Working alongside some of the world’s most talented and knowledgeable botanists tends to relate directly to the number of office plants that find homes on desks and window sills. Window Garden Wednesday exists to acquaint our readers with some of the folks who are often too busy in the field, lab, or conference room to spend time lurking on social media sites. (That’s our job.)
We continue the revival of Window Garden Wednesdays with a collection close to my desk. Not that I’m allowed to touch it. You see, this is the window garden of one Ann Rafalko, imperious (I jest) Director of Online Content for The New York Botanical Garden. She also happens to be my boss (or foreman, or warden–it’s really a matter of imagination paired with the general mood of the room on any given weekday).
Our humble copse of potted things here in Creative Services may not be particularly exotic or flamboyant, but it suits us just fine. So I’ll turn it over to Ann to explain just what it is we have lurking on the sill, how it got there, and perhaps the handful of miracles that must have fallen on our grim corner of the Library Building to keep these zombies of vegetation hovering in the realm of healthy.
It’s a rare day at the NYBG when I can take a few steps through the halls without seeing a splash of green foliage brightening a workspace. Working alongside some of the world’s most talented and knowledgeable botanists tends to relate directly to the number of office plants that find homes on desks and window sills. Window Garden Wednesday exists to acquaint our readers with some of the folks who are often too busy in the field, lab, or conference room to spend time lurking on social media sites. (That’s our job.)
There are perks to working in a hive of brilliant botanical minds, all of them within stone’s throw (or email’s hassle) of your desk and generally willing to spill a measure of earthy wisdom for hopeful horticulturists. For those of us who can’t spend every last moment under the gleam of the Conservatory dome, it makes all the difference to color our cubicles with whatever growing things will tolerate an office.
That stands only for those of us who don’t have death’s touch when it comes to leafy things, of course.
This week we’re continuing the long lost Window Garden Wednesday series with a look at the collection of Dr. Jamie Boyer, our Director of Children’s Education and a man with a heap of rocks on his desk (plant fossils, actually). Will this be a dedicated weekly event? Probably not. But I’ll at least try to keep it going until my colleagues in the Library Building start deadbolting their office doors.
Ed. note: Here at the Garden, we are surrounded by plants and knowledgeable plant people, which means that even the average Garden employee/cubicle dweller tends to soak up a lot of information about how to best care for our plants. To many at the Garden, this immersion, combined with a nascent love of plants plus easy access information has driven us to practice what we preach in the form of tending a windowsill garden. On occasional Wednesdays, we’ll introduce you to some of the Garden’s many windowsill gardeners. We hope you enjoy this look at what our window gardeners grow.
Who are you and what do you do at the Garden?
My name is Douglas Daly and I run one of the departments in the Science Division here called the Institute of Systematic Botany. I am also responsible for the aspects of our research programs that relate to the flora of the Amazon region.
What kind of plants do you have in your windowsill garden?
Any plants that are going to make it in my windows have to be tough and irrepressible, that is, they have to want to grow there, because I’m not going to pamper them. Here they get bread and water, minus the bread …
Any good stories about where the plants come from?
I have an oversize cycad native to Mexico called Dioon spinosa; somebody gave me a seed about 25 years ago and now it rules one corner of my inner office. A corner of the outer office is ruled by a Philodendron that was orphaned during the previous renovation of the Haupt Conservatory; they told me if I could find a way to lug it to my office I could have it. I have a Protium tree I grew from a seed someone brought me from Belize a long time ago; I have cut it back three times and it’s ten feet tall again. Finally, I have some really sad-looking, undersized, droopy San Pedro cactus plants I grew from seeds given to me way back by the late, great botanist Tim Plowman; I keep those for sentimental reasons.
Learned any good windowsill gardening tips while working at the Garden?
Not too much crowding; give a couple of plants some elbow room to strut their stuff. And when you travel, ask Alejandra Vasco (a post-doc here) to look after your plants, because as soon as she touches mine, they all germinate and recover and grow and flower like crazy.
