Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
The video review of Moore in America by Time magazine’s art critic Richard Lacayo is now on YouTube. It is a wonderful analysis of Henry Moore’s sculpture and the 20 monumental works on display at The New York Botanical Garden.
Since its creation in 2005, YouTube has revolutionized the distribution of user-generated video content. YouTube accurately describes itself as “the leader in online video and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide.”
If you come across any videos about the Botanical Garden, let us know. One of my favorites is this charming clip created by “megruth” who visited with her mom a couple of years ago during our popular Chihuly exhibition.
You can also browse through the videos in The New York Botanical Garden’s own channel on YouTube. The videos from our Kiku exhibit, for example (below), have generated hundreds of hits and have been linked to a number of social networking sites.
Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
With Olafur Eliasson’s ambitious New York City Waterfalls project receiving so much attention, it’s worth mentioning our own cascading waterfalls that visitors can see at The New York Botanical Garden. Not to detract from the multi-million dollar display along the East River presented by the Public Art Fund in collaboration with the City of New York, the four waterfalls here at the Botanical Garden are just as captivating and mesmerizing in their beautiful settings.
Glenn Collins wrote in The New York Times about the many other aquatic falls located throughout the city, including the ones here at NYBG. In his follow-up the next day on the “City Room” blog, readers also identified the Garden’s falls as sites to see.
Read about what you’re seeing below in the video after the jump, in Nick’s rundown of the four falls that flow at the Botanical Garden:
John Suskewich is Book Manager for Shop in the Garden.
It happens every year. It happened again this year. In June everything looks fresh and vibrant; the parade of tulips has ended in a triumph of roses, and you are smug. Even the delphiniums look as if they might flower a two-foot-long tower, like you are Lawrence Johnston and this is Hidcote or something, and you are smug.
And then by mid-July the garden starts to sag; the color looks washed out, leaves are wilting and turning brown, stems start to tilt, and so you pray for rain. And then it rains. Torrentially. It rains and rains. The Amazon doesn’t see such downpours. And then it stops and you go out on the deck and survey the damage. And you are no longer smug. The garden looks flattened; the plants lean against each other, like partygoers after their seventh mojito, and too late you begin to stake.
But there is a book, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques, by Tracy DiSabato-Aust, that has the cure for this perennial problem, and it is easier than a 12-step. The simple insight that she presents so elegantly is to prune plants for better maintenance. Genus by genus she tells you when and how and she tells you with such clarity and such conviction that your garden will almost immediately look a thousand times better. You must overcome your initial hesitation caused by the thought “but I will be cutting off all the flowers!” What will result is a better behaved and much more floriferous garden.
To see the benefits of this technique walk through the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden here at The New York Botanical Garden. Designed by Lynden B. Miller and curated by Bruce Dryden, this is a classic example of the mixed herbaceous border, with each element showing its uniqueness but each playing its role in the overall arrangement. Following the tactics of DiSabato-Aust, every plant has been pruned and deadheaded and divided with an almost annoying exactness—I should be so focused!—and the end result is a work of art right here in the heart of the Bronx.
Genna Federico, a senior at St. John’s University, is an intern working in the Communications Department this summer.
Whether you refer to it as a giardino botanico, botanischer garten, jardim botânico, or simply a botanical garden, The New York Botanical Garden has been receiving a lot of buzz lately in media outlets around the world.
The very welcomed attention from the foreign press has focused on our distinguished exhibitions Moore in America and Darwin’s Garden, expanding the Garden’s international exposure.
Journalists from around the globe—Germany, Spain, Australia, Great Britain, Japan, Turkey, Canada, and elsewhere—have visited and written about The New York Botanical Garden in recent months.
In one instance, a video crew from Brazil TV’s Cultura Metropolis arts program interviewed Karen Daubmann, Director of Exhibitions, about Moore in America. From Europe, Italian media filmed a segment on Darwin’s Garden for the Pikaia Web site, and the Garden was also featured in the newspaper La Stampa, whose Web site also included dozens of images of Moore sculpture.
In addition to the Associated Press story mentioned in last week’s blog post, “The Bronx Is Blooming,” other stories reported by the International Herald Tribune have been picked up by the foreign press, including a prominent mention in an article about “museum-quality art” exhibitions at botanical gardens in the United States. No doubt the coverage will continue to snowball.
The NYBG clearly has something to offer visitors from near and far, so check it out. Adiós, au revoir, arrivederci!
You’ve been working for it all week long, and now it’s here! This weekend at The New York Botanical Garden is jam- packed with awesome weather and exciting programming. Plus, the magnificent trees provide us city dwellers with a beautiful, shady oasis, a great way to escape the heat and humidity.
