This weekend we bid farewell to the Tropical Paradise exhibition, so this weekend is the last chance to enjoy all the tours, demonstrations, and samples surrounding this trip to the tropics. After Sunday, it won’t be long before the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory’s next stop in the Florida Keys for The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary, opening Saturday, March 1.
In the meantime, make sure to bring your appetite when you join us at the Garden this weekend. In addition to the usual samples of coconut, vanilla, and banana available to smell and taste during Tropical Paradise, Saturday and Sunday mark the final days of this winter’s Culinary Kids Food Festival in the Dining Pavilion! From the Cheesemonger’s Shop to Spice Adventures, expect a world tour of science and nutrition with plenty of hands-on fun.
It is hard to believe a month has already passed, but tomorrow is the second lecture in our 14th Annual Winter Lecture Series. The Garden is lucky to welcome Kim Wilkie, a London-based landscape architect and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, to the Ross Lecture Hall on Thursday. His lecture, entitled Sculpting the Land, will offer a photographic tour of his forward-thinking and utterly unique designs, incorporating his signature landforms and architectural innovations.
In his own words, Kim Wilkie is a landscape architect who loves mud. The technique of making sculpted hardscapes out of clay and chalk have an ancient history in the United Kingdom, and Wilkie adapts these traditions to breathe new life into antique gardens.
In addition to the lively tours and guided walks taking place throughout the grounds, this weekend the Garden welcomes couples, friends, and singles alike for a romantic roster of Valentine’s Day events. After all, what says “be my Valentine” better than an effusion of flowers, and what are we if not the largest bouquet in the five boroughs?
This afternoon we’re featuring a special Valentine’s Day Tea Talk, where our own site history expert, Wayne Cahilly, will lead a lecture on the history of Valentine’s Day. Guests will enjoy tea, finger sandwiches, and sweets in our Garden Terrace Room while discovering the holiday’s fascinating origins.
This evening, February 14, is also the first Valentine’s Day Date at Tropical Paradise, with tickets rapidly disappearing. But even if you can’t get your registration in for tonight, there’s an additional Valentine’s Date taking place this Saturday night, February 15. You can find more information on these exclusive annual events, secure tickets, and more on our Tropical Paradise programming page!
Start building up an appetite now, because the Culinary Kids Food Festival begins next Monday! Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden staff and the Growing Chefs culinary team will come together as part of the Garden’s Edible Academy initiative to put on this family friendly food festival.
There will be daily cooking demonstrations at 1 p.m., highlighting kid-friendly recipes and offering delicious samples. The rest of the day, the Dining Pavilion behind the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory plays host to several Activity Stations, where kids can grab a Festival passport and embark on a cultural and scientific tour of their favorite foods.
At the Cheesemonger’s Shop, lessons on making cheese go hand in hand with the science behind the plants that cheese-producing animals love, as well as the bacterial processes involved in cheese-making itself. Kids can test acids and bases at the Tip-Top Pickle Shop, while learning the science of food preservation in the chemistry kitchen. There’s a wealth of chemistry and biology behind our favorite deli fare!
After this icy week, we’ve all earned some down time. Luckily the Garden has many opportunities to explore this weekend, both indoors and outdoors.
You can admire trees a hundred years old or a hundred feet high with Sunday’s Winter Plant & Tree Tour, or the many bird species roosting within them along a Saturday Bird Walk. Another tour will guide curious visitors through the historic heart of the Garden, our Beaux Arts Library Building. Completed in 1901, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library contains a rare collection of books and artifacts, and has been declared a New York City landmark along with the adjacent Tulip Tree Allée.
Away from the snow, Tropical Paradise continues to fill the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory with brilliant colors. Beyond what there is to see, this weekend’s tour groups will smell and feel samples of historically and culturally significant plants. This Saturday also marks the fourth week of our photography contest, so consider snapping a few shots during your visit. Each contestant will have a chance to win a certificate for one Adult Education photography course of your own choosing. There are two categories, Macro and Sense-of-Place. To better understand the nature of each category, feel free to admire our past entries. You will find more information in our photo contest rules.
Tropical vines, passion flowers, and all the warmth you have been missing during this unpredictable winter—everything is waiting for you at the Garden!
This Valentine’s Day, skip the usual dinner-and-roses routine and immerse yourself in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a sultry escape from the winter chill if ever there was one! Inside, you’ll find Tropical Paradise in full swing with complimentary champagne and delectable chocolates setting the mood for the perfect night out.
Whether you come to stroll hand-in-hand with a loved one, learn about our permanent tropical collections, try some equatorial aphrodisiacs, or simply escape the frigid February weather, there’s a little something for everyone on these loveliest of evenings. Valentine’s Day Dates this February 14 and 15 at the Garden are sure to be a welcome change from your annual norm!
And for your little ones, our pals at Priceless NY present the MasterCard Budding Masters Chocolate workshop on Saturday, February 15. During this interactive experience, kids have a chance to learn all about the life of chocolate and vanilla—from cocoa seeds and beautiful orchids all the way up to their favorite treats. As amateur botanists for the day, they’ll study living cacao trees, put together a field notebook to record their discoveries, and (of course) sample some Mayan-inspired hot chocolate of their own.
This year, think about leaving the cut flowers at the bodega and opt for an entire rain forest of blooms instead. Tickets to our Valentine’s Day Dates are beginning to disappear, so register while you can!
Cue week three of our Tropical Paradise exhibition, and the third round in our ongoing, six-week photography contest! Already we’ve seen dozens of entries from local and visiting photographers hoping to take home the brass ring—a certificate good for one Adult Education photography course of the winner’s choosing. And because we have two categories in which to enter, Macro and Sense-of-Place, that’s two opportunities to win a certificate. Easy! Just check out our photo contest rules page to get a handle on submission guidelines and schedules.
We’ll have the winners of the second round up on Plant Talk as of Monday or Tuesday, but in the meantime you can check out the competition via the announced champions of the first week.
There are still four whole weeks of competition left as of this Saturday, February 1, but if you’re not much of a camera fiend there’s still plenty of interest to be found in our daily events and activities in the Conservatory. You’ll find our permanent collection of tropical rarities and stunning blooms augmented by Tropical Interactive Encounters, hands-on demos that open up the rejuvenating properties of plants like nutmeg and annatto with samples to boot. And for kids, Tropical Wintertime Wonders in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden offer a chance to chase away the winter gloom in the cozy Discovery Center. There they’ll pot up their own specimen plants to take home and use a field notebook to discover the beginnings of new plantlife waiting for spring’s arrival.
If the weather’s got you down, don’t suffer it! Just hop up to our Conservatory and make the instant transition to the tropics, only a step inside our classic glasshouse.
Being a “foodie” (I know, that term has run its course with so many of us who love to eat!) is often something left up to adults—people who know how to order off-menu or pick a perfect table wine. And alternatively, someone who’s tried every form of offal under the sun, but let