What’s Beautiful Now: Winter Strolls
Posted in What's Beautiful Now on January 13 2012, by Matt Newman
Gloves, hat, scarf–I brought none of these things when I went wandering the Garden during lunch yesterday. The climate was just so perfectly suited to a stroll. And the greatest benefit of working at the NYBG is that–no matter the climate–there’s something out on the grounds worth visiting. It’s true there’s no luck of a permanent spring with buds and blooms sprouting up from corner to corner, but winter has its own subtle and touching charm.
This season’s odd patterns of sun and darkness make for confusing daytime walkabouts; I hadn’t expected to step out of the office at 3 p.m. only to find dusk creeping along at the edges of the afternoon. Adjusting to this kind of Norse winter is a slow process. (Being a southerner, anything north of Georgia is practically Norway to me.) But I decided that I was already out and about, and despite the settling dark I was going to soak up as much enjoyment as I could from the remains of the day.
From the Library Building I struck out toward the nearby Home Gardening Center, though much of it was already buckled down for the season. Still, the winter jasmine’s yellow blooms stood out like small sparks in the bramble; the simple, minuscule flowers make for an endearing contrast. You can expect the bright inflorescence of Jasminum nudiflorum to stick around until March in our neck of the woods, assuming our weather doesn’t choose to take an even more bizarre turn.
I then moved on toward the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, but with the Holiday Train Show still in swing through the 16th, I figured I would leave our visitors to their fun and keep to the quiet outdoors. In any case, two of our most peaceful gardens were right nearby.
I found the lolling flowers of the snowdrops peppering the ground in the Perennial Garden. These shy, bulb-grown blooms have a penchant for creating a carpet of untouched white and green clusters when propagated, though our Galanthus are just beginning to pop up here and there. In the right conditions, we’ll be able to enjoy them through March as well.
Next door is the Ladies’ Border. Tucked in alongside the Conservatory with a berm opposite, the crevice of flowers and small trees always seems to boast a few perky flowers and fascinating plants. It helps that it’s just a smidgen warmer than almost any other outdoor space in The New York Botanical Garden.
A bright pink speck bobbed at the end of the path, so I decided to investigate. There I found the last few blossoms of the ‘Spring’s Promise’ camellia toughing out the steadily dropping temperatures. Even as they begin to wilt, the flashy fuchsias and yellows of this Camellia japonica cultivar suck in most of the folks who wander down the pathway.
Immediately underneath the camellia stood a rigid grouping of Euphorbia characias ‘Glacier Blue’, a cultivar of the evergreen Mediterranean Spurge with sturdy green and cream-edged leaves. Their stems jut up around one another like frilled spears.
Having no particular plan after this point, I left the Ladies’ Border and wandered off toward the Azalea Garden. And I know what you’re thinking–there are surely no azaleas blooming in this cold. You’d be right. But if you happen to visit over the next month or two, you might come to understand my personal fascination.
Dormant flowers leave behind a mesh of pathways winding between and around natural rock faces, jutting up out of the ground and making for sudden elevation changes. The barren trees add to the overall effect of a zen-like, introspective space. And if the Fordham bells happen to be tolling at that moment (they were) it makes the scene all the more surreal. But quoting Edgar Allan Poe at this point would be pushing my luck.
The moral of this story? Go outside, take in the weather, and make the most of the fact that there’s nothing frozen and miserable falling from the sky. It’s sunny! Let yourself enjoy it for once.