What’s your favorite thing about working at the Garden?
When you work on the identification and classification and conservation of plants, every day is a detective story, full of mysteries, puzzles, hypotheses, some dead ends, some discoveries. What is it? Why? Why does it grow there? How is it related to other species, and what characteristics distinguish them? Is it endangered? What are the most important places to do field work? How can you alert people to their importance? Botanists tend to live to a ripe old age because we can’t afford to die early; there’s too much to do!
Ed. note: Here at the Garden, we are surrounded by plants and knowledgeable plant people, which means that even the average Garden employee/cubicle dweller tends to soak up a lot of information about how to best care for our plants. To many at the Garden, this immersion, combined with a nascent love of plants plus easy access information has driven us to practice what we preach in the form of tending a windowsill garden. On occasional Wednesdays, we’ll introduce you to some of the Garden’s many windowsill gardeners. We hope you enjoy this look at what our window gardeners grow.
Who are you and what do you do at the Garden? Amy Litt, Director of Plant Genomics and Cullman Curator. I study how plant genes differ among species and how those differences in genes are responsible for differences in plant form and function. In other words I study the genetic basis of plant diversity. I also teach and mentor graduate, undergraduate, and high school students.
What kind of plants do you have in your windowsill garden?
Mostly ferns, and one tiny “living stone.” The latter is a type of desert-adapted plant that grows in the driest parts of Africa. It has almost no stem and very fleshy leaves which store water; it only has 2-4 leaves at a time, and it grows in rocky soil that covers it up to the tops of the fat leaves, to keep it cooler from the hot sun. There are some for sale in the Garden Shop.
Career-Changer Redirected Through Continuing Education Classes
Valerie D’Antonio holds a Certificate in Landscape Design from The New York Botanical Garden’s Continuing Education program and is principal and owner of D’Antonio Landscape Design, Inc. She will tell her career-changing story during the free Career Night on February 3.
In the early 1980s I bought a small row house in Hoboken, N.J., on a street named Garden (who knew?!). After the closing I popped open a bottle of Moet, looked out the kitchen window at my new backyard, and thought, “What do I do with that space?”
At the time I worked for AT&T, and co-workers pointed me in the direction of The New York Botanical Garden, where I began to seek gardening advice. I decided to start small and attended NYBG’s one-day classes on window-box gardening. The classes gave me the confidence to plant and install boxes on the five front windows of my three-story house. The bright red geraniums, purple lobelia, and white alyssum were striking against the house’s white-painted brick. Soon after, my neighbors began asking me to plant their window boxes.
Twenty years later, after I left my corporate job, NYBG again came to my rescue. I was still lamenting my lackluster backyard when I received the Garden’s Continuing Education catalog where I found that the Garden offers certificate programs, lectures, and seminars aimed at developing a career in the world of horticulture.
So I took the plunge. I buckled down, clambered over my fear of commitment, and dove headfirst into a relationship that’s been a long time coming. My barren desktop was beginning to look a bit suspicious to my colleagues here in the Plant Talk office, so without further ado, I introduce you to the newest addition to our window sill and my first desk plant: the as-yet-unnamed Mahogany fern.
You’re not misreading that; I’ve been here at the NYBG for a sliver under a year, and it’s only now that I’m making the choice to green up my desk. But before you jump to judgment, finger waggles, and well-deserved “tsk tsks,” my procrastination was out of respect for the plant’s well-being. All plants’ well-being, really. I may work at a botanical garden, and I may know my way around a watering can when push comes to shove, but I’ve still got a black thumb to make industrial weed killer blush.
