Washington, D.C

In D.C., some Valentine’s Day tulips come from an Alexandria basement

Published

2 years ago

February 14, 2024

In D.C., some Valentine’s Day tulips come from an Alexandria basement

The pink Mariage tulip arrived at a house in Northwest Washington just before 12:30 p.m. It was nestled in a white vase alongside 29 other tulips, smelling of honey and citrus.

The bell rang.

A woman answered.

Valentine’s Day was almost here.

The tulip’s journey started last October in the basement of a bungalow-style house in Alexandria. Katie Burke had returned from her honeymoon thinking about the flowers at her wedding and how much she loved growing tulips in her backyard. Then she took a virtual class, “The Tulip Workshop,” and learned that she could set up an operation in her basement.

She and her husband, Daniel, named their business Port City Flowers, and they dreamed of one day buying a farm and growing fields of blooms.

So Katie and Daniel cleared the basement for growing. They bought two dehumidifiers and four fans to keep the room at about 70 degrees and 55 percent humidity; sank about $2,000 into refashioning a separate room into a “cooler” to store bulbs and cut flowers; and hung LED lights near extra bottles of champagne and spare tools. Near a map reading “Adventure awaits,” they installed two tables lined with hydroponic trays. On them, they planted roughly 2,000 bulbs.

Every morning and every evening, they walked downstairs and studied the trays. They checked to see which flowers were ready to harvest and which were showing signs of cell damage — their stems shaped like the beginning of a frown.

Five days before Valentine’s Day, the dark basement was bursting with color. The Pamplona tulips glowed red, the Dream Touch a deep purple, and the Mariage were just starting to open their petals, revealing layers of gentle blush pink. Katie felt like she and her husband had brought spring to Alexandria two months early.

She plucked 140 tulips, including the Mariage, and placed them in white and blue buckets. Then she hauled them to the cooler.

Two days before Valentine’s Day, Katie picked up the buckets, loaded them into her car and drove to a green storefront just outside Adams Morgan.

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Amber Flack, the owner of Little Acre Flowers, grabbed the buckets and took them into her shop. Inside was a Valentine’s Day assembly line: Scissors gnawed at stems, razors sliced wrapping paper, and water slapped against dozens of empty vases.

It was Flack’s first Valentine’s Day as the owner of Little Acres, a flower shop that only sells locally grown blooms. The business runs in part on customers seeing value in locally planted flowers, which can last longer and are better for the planet. Roses, among the most popular cut flowers in the world, rarely grow in the D.C. during wintertime — unlike tulips.

Flack took the tulips from Burke and placed them in a fridge, sliding the door shut. Flowers were arriving from across the region: White forsythias, which smelled like nectar. Ornamental kale. Snapdragons. Then she went back to the fridge, grabbed the bucket of tulips that included the Mariage, and tucked them one by one into a white vase — balancing the shades of pink and peeling off leaves to find the right amount of green to complement the pink rather than overshadow it.

About 11:30 a.m., a man wandered in. He asked if he could buy a bouquet. The tulips outside had reminded him that Valentine’s Day was only two days away, and he had yet to plan anything for his wife. Flack told him that the store only took online orders. He rushed home to put one in.

Just before noon, Todd Geiwitz, who owns a local delivery company, picked up the bouquet with the Mariage tulip and loaded it into the back of his van. It was one of 60 deliveries on Monday, and about 400 through Valentine’s Day.

Geiwitz drove through tree-lined streets in upper Northwest Washington, past joggers and goldendoodles on long leashes. Then he arrived at his first job of the day. He opened the back door of his truck, and the smell of honey and citrus filled the damp February air.

He walked up the front steps to a bright blue door and rang the bell. Lauren Laitin answered. She saw the Mariage tulip glowing among the other flowers, its petals now mostly unfurled.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “This is so awesome.”

