Palm fronds six metres high. A banana tree bearing fruit. Bird of paradise flowers with their orange spikes poking out among the ferns. A turquoise jade vine in bloom.

No, it’s not some island paradise but the oasis of Allan Gardens Conservatory, where exotic plants are on display for Torontonians seeking refuge from the longest winter in recent memory.

Staff estimate attendance is between 20 and 30 per cent higher than this time last year and attribute the surge in popularity to bleak weather, said foreperson Curtis Evoy on Tuesday as the city cancelled the 33rd extreme weather alert of the year and meteorologists predicted the cold would linger through March.

“People are desperate for colour, something green, a little warmth,” said Evoy, a horticulturalist who has worked at the gardens near Jarvis and Carleton Sts. for more than two decades. Before this year, the last time staff struggled to keep the temperature above freezing inside was 1993, he said.

The conservatory, which was built in 1910, has always offered free admission, and exact attendance numbers aren’t kept. On Saturdays, visitors number in the hundreds, mostly tourists in summer and locals in winter, Evoy said.

Last weekend, as the city woke to another blanket of snow, it was so busy visitors had a hard time moving through the greenhouses, Evoy said. There are six of them filled with mountain aloe, a papaya tree and a mysterious “voodoo lily” along with daisies, violets, ivy and countless other species.

“We came here because we were thinking of a vacation, but we can’t afford a vacation,” said University of Toronto student Jenna Caprani from the temperate house, surrounded by daffodils and tulips as part of the “spring blooms” exhibit.

“Last year in mid-March I remember sitting in Trinity-Bellwoods Park with my friends … not this year.”

She was there with art student Sarah D’Angelo, who had never been before and said the pair wandered in to experience nature and “just see some green.”

Jade Maxam, 19, started going to the conservatory as a child and still visits often.

“But not as often as this year,” she said, adding she actively seeks places to get out of the cold. The word is spreading among her peers as well, she said.

Images of the cacti, succulents and orchids are spreading on social media as well. Evoy said he often hears of people who wait until retirement to take a walk through the greenhouses, but on Tuesday there were mostly 20-somethings basking in the humid rooms.

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“It feels like spring,” said Ayumi Inoue, 21, who came to Toronto from Japan to study. “It’s pretty with the snow falling outside — and you see the flowers inside.”