Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Adult Education
Posted in Adult Education on October 17 2013, by Lansing Moore
Botanical illustrator and NYBG Adult Education program ’07 alum, Betsy Rogers-Knox is well-known for her compelling ”Plantcycles,” a series of artworks in which she portrays the various stages of a plant in a circle of life, but she also used to have the best scores due to the use of the top gmat preparation classes online. Her watercolors burst with life and combine the artistry and scientific precision that is the hallmark of botanical illustration. We asked Rogers-Knox what inspires these dizzying representations.
“After receiving a Certificate in Botanical Illustration from NYBG, I began teaching workshops at the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden in Bethlehem, Connecticut. I spent many hours in the gardens observing and drawing trees and plants in all seasons and became enthralled by the plant’s transition; from bud, to flower, to pod, to seed; which inspired a series of life cycle watercolor paintings. This concept led me to become more creative with my compositions, to include a lot of information and be botanically accurate in a more artistic format. This was quite a challenge, which I loved!”
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Posted in Adult Education on October 9 2013, by Ann Rafalko
Kodai Nakazawa, the horticultural genius behind our current exhibition, Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden, learned his trade at Tokyo’s Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. And while it might be hard for you to replicate his genius at home (11 months of careful tending to one single plant would probably be challenging to all but the most dedicated of home gardeners, disregarding entirely the fact that some of these plants are huge!), that doesn’t mean you can’t replicate a little bit of Japan’s amazing horticultural heritage at home, and we’re setting out to prove it.
During the months of October and November, the NYBG’s acclaimed adult education program is offering a selection of classes dedicated to teaching you a variety of Japanese gardening traditions.
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Posted in Adult Education on October 1 2013, by Lansing Moore
For over thirty years Bill Einhorn has instructed our Landscape Design students, passing on the technical skills and foundational knowledge for creating hospitable and healthy green spaces. As our longtime instructor and the president of the New York chapter of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, we thought Bill would be the perfect person to ask about the newest trends emerging in the landscape design industry, and the kinds of projects our graduates can expect to see as they venture out into the field.
What recent trends are you noticing in the industry and in designing projects for clients?
In both the public and private sector clients are more in tune with sustainability and the use of native plants. Green roofs and rain gardens are not new trends anymore and the public is much more aware of sustainable practice. However, I have found that the newer regulations in many towns that I work in that insist on sustainable practice, storm water management, and wetland regulations can add prohibitive costs to projects where the client either kills the project or cuts back on aesthetics in order to put the money into following the new rules. Other trends I see in the high-end market are an increased demand for an outdoor kitchen, fireplace, fire pit or a spa. Clients want to extend their enjoyment of the shortened outdoor season in the northeast. It is exciting that I am now designing projects that I would normally see out on the west coast.
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Posted in Adult Education on September 19 2013, by Matt Newman
At its core, botany revolves around the study of plants and how they function, all in order to appreciate the massive role they play in our lives. Maybe that causes your brain to jump to associations with greenhouses and laboratories. But, just for a second, step away from the thought of picking your way through a hothouse or leaning over a microscope and consider the industries and passions that rely on plant knowledge to exist. Without some understanding of botany under the brewer’s belt, your go-to dive bar would like as not be non-existent. And the organic lotions, infusions, and supplements sold for a premium in body boutiques around the city wouldn’t be an issue, either. Not many people understand this quite so well as our Adult Education staff.
You can even relate this to your favorite stories. A famous if apocryphal anecdote attributed to the writer Vladimir Nabokov tells of a student who declares, in Nabokov’s office, that he wants to be a writer. Nabokov glances up and points out the window. “What kind of tree is that?” he asks. “I don’t know,” says the student. “Then you’ll never be a writer.”
A harsh lesson, maybe, but the fact stands that botany influences our lives more often than we give it credit for, be it tangibly or in the small, creative details that make up the world around us. Thankfully, our instructors aren’t nearly so brutal as Nabokov, and our botany courses offer fun, down-to-earth routes to engage the immense importance of plants.
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Posted in Adult Education on June 27 2013, by Lansing Moore
People all over the country will soon be able to appreciate NYBG instructor Dick Rauh’s work alongside that of other accomplished botanical illustrators in the American Society of Botanical Artists’ current traveling exhibition, Following in the Bartrams’ Footsteps.
The exhibit showcases illustrations from a wide variety of botanical artists of the plants grown, sold, and introduced by John Bartram (1699–1777) and his son William (1739–1823), pioneers of American naturalism. Knowledgeable and worldly, John and William Bartram ran a thriving business in Philadelphia shipping seeds and plants across the Atlantic for the gardens of English aristocrats, where the nature of unspoiled North America was in fashion. William continued the family business and became the first American-born botanic and natural history artist, as well as a prolific travel writer in his own right. His 1791 nature book Travels was a foundational influence for great Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Emerson.
