Left to right: Tom Sebenius and his business partners, Nicole Spector and Brian McNamara
Love is in the air, and we’re anticipating hundreds of couples hosting weddings and wedding-related events at the Garden this year.
And while brides and grooms enjoy their day of pampering, pledging, and partying, the run-up to the big day is often accompanied by pressure and panic. That’s where the wedding professional steps in with creative solutions, a willingness to compromise, and the ability to keep calm.
We sat down with New York City wedding floral design expert and NYBG instructor Tom Sebenius to learn more about designing for this most memorable day built around romance, personal preferences, and utmost attention to detail.
“Couples have so many options that being chosen to provide the flowers for their special day is a real honor,” Sebenius said.
It’s the classic gardener’s dilemma—you want lots of fresh flowers to decorate your home, but you want to keep your landscape flowers intact and beautiful. And the solution is… the cutting garden! This spring, Adult Education puts a fresh twist on the cut flower concept, with two classes that highlight the ever-growing interest in native plants.
For an in-depth, practical guide to the best wildflowers and techniques, join Kathleen Salisbury for Native Plants for Cut Flower Gardening(May 17). You’ll learn how to cultivate, cut and condition enough New York ironweed, sweet coneflower, meadow rue, and more to give you beautiful and natural arrangements all season long.
As spring turns to summer, try your hand at Arranging with Summer Wildflowers(June 26). Ken Norman will help you evoke a natural landscape with loose, textured designs using native wildflowers you can find in your own garden or at area farmers’ markets.
Both one-day sessions are presented in memory of Mae L. Wien, and include an inspiring tour through the Garden’s Seasonal Walk, newly designed by Piet Oudolf.
Some people are born to garden. Some people are born to teach. And some people have a knack for both.
Marlene Lyons, a 2012 Gardening Certificate graduate, is a gardening educator for kindergarten through fifth grades at Western Connecticut Academy of International Studies, a magnet school in Danbury. Her students actively tend their school garden and are involved in planting, pruning, harvesting and composting. Lyons encounters teachable moments regularly.
“The kids enjoy having their hands in the soil,” she said. “Initially, many of the kids will treat the garden soil like sand on a beach, smoothing it and patting it down.”
She explains to her class that soil actually does its best work, and plants like it better, when it’s not packed down tightly.
NYBG instructor Jan Johnsen designs gardens on three principles: simplicity, sanctuary, and delight.
These three ideas, she said, help us return to a kinship with the natural world, so we can quiet our thoughts and enjoy the present moment in our busy lives.
Johnsen, who has taught Landscape Design at NYBG off and on for almost 20 years, recently released a book, Heaven is a Garden: Designing Serene Outdoor Spaces for Inspiration and Reflection, in which she offers her unique perspective on designing with reflection in mind She hopes to use her book as a tool to open people’s eyes to a deeper understanding of power and place in nature and to appreciate all aspects of the world around us, even rocks, which she believes “have resonance.”
Tom Lawson was a massage therapist until he bought a piece of property in the Hamptons.
The land was overgrown and neglected. Tom spent years lovingly redeveloping the landscaping. Then, over time, more and more people said to him, “You need to go do this professionally.”
So he tried. As projects fell into his lap, he realized he needed a language to communicate his ideas. Words weren’t enough.
“Most people don’t have the ability to visualize something that isn’t there,” Tom said.
He needed to learn how to sketch, how to draft. Tom found his way to The New York Botanical Garden Adult Education Program, where he earned Certificates in Horticulture (’12) and Landscape Design (’13), and continues to study.
Using your cell phone, call 718.362.9561 and type in the number next to the audio tour symbol on signs throughout the Garden grounds. You can even call from home if you’d like.
What do you think of the new Audio Literary Tour? Are there any NYC-based authors you’d like to see for upcoming seasons? Leave us a comment and let us know!
Last week we told you about some very special visitors coming to the Garden. Because last week was Smurf Week in New York City (in honor of the new movie The Smurfs ®), the Everett Children’s Garden played host to two of the hottest stars in Hollywood today: Papa Smurf and Smurfette. Check out this short video below highlighting their visit.
And just because the Smurfs are gone doesn’t mean the fun is over at the Children’s Garden. Right now the “Flowers to Fruits” program runs everyday (1:30-5:30 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. on weekends). Children can make a Nature Field Notebook and identify the dizzying diversity of flowers and pollinators that inhabit the Adventure Garden during the summer months. Create a pollinator puppet, pot up a plant, and visit the pond to spot frogs, turtles, and other wetland wildlife.
Find out what’s happening during your visit to the Garden in our “Plan your visit” section of our website.
Many early birds are waking up to find this lovely curtain of mist cause by the rain this week. The mist forms at night, when the air is cold, before evaporating with the morning sun.
Almost gives us a reason to wake up early on a Sunday morning… Almost.
Using your cell phone, call 718.362.9561 and type in the number next to the audio tour symbol on signs throughout the Garden grounds. You can even call from home if you’d like.