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Washington, D.C

50 years of DC Metro: A look back in photos

Published

7 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Press Room

50 years of DC Metro: A look back in photos

One family, four generations with DC Metro

As Metro celebrates 50 years of service, one D.C. family is marking the milestone with a legacy of their own — four generations who have all worked on the system, helping keep the region moving for decades.

WASHINGTON – D.C. residents got on their first Metro train 50 years ago on March 27, 1976. Here’s a look back at the beginning.

Connecticut Avenue; NW; looking south. evening traffic-jams are aggravated by metro subway construction in Washington D.C. ca. 1973 (Photo by: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

View of the Metro Center subway station (at 13th and G Streets NW) during its construction, Washington DC, November 16, 1973. (Photo by Warren K Leffler/PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Standing in the cavernous tunnel, planners wearing hard hats discuss the construction progress of the Metro Center subway station at the intersection of 13th and G Streets in Washington, DC, November 16, 1973. (Photo by Leffler/Library of Congress/In

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 07: FILE, Metro construction miners and blasters on a jumbo drill outside the hole they are working on at Rock Creek Parkway and Cathedral Ave NW in Washington, DC on November 7, 1973. (Photo by James K.W Atherton/The Washin

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 4: FILE, View of the Post Office at North Capital and Mass Avenue NE, and 1st NE where subway tunnels were being constructed in Washington, DC on March 4, 1974. (Photo by Joe Heiberger/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 29: FILE, Workers rig a pipe at the entrance to the Rosslyn Metro Station in Washington DC on August 29, 1974 (Photo by Larry Morris/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 27: FILE, The crowd at Rhode Island Station on opening day of the Washington Metro on March 27, 1976. (Photo by James A. Parcell/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 28: FILE, Reverend Leslie E. Smith of the Episcopal Church, right, and George Docherty of New York Avenue Presbyterian church hold a joint service at the new Metro Center station in Washington, DC on March 28, 1976. (Photo by D

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 1: FILE, An aerial view of metro construction where it crosses the Washington Channel. The Potomac River, the Pentagon and Northern Virginia can be seen in the distance. (Photo by Ken Feil/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 27: FILE, A packed train of commuters on the Silver Spring metro on the Red Line on January 27, 1987. (Photo by Dudley M. Brooks/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 4: FILE, Thousands of people press their way into the Smithsonian Subway station after the Independence Day fireworks in Washington, DC on July 4, 1979. (Photo by Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit AuthorityNewsWashington, D.C.

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Washington, D.C

Pop-up museum in DC features the scandal that changed American history – WTOP News

Published

19 hours ago

March 26, 2026

Press Room

Pop-up museum in DC features the scandal that changed American history – WTOP News

Among the liquor store, barber shop and dry cleaners at the Watergate Complex’s retail plaza, there is a new pop-up museum dedicated to the scene of the crime that toppled Richard Nixon’s presidency.

The temporary exhibit features the work of artist Laurie Munn — portraits of members of the Nixon administration and those connected to the Watergate break-in. The exhibit features members of Congress, the media and some who were on President Nixon’s enemies list.(WTOP/Jimmy Alexander)

Keith Krom, chair of the Board of Directors of the Watergate Museum, told WTOP the exhibit was first featured in the gallery in 2012 for the 40th anniversary of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee.

“When she (Munn) learned about our museum effort, she offered to reassemble them as a way for us to expand awareness of the museum,” Krom said.

Krom, who lives in the Watergate, said his favorite portrait is of one of the special prosecutors, whose firing sparked the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973.

“I had the pleasure of being a student of Archibald Cox,” Krom said. “He served as my mentor for my third-year writing project.”

Krom said during this time, at the Boston University School of Law, he spent a great deal of time with him.

“I didn’t realize how much he must have gone through. Here he was, this one man, who was challenging the president of the United States over something pretty serious,” Krom said.

The pop-up opened in October and was recently extended to stay open until April 25. Krom said the hope is to find it a permanent location within the Watergate Complex, where they can “present the history of Watergate, but with two perspectives.”

The first would be on the building’s “architectural significance to D.C.,” he said.

“You may not like the design, you actually may hate it,” Krom said. “But you cannot deny that it changed D.C.’s skyline.”

The secondary focus would, of course, be on the mother of all presidential scandals that changed the course of American history.

“That’s where that suffix ‘-gate’ started and continues to be used for almost every scandal that comes out today,” Krom said.

The inspiration for the museum spawned from an interaction from a tourist outside the Watergate.

“He says, ‘This is the Watergate, right?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s one of the buildings,’” Krom recalled.

The tourist then asked Krom, “So where’s the museum?”

“I was like, ‘Oh, we don’t have a museum.’ And he literally just looked at me and said, ‘That’s so sad.’ And he got on his bike and rode away,” Krom said.

While the self-proclaimed political history nerd said he “still gets goose bumps” when he drives by the Capitol at night, Krom hopes that when people leave the museum, “they’ll walk away with a new appreciation for how our government works, the guardrails that are in place.”

“Maybe an understanding that those guardrails themselves are kind of frail, and they probably need our collective help in making sure they last — that’s what we hope to accomplish,” Krom said.

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Washington, D.C

Cherry Blossoms Hit Peak Bloom in Washington DC

Published

1 day ago

March 26, 2026

Press Room

Cherry Blossoms Hit Peak Bloom in Washington DC

Almost at peak! A view of the cherry trees in Washington DC show they’re about to burst into peak bloom very soon. Image: NPS

According to the National Park Service at the National Mall, famous cherry blossoms around the nation’s capital have hit peak bloom conditions. The National Park Service X account for the National Mall proclaimed this morning, “PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM!”

It became apparent yesterday that the bloom would be at peak today. “Despite a sunny afternoon and patches of blue sky, the cherry blossoms remain at Stage 5: Puffy White,” the Park Service wrote on X yesterday. Stage 5, “Puffy White”, is the final stage blossoms go through before being in full bloom. They start at Stage 1 as a “Green Bud”, grow into Stage 2 with “Florets Visible”, and then florets become extended at Stage 3. In Stage 4, there is “Peduncle Elongation” which sets the stage for the puffy blossoms to appear in Stage 5. Puffy White and Peak Bloom are defined as when 70% of the blossoms on the trees reach that stage.

An explosion of blooming flowers is about to hit Washington DC's parks. Image: NPS — An explosion of blooming flowers is about to hit Washington DC’s parks. Image: NPS

Peak bloom varies annually depending on weather conditions; the most likely time to reach peak bloom is between the last week of March and the first week of April. According to the Park Service, extraordinary warm or cool temperatures have resulted in peak bloom as early as March 15 in 1990 and as late as April 18 in 1958.

Cherry blossom in Washington DC. Image: Weatherboy

The planting of cherry trees in Washington DC originated in 1912 as a gift of friendship to the People of the United States from the People of Japan. In Japan, the flowering cherry tree, or “Sakura,” is an important flowering plant. The beauty of the cherry blossom is a symbol with rich meaning in Japanese culture.

Dr. David Fairchild, plant explorer and U.S. Department of Agriculture official, imported seventy-five flowering cherry trees and twenty-five single-flowered weeping types from the Yokohama Nursery Company in Japan. After experimenting with growing them on his own property in Maryland, he deemed that the cherry tree would be perfect to plant around the Washington DC area. This triggered an interest by a variety of individuals to plant the tree around Washington. In 1909 the Mayor of Tokyo, Yukio Ozaki, donated 2,000 trees to the United States on behalf of his city. When the trees arrived, they were riddled with disease and insects and to protect other agriculture, they were burned. The Tokyo Mayor made a second donation of trees in 1910, this time amounting to 3,020 trees. This started the forest of cherry trees that now line the Potomac basin around Washington DC. In a gesture of gratitude back to Japan, President Taft sent a gift in 1915 of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan. Thousands of trees have been added since, including another gift of 3,800 trees from Japan in 1965.