This Weekend: A Highlight of Summer

Posted in Programs and Events on August 22 2014, by Lansing Moore

Happy Friday! After today’s rain, we have two days of sunny, mild weather to look forward to here at NYBG. Come admire the splendor of summer before August passes us by completely.

This weekend features a very special Garden Highlights tour focusing on poisonous plants! A Garden guide will lead two tours of fascinating plant species that with healing—or harmful—properties. When it comes to plants, the line between medicine and poison can be a narrow one indeed, and the myths and facts circulating in popular culture could always use a little more clarification. Learn more about plants’ effects on the body year-round with our award-winning Wild Medicine app.

Read on for this weekend’s complete schedule of programs at NYBG, including a whole new season of Dig! Plant! Grow!—this time focusing on those beloved and vital friends of any garden: pollinators.

Saturday, August 23

Garden Highlights: Poisonous Plants – 12:30 & 2:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
The sights and scents of the season flourish across the 250 acres of the Botanical Garden. Join us for a walking tour featuring intriguing plant species with healing and poisonous capabilities.

From Ragtime to Jazz: The Roots of Pop – 1 & 3:30 p.m.
In the Ross Hall
Music from the period of Groundbreakers—ragtime, jazz, Broadway, and beyond to Hollywood—had a great impact on American culture. Enjoy a variery of styles in live performances by a trio of artists, including musical producer, pianist, and historian Terry Waldo, featuring the works of Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, Irving Berlin, and Tin Pan Alley composers such as George Gershwin, George M. Cohan, and Dorothy Fields.

Film Screening: Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley – 2 p.m.
In the Ross Hall
Many popular music standards of the Tin Pan Alley era (1920–49) were written by women, including Dorothy Fields, Kay Swift, Dana Suesse, and Ann Ronell, who were among the most influential songwriters of the time. This PBS documentary includes archival footage, motion picture clips, and rarely seen photographs, as well as performance clips of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Perry Como.

Sunday, August 24

Perennial Garden Tour – 12:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
Join a Garden Guide for a tour of the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden, which combines a vast palette of colors, textures, flowers, and foliage to create interest in every season.

From Ragtime to Jazz: The Roots of Pop – 1 & 3:30 p.m.
In the Ross Hall
Music from the period of Groundbreakers—ragtime, jazz, Broadway, and beyond to Hollywood—had a great impact on American culture. Enjoy a variery of styles in live performances by a trio of artists, including musical producer, pianist, and historian Terry Waldo, featuring the works of Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, Irving Berlin, and Tin Pan Alley composers such as George Gershwin, George M. Cohan, and Dorothy Fields.

Film Screening: Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley – 2 p.m.
In the Ross Hall
Many popular music standards of the Tin Pan Alley era (1920–49) were written by women, including Dorothy Fields, Kay Swift, Dana Suesse, and Ann Ronell, who were among the most influential songwriters of the time. This PBS documentary includes archival footage, motion picture clips, and rarely seen photographs, as well as performance clips of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Perry Como.

Forest Tour – 2:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
Experience the beauty of the Garden’s 50-acre Thain Family Forest on this one-hour walking tour with an expertly trained Guide. You’ll learn facts about the trees, history, geology, and ecology of this original, uncut woodland.

Ongoing Children’s Programs

Family Adventures: Focusing on Nature – 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
In the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
Children will explore the art of garden photography and will even have the opportunity to become garden photographers themselves. Through a series of stops within the Garden, they will see the world through a new lens as they learn how observations in science and nature have been recorded throughout time. They will also receive tips about perspective, scale, and framing when taking photographs.

Dig! Plant! Grow!: Pollinator Palls: Bees and Butterflies
In the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden
The Family Garden is buzzing in late summer! Join us to learn about important pollinators: our honeybees and the monarch butterflies passing us by on their way to Mexico.

Mario Batali’s Kitchen Gardens – 1:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden
Kids can explore with Mario’s Menu Mystery game, featuring favorite vegetables and herbs from nine of his restaurants’ kitchens, including Otto and Del Posto.