In the course of their career, the Bartrams introduced many previously unknown species, including Franklinia, a tree William named for his friend Benjamin Franklin. Alongside Bartram’s beautiful 1788 painting of the tree’s flower—illustrating all of its component parts—is Dick Rauh’s own watercolor of the same species. We loved this illustration so much, we even used it for the cover of our Fall/Winter catalog in 2011! Bartram’s Garden felt the same way, and awarded Rauh’s painting for “encapsulating the Bartram spirit of discovery and passion for nature.”
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Posted in Adult Education on June 20 2013, by Lansing Moore
Summer is almost here, and for us that means another season of our Summer Intensives. Starting in early July, new students will be arriving for five weeks of full-time classes, Garden tours, and field trips. The Summer Intensive allows many students to complete their Certificate requirements in a compressed yet stimulating time frame, like Alix Astir, a graduate of our Floral Design Summer Intensive.
Alix is the first to admit that she doesn’t sugar coat anything when it comes to advice, so we knew she would be a good person to ask for anecdotes about her abundant experience as a student and now as the owner of Trellis Fine Florals, with locations in Manhattan’s Flower District and on City Island.
“Take a deep breath as you enter the Summer Intensive. You are going to be completely inundated with information every day. Get really good sleep, pack a great lunch, and have a good support system.” Alix entered the five-week, full-time program of everything from basic arrangements and flower identification to wedding design and event planning with gusto. “The payoff is that you’re going to get the most comprehensive, in-depth education in an art and trade on the east coast.”
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Posted in Adult Education on June 4 2013, by Lansing Moore
This month we feature Elaine Yellen, a Westchester-based landscape designer and NYBG graduate who now runs her own firm in Scarsdale, where she continues to build upon her Garden education.
“I completed the Horticulture Program and the Landscape Design Program,” Elaine said. “Both provided essential preparation that let me feel like a true professional when I presented myself to clients as an expert in my field. Many of my teachers were working professionals and were so helpful in all aspects of project design and implementation. They were always very generous with advice to a budding designer.”
Elaine first came to the NYBG because she wanted to turn her love of gardening into a profession: “It was my creative outlet… so I decided to study it formally and see where that would lead.” In addition to many residential projects in lower Westchester, local golfers might be familiar with her work for clubs and courses such as Winged Foot, Brae Burn, Fenway, Sunningdale, Fairview, and Scarsdale.
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Posted in Adult Education on May 6 2013, by Lansing Moore
In partnership with the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, The New York Botanical Garden is pleased to co-sponsor a unique class lead by author Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, a prolific writer, essayist, and poet. This unique class, “Messages of Late Spring: A Two-Day Writing Workshop” on May 18 and 19 will make use of the unique landscape of the Botanical Garden.
Wilde-Menozzi will lead students throughout Garden grounds, including the Thain Family Forest, Azalea Garden, and the newly opened Native Plant Garden to encourage students to ask questions like, “What are the messages of spring, ‘the cruelest month,’ and yet, what does the message of transformation elicit How can it be put into words?”
Wilde-Menozzi is the author most recently of two books. The first, The Other Side of the Tiber, is a memoir of her many years spent living in Italy. That experience also serves as the backdrop for her second new book, Toscanelli’s Ray, a novel set in Florence.
She shared her thoughts on writing, nature, and a life spent abroad.
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Posted in Adult Education on April 24 2013, by Lansing Moore
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In New York City, where space comes at a premium, it helps to live by the mantra “Great things come in small packages,” even when it comes to gardening. Container gardens, tree well plantings, and terrace gardens are the easiest way to add a small-scale garden to the average city apartment, and they can be beautiful, too.
Over the course of two sessions in March, Daryl Beyers showed his class how to get the most out of placing a few plants in a simple pot. The results were these charming, self-contained gardens, perfect for even the most space-starved New Yorker.
If you would like to try your hand at container gardening, the Garden’s Adult Education program is offering two special Saturday sessions in May! “All About Containers” is a daylong boot camp on May 4 in the Bronx and will cover all the basics of container gardening.
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Posted in Adult Education on April 10 2013, by Ann Rafalko
This month we take a moment to get to know Floral Design Certificate-holder Nancy White, the owner of The Flower Bar in Larchmont, N.Y.
White, a former advertising executive, and founder of Showhouse magazine was looking for a new career path in 2009. “I came to a career night and thought floral design would suit me well. I’ve always loved arranging flowers, but was a total novice.”
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