Polar vortex and all, it’s been a long winter, no? Heck, it snowed less than a week ago, the same day Amazon delivered a bevy of banana-palm starts we ordered, either because we had blind faith or were cautiously optimistic. The starts are safely, we hope, in the ground. For inspiration, we like to visit Washington Park Botanical Gardens, where summer never ends beneath a glass-dome greenhouse that offers a hug of heat and humidity that’s welcome this time of year. Now is a particularly good time to visit, as nearly 1,000 lilies are blooming in a spring fl oral exhibition set to close at 5 p.m. on Easter Sunday. They’ve been doing this for nearly 50 years at the botanical gardens, and the fl owers never fail to excite and delight. The best part isn’t the colors or the gentle gurgle of fountains in the indoor exhibition space. Rather, it’s the scent that blows one over. All in all, a perfect place to take a spring time-out and see what gardening can accomplish.