The New York Botanical Garden’s annual Orchid Show could not have come at a better time for snow-blind New Yorkers living at the cutting edge of the Siberian Express. When the exhibit opens tomorrow, they can catch another train–to the Bronx–to spend some hours thawing out in a fogged-up greenhouse paradise.

Yesterday I got a preview as final preparations were underway for “Chandeliers,” the theme of this year’s show which features colorful hanging baskets of orchids:

Photography by Marie Viljoen for Gardenista.

Above: An avenue of orchids, inside the botanical garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.

Above: Outdoors, the scene was less tropical.

Above: Francisca Coelho designed this show, and is NYBG’s Vice President for Glasshouses and Exhibitions.

The inspiration for “Chandeliers” was Floridian. In a private home there last year, Gregory Long, NYBG’s President and CEO showed Ms. Coelho “a living chandelier.”

Canopy-dwelling orchids can be observed from below naturally, and the grand structure of the conservatory provides iron trees from which to suspend dozens of displays, conveniently lowered to within human height.

Above: The tropical orchids cascading from the glass ceilings are members of the largest flowering family on earth, more than 30,000 species strong. The central chandelier holds 500 plants, including luminous white Phalaenopsis and electric yellow Oncidium tucked among lush ferns and moss.

Above: Smaller hanging baskets of 35 plants each are suspended all over the conservatory. Despite their tropical origins, all the orchids in the exhibit are New York-grown, said Ms. Coelho.

Above: Many of the thousands of long orchid stems in the “Chandeliers” exhibit are individually staked for support, giving a sense of the intense labor and preparation required to mount a show of this scale.

While these flamboyant flowers are often considered delicate and difficult to grow, “in their natural habitat many orchids are extreme plants, attaching themselves to trees in order to survive,” said Marc Hachadourian, the NYBG’s resident orchid expert and Director of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections. And the orchids on display here represent the familiar genera by now well-accustomed to humans and their habits.

Above: For hopeful first-time orchid owners, the “Chandeliers” show is very encouraging: The interactive exhibit offers good advice for growing your own at home, highlighting what is necessary for their successful care and explaining the difference between Dendrobium and Cymbidium, Phalaenopsis and Epidendrum.