The Botanic Garden’s Spring Bulb Show is a Smith College tradition that began in the early 1900s. Ordinarily blooming at different times during the spring, some 5,000 bulbs are coaxed into flowering simultaneously, while everything is still gray and bare outdoors. This extravagant display of blossoming crocuses, hyacinths, narcissi, irises, lilies and tulips as well as non-hardy South African Bulbs provides an early glimpse of spring. The process begins in October, when Smith College horticulture students pot up the bulbs and put them into cold storage. Starting in January, the bulbs are moved to the greenhouses. It takes careful timing and temperature control to orchestrate their colorful and fragrant debut in March.