If you are a huge fan of daylilies, like I am, then you won’t want to miss the Home Gardening demonstration devoted entirely to daylilies!
For those who love to cook—and to eat for that matter—you will be interested to know about the herbal scavenger hunt taking place in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. During the scavenger hunt you will get to smell, touch, and even taste some of the herbs.
And, if you haven’t yet seen the massive sculpture of Henry Moore, you’re missing out. There are many ways to appreciate these works, from participating in a walking tour to watching the Henry Moore documentary, the choice is yours.
Last but not least, there is a Native Plant Garden Tour on Sunday. If you’re going native, you must attend.
July finds the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden poised on the threshold of summer’s cornucopia—all promise and no produce. Okay, so there are onions. And sure, there’s rainbow Swiss chard, spicy loops of garlic flowers (scapes), and the last sweet snap peas before summer’s heat hits. But to our staff, without the happy buzz of the Children’s Gardening Program, it’s a two-acre ghost town. The vegetable beds are marked by towers of bolted lettuce. Tomato branches stick out as awkwardly as a scarecrow’s arms, while weeds fill in every available space below. Our beds seem to be groaning with the gangly green adolescence of plants. Looking over at the plots, it’s hard to imagine the bounty of eggplants, squash, cucumbers, and beans we’ll be cooking in a few short weeks. No, right now there are a lot of weeds. And not enough small hands in our plots—120 pairs of hands, in fact.
So with much anticipation, the beginning of our summer gardening program this past week left us both exhilarated and exhausted—nearly 200 children, instructors, volunteers, and parents pack into our two acres every Tuesday and Thursday morning (and another 100 every Saturday). Thankfully, at the end of each day, we feel mostly the former—an enthusiasm that has kept our program attendance burgeoning every year and our garden plots even richer as we continue to grow. Our Garden Sprouts offering is for children ages 3–5, and our Garden Crafters is for children 6–12.
One morning a returning Crafter, bent low between a row of peppers struggling to work through a thick patch of nutsedge, one of our most undesirable weeds, shook her head ruefully. “We stayed away too long,” she said, wiping her brow. “They’re taking over.” Happier news came when her instructor pointed out low-lying purslane, a succulent that snuck in between many of our crops. Popping it into his mouth, one seven-year-old Crafter reached a happy verdict: “It’s lemony!”
His planting partner, looking up from a careful investigation of his own section of the plot, had found an even better treasure: the first Sungold tomato of the season, bright orange among the green tangle. (Photo by Toby Adams)
Over the years, The New York Botanical Garden has been visited by a few of the “boys of summer” who have worn those classic pinstripes and played in baseball’s historic cathedral. Former Yankees center fielder and All-Star Bernie Williams dropped by during the winter of 2004 (seen at right with Bob Heinisch, our VP for Site Operations). Joe Torre, who guided the Yankees through four World Series Championships and was an All-Star player himself during his career, toured the Holiday Train Show with his family a few years ago as well. Other Yankee heroes and All-Stars who have enjoyed a visit to the Botanical Garden included Joe Pepitone and Willie Randolph (seen below, again with VP Bob). Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay even served as Master of Ceremonies for the Garden’s Holiday Tree Lighting ceremony in 2007.
This is the last year people will be able to step foot inside the “House That Ruth Built”—the new stadium opens next year. But you can wax nostalgic and still see a replica of the original Yankee Stadium—made of plant parts—at the Garden’s Holiday Train Show, which opens November 23.
Another week has come and gone at the Garden. Don’t fret though; there’s plenty of summer left to go around. The delicious weather in store for us seems like the perfect situation to see the monumental works of Henry Moore. There’s also Home Gardening demonstrations, guided tours, kids programming, and much more.
Educator Anabel Holland is giving guided tours of Moore in America at The New York Botanical Garden
This summer’s Henry Moore exhibition at the Garden has me coming back again and again. The large sculptures hulk quietly throughout the grounds, not imposing themselves upon you but waiting to be discovered. Some hide behind trees or in enclosed gardens only to be revealed when you fully take in both the sculpture itself and the setting around it. For me the most breathtaking is Large Reclining Figure, 1984. As you follow the path up toward the Rose Garden, it slowly takes shape. The brilliant white of the fiberglass contrasting against the vivid green grass is a sight to be seen.
The most amazing aspect of Moore in America is its ability to transform. While walking around with tour groups, my view of each sculpture is constantly changing. In one group everyone sees elephant bones in many pieces, while in another the focus is on the texture and the way it affects the light that reflects off the surface. Not only do the subtle changes in landscape transform the pieces, as Moore would have wanted, but seeing them through someone else’s view is unbelievably eye opening. This exhibition is definitely a must see for the summer!
