Photo by LORETTA JACKSON Marci Obringer, left, a visitor from Porter, Texas, and her sister, Mandi Sue Bleau, of Hollis, load up some pots of flowers, a collection of five containers filled with tulip plants destined for the family’s Easter celebration.

Honey bees hovering over hanging baskets of purple and yellow pansies on display at Lull Farm in Hollis was a sure sign of springtime temperatures creeping toward tropical. The bees don’t fly in weather of less than 50 degrees, note many online sources.

The afternoon of Easter Sunday warmed to the 70s. The day provided an opportunity for locals, along with visitors from as far away as Maine and Florida, to lolligag among the rows of veggie seedlings or meander through exhibits of potted herbs, succulents and garden flowers.

Some opted to buy perennials, miracles of cold-weather survival whose physiognomy of gnarled tubers or deep-sunk roots somehow conquers a frosty crust to wiggle upwards and pop out of the earth with fresh vigor, year after year.

Kate Harroff, a scientist in the medical industry, and Ashton Potter, an electrical engineer, pulled in for a stop during a road trip. The pair from Maine intended to cruise the coast and do some sightseeing. The road led them to Lull Farm, in Hollis. Their next stop would be Effingham, home of Kate’s mother, Mary Harroff.

“Seeing rows and rows of flowers from the highway is what caught our attention, so we pulled in to see what was here,” Harroff said. “We’re going to get some for my mom in Effingham.”

Texas visitor Marci Obringer, and her sister, Mandi Sue Bleau, of Hollis, didn’t take long perusing the daisies, petunias and asters before heading for some hefty containers filled with tulips in springtime colors of pale yellow and lavender, along with a clump blooming in wowie red.

“We bought five pots of tulips,” Bleau said. “We’re doing the decorating for Easter and we got tulips this time, instead of lilies.”

Orlando visitor Kaitlyn Hackett and John Sengstaken, a native of Hollis now living in Sandwich, selected an unusual gift, a water-filled crystal container packed with a dozen live carrots and greenery topped with tulips.

Nearby, Joseph Tasso and his daughter, Katie, age 9, a third-grade student at Hollis Brookline Primary School, admired in passing the florals and the in-store displays of vegetables but made their way without delay to the bakery section. The cider donut case was the destination.

“We’re having eight for dinner,” said Tasso.

Information on Lull Farm in Hollis, 65 Broad St., also known as Route 130, can be had online: llivefreeandfarm.com.

Loretta Jackson may be contacted via email:

ljackson@nashuatelegraph.com