Gardener Keeps 170 Flower Beds in Heart of Washington Filled : He’s Got the Blooming Situation in Hand
The capital is awash in daffodils, masses of tulips proclaim the arrival of spring, and Milton Boston already is worrying about planting thousands of geraniums, petunias and marigolds for the summer.
Boston is chief floral gardener for the National Park Service in downtown Washington, the generalissimo with rake and hoe who oversees the yearlong planting of 170 flower beds from the Capitol to the Kennedy Center.
186,150 Tulips Planted
His job might seem staggering to back-yard putterers. For a month in late fall, the efficient, unflappable Boston and his crew of eight gardeners were busy planting 186,150 tulips, 108,300 daffodils and 22,000 pansies, all of which bloom in the spring.
Those flowers are removed by early May. The soil is tilled, fumigated with weed and pest killers, conditioned with perlite and peat moss and planted with bright, hardy annuals for Washington’s hot summer months. They are weeded and fertilized until they die in the first frost. Then, they are replaced with about 3,000 chrysanthemums. Eventually, the beds are cleared and the cycle starts again in November.
Boston, a 26-year Park Service veteran, is especially proud of the “tulip library,” a broad, looping cluster of 95 small beds of the clarions of spring that lies near the Tidal Basin south of the Washington Monument.
95 Different Varieties
This elaborate garden contains 15,000 tulips, most of them imported from Holland. Each of the 95 beds contains a different variety, with names as dazzling as their colors--Queen of Night, Merry Widow, Apeldoorn, Oriental Splendor, Smiling Queen, Flaming Parrot, Estella Rijnveld.
It is so impressive that it won an admiring tribute from the Dutch Embassy.
Boston says that he gets “great satisfaction” from his work, which delights the more than 23 million tourists who visit Washington’s national parks and monuments each year.
“This is always what I wanted to do,” said Boston, 45, who grew up on his father’s farm in eastern North Carolina and migrated to Washington after high school. “All my life, I’ve been used to growing things.”
His annual $330,000 budget includes the cost of plants and bulbs purchased wholesale from growers, many from neighboring Maryland and Virginia, on the basis of competitive bids.
During plantings, Boston’s crew begins work at 6 a.m. and can leave a flower bed blazing with color before the morning rush hour is over.
“They really work hard and do a good job,” Boston said of his eight Park Service helpers. “They’re all gardeners, and they know what they’re doing. They can plant 20,000 bulbs in one day.”
Flowers Seldom Stolen
In a city beset by violent crime, Boston is pleased that his flowers are almost never stolen, except by an occasional panhandler intent on selling them for spare change.
“I guess people enjoy them so they don’t take them,” he said. “About the only problem is when people stand in the beds to pose for pictures and mash the flowers down.”
Boston said he once had “the best-looking yard in the neighborhood” in suburban Capitol Heights, Md., where he lives with his wife and two children, “but, in this job, I don’t have the time anymore to take care of it.”
His loss is Washington’s gain.