I made my “adoption” a little over a week ago. Ann and I shuffled out to the Shop in the Garden under a nagging drizzle to peruse the shelves, and the suggestion came up that I stop waffling and do something to make my desk look a little less like an Alcatraz broom closet. I couldn’t really disagree on that point; I subscribe to the idea of living light, and spartan decor is part and parcel to that mindset, but my workspace is an eyesore of austerity. So I hit the potted plant displays with the hope of finding something that could tough it out in the office and still muster enough hardiness to forgive my misguided efforts.
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
The owlets’ father watches from his nearby roost.
Some of my favorite photographic subjects here at the Botanical Garden are its resident Great Horned Owls. Since 2009, I’ve had the pleasure of photographing and filming five of their nest sites. Sadly, 2014 was the last year that there were hatchlings here. That’s why this year’s brood was so special. But 2017 saw no ordinary owl nest. This is a tale of epic proportions!
Back in 2009, a pair of Red-tailed Hawks decided to build their nest inside the upper right pediment of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building. Rose and Hawkeye (the Red-tails that year, who are sadly no longer with us) had three hatchlings that year. It was a big deal for both staff and visitors. Each year since, I’ve always crossed my fingers in the hopes that one day the nest would be used again by our local Red-tails.
And it was used again alright. But by a completely new set of tenants!
The weather’s on the move. You can see it in the cardigans sprinkling sidewalk traffic, and the words “pumpkin spice” galloping across coffee shop windows from here to the city limits. It’s moving in the Garden, too, however small the measures; the air’s crisp and the summer haze is lifting, and in pockets you see the subtle tease of changing leaves. But while the heat may be pulling up stakes, our blockbuster summer exhibition—FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life—is anything but finished. I’d say it’s just getting started in the new season.
As we head into fall, keep an eye out for the first signs of Día de los Muertos, the Mexican day of the dead held in honor of passed relatives. We’re already prepping for two incredible weekends held in celebration of the holiday come late October, and we’re not about to miss an opportunity to invite our friend Ray Villafane, pumpkin carver extraordinaire, to join us in the adventure. During Frida al Fresco evenings from now through the end of the exhibition on November 1, expect the fall colors to mingle in kind with new schedules of live music, dance, food, and drink to suit the season.
For the last few months, Wild Medicine: Healing Plants Around the World has awed thousands of visitors with its exotic medicinal specimens, ancient botanical texts, and unique tasting experiences. We’ve watched The Italian Renaissance Garden shift with the days as the species in the Conservatory have cycled through. And after dark, we’ve lit up the night with Cocktail Evenings & Summer Concerts. But even with a little under two weeks to go on the exhibition schedule, we’re still not winding down!
This being the penultimate weekend for Wild Medicine, it’s all too fitting that it lands on a holiday. So we’re stretching the weekend straight into Labor Day Monday with a packed schedule of Conservatory tours, family-friendly jaunts through the music and dance of the Renaissance, and casual home gardening demonstrations to pique your palate.
With only a short time left ahead of the September 8 curtain call, we’re also readying for our closing presentation, a long-awaited lecture by NYBG ethnobotanist and Wild Medicine curator Dr. Michael Balick. On Saturday, September 7, Dr. Balick’s Ancient Wisdom and Modern Medicine opens a door to the relationships between plants, people, and culture, a core theme of our exhibition and a study he’s pursued in locales around the world. Tickets to this exclusive event are limited, so it’s best if you register sooner rather than later.
Again, we’re opening our gates for this special holiday Monday and we’re just 20 minutes from Grand Central. Don’t miss out on the closing window to see one of the most celebrated NYC exhibitions of the summer!
We continue the revival of Window Garden Wednesdays with a collection close to my desk. Not that I’m allowed to touch it. You see, this is the window garden of one Ann Rafalko, imperious (I jest) Director of Online Content for The New York Botanical Garden. She also happens to be my boss (or foreman, or warden–it’s really a matter of imagination paired with the general mood of the room on any given weekday).
On occasional Wednesdays, we’ll introduce you to some of the Garden’s many windowsill gardeners. We hope you enjoy this look at what our window gardeners grow.
