Nasturtiums make their vibrant annual return to the Gardner Museum

Boston Globe

26-03-2025

From left: Volunteers Corey Roche and Steven McGrail held a nasturtium vine alongside Amelia Green, a horticulturist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, as they moved the nasturtiums from the greenhouse.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Erika Rumbley, director of horticulture at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, was silhouetted as she reached up to remove one of the clips holding a vine of nasturtium to a trellis.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Each year, the nasturtium seedlings are started in June and planted in late summer. The plants require daily attention through the winter, which involves pruning and training for correct form and color.
The vines, which grow up to 20 feet long, are nurtured in a greenhouse on the South Shore, its location undisclosed, where most of the museum's plants are tended when not on display.
Tuesday afternoon, workers gently laid the plants down and began removing small clips meticulously placed every inch along the vines. Happy chatter and the occasional clink of a clip being dropped into a bucket could be heard over the burble of the museum's fountain.
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A team of horticulturists and volunteers from the Isabella Stewart Gardner stood on the lift of a box truck as they loaded a nasturtium vine.
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Jennifer Pore, senior manager of horticulture at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, reached up to catch a vine of nasturtium as it was removed from its trellis inside the greenhouse.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Once all of the clips were removed, seven members from the horticulture team carried the 50-pound vines up several flights of stairs.
'I took out a million and a half clips, so I feel very attached to this one,' one team member joked as they helped hoist a vine up the stairs.
Once upstairs, the vines were set down at short tables along each balcony and carefully dangled over the edge.
As rays of sunlight broke through the clouds and shown through the courtyard's glass ceiling, the dazzling blooms brightened the building's interior walls.
The tradition of hanging nasturtiums was started by Isabella Stewart Gardner herself to mark the arrival of spring. There is no select date when the nasturtiums are unveiled each year, as the flowers bloom at different times depending on temperature and weather conditions, the gardeners said.
Erika Rumbley, director of horticulture at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, led the way as a nasturtium vine was brought into the museum.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Jared Schneider, a horticulturist from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, worked to remove the clips that bound the vines of nasturtium together in the courtyard.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
'People call months in advance asking when the nasturtiums are going to be,' said Dawn Griffin, senior director of communications at the Museum. 'We usually don't know until the day before.'
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The floral tradition has taken place every year since the early 1900s except during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Covid-19 pandemic, according to museum literature.
Nasturtiums are one of 10 seasonal displays hosted
at the Gardner.
On Tuesday, the flowers' peppery aroma earned them their Latin name, meaning 'nose-twister.'
The nasturtium display will be visible to the public starting Wednesday and the flowers are likely to bloom through April 14, Gardner's birthday.
Erika Rumbley and others carried one of the vines up a flight of stairs.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Nasturtium flowers that had fallen from the vine lay at the feet of those installing the flowers in the courtyard.
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Horticulturist Jared Schneider (right) held a pot that the 20-foot trailing vine of nasturtium was grown in.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Sarah Mesdjian can be reached at