winter that included getting rid of her cable service.

“It’s just kind of nice to have something that gets you away from the cold, white, blizzard-y winter that we’ve been having,” she said. “It’s a different experience.”

For regular visitors, it’s an important one: Municipal gardener Sandy Potvin said that the greenhouse regularly gets visitors suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.

“We turn the lights on in the morning and they can just come in and sit here where it’s warm,” she said.

In some seasons, the greenhouse even plays host to “story time with the flowers,” a weekly for small children. It’s also a popular venue for small weddings.

“People need it and enjoy it,” Potvin said.

Visitors are welcome from 8 am to 3:30 pm every day. There’s no admission cost.

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