Like many baby boomers in middle age, Ruth Kassinger was at an emotional crossroads. Confronted with numerous challenges, she was searching for a way forward. One cold, gray evening, flooded with thoughts of change and loss, she wandered into the U.S. Botanic Garden’s conservatory—and a dream was born. Dazzled by the vast and dense tangle of greenery, she began a quest to create a verdant sanctuary of her own at her home in suburban Washington, DC.

Paradise Under Glass chronicles her journey from brown thumb to green. In this lecture, Kassinger takes us step-by-step from the construction of her conservatory through her efforts to identify the easiest to grow, most beautiful houseplants. In chronicling the journey to create her own tropical refuge, she also provides a lively narrative tour of the glasshouses of the past, including Renaissance orangeries, the whimsical follies of Georgian England, the legendary Crystal Palace, and secluded Victorian ferneries.

Throughout, she shares the knowledge and insights that creating and sustaining her garden has bestowed, lessons of loss and letting go, nurturing and rebirth, challenge and change, love and serenity. Paradise Under Glass is the remarkable story of the fruition of a dream that is sure to inspire us all.

Fee: $15 members, $20 general public

Postponed--date TBA