The central courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with its annual display of nasturtiums. Above right, edible nasturtiums decorate a tuna salad plate at the museum.

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isabella stewart gardner museum

BOSTON — Stan Kozak may be the only person in the world who has nightmares about nasturtiums. Iridescent orange blooms, thousands of them, on snaking vines each measuring 15, 20 or even 25 feet long.

His dreams aren’t sci-fi-style tales about giant creeping vines choking out everything in their path. As head gardener for Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kozak’s haunting worries concern possible attacks on his precious nasturtiums by blight, disease or insects.

The pressure is especially intense as April approaches. That’s when 16 to 18 bloom-filled nasturtium vines are needed to continue the Hanging Nasturtium Display, a tradition started in 1903 by museum founder Isabella Stewart Gardner to celebrate her April 14 birthday.

But the display is just one of the major horticultural extravaganzas in the museum’s heart and on its grounds, and just one example of how Mrs. Gardner viewed horticulture as being on a par with the visual and performing arts.

In Boston’s Back Bay, the museum is off the beaten path in a city where the Freedom Trail is the first and foremost destination. But the Gardner, a short walk away from the much larger Museum of Fine Arts and famous Fenway Park, is a home-run destination for flower lovers. The year-round show of fresh blooms created by Kozak and his staff is as much of a draw as the founder’s collection of 30 centuries of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furnishings and manuscripts.

In the Italianate museum’s center court, visitors can enjoy the quiet pleasure of orchids, azaleas and lilies in full bloom before immersing themselves in the contents of three floors of galleries that surround the court. In the collection are works by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli and Degas, plus antiquities from the ancient world.

In summer, the outdoor and informal Monks Garden (filled with laurel, azaleas and ivy) and the formal Rose and South gardens offer still more treats for flower lovers.

But the Hanging Nasturtium Display is “a particularly strong reminder that the Gardner continues to grow and breathe new life,” says Anne Haley, the museum’s director.

No wonder the display that colors the courtyard in streaks of brilliant orange is Kozak’s greatest personal challenge. Although ordinary nasturtiums are easily grown by amateur gardeners, cultivating the flowery, flowing vines is another story.

One year, in fact, his worst nightmares nearly came true. “It was late January when we noticed the vines had stopped growing and producing flowers. We rushed samples away for analysis. The vines had a virus and the lab told me to discard them. But it was too late for that. I couldn’t start over again and I couldn’t say, “Sorry, there’ll be no nasturtiums this year,” Kozak says.

He practically took up residence among the vines and used every trick he learned in 37 years of gardening to nurse them through the crisis. “We wound up with enough flowering vines to stage the display, but they were shorter than usual — only 15 feet instead of 20 or 25 feet.”

But the nasturtiums certainly aren’t the museum’s sole horticultural focus. Gardner, a prize-winning orchid grower, filled the grounds and interiors of her two homes with a vast array of flowers, many with roots in the Mediterranean and connected with her beloved Venice. Visitors will find everything from camellias, cyclamen and spring bulbs to calla lilies, hydrangeas and violets, depending on the time they visit.

But the sure thing at any time is a brilliant show of the freshest flowers. “Places like Longwood Gardens use their greenhouses as their showplaces, but we don’t do that. Our greenhouses provide the stock for plantings in the central court and act as hospitals,” Kozak says.

“Our courtyard serves as our year-round showplace, although people assume the plants they see have grown there. But that’s not the case. We constantly move plants in and out of the display. The temperature and humidity in the museum are set to preserve the paintings, tapestries and furnishings rather than the flowers. And although the courtyard seems bright at certain times, it’s actually low-light,” he says.

That’s why Kozak and his staff check the plants and flowers several times daily. “I don’t want visitors to see a single wilted flower or brown leaf if I can help it,” he says. “We look for signs of trouble and anticipate others, like insect infestations. When that happens, we quickly move the plants back to the greenhouse to treat them with sprays.”

Some plant material in the collection dates from Gardner’s time. Decades-old jade trees flower in winter, a sign of their maturity and the care they’ve received.

But what would Gardner think of today’s displays? Kozak says he wouldn’t ask her about the flowers, if he had a chance to talk to her. “I’d like to ask her how she managed to collect and arrange everything else that’s here in the museum. I’m sure it would have taken anyone else several lifetimes to do it.”If you go

WHAT: A must-see for flower lovers and patrons of all the arts. Contains founder’s lifetime collection of treasures in galleries surrounding a center court that’s filled with stunning fresh floral displays.

WHERE: At 280 The Fenway, in Boston’s Back Bay section. Parking on-street and at Museum of Fine Arts garage.

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, except some holidays.

HOW MUCH: Adults, $12; seniors, $10; college students $5; children under 18 free with parent or guardian. All named Isabella admitted free forever!

INFO: www.gardnermuseum.org or (617) 566-1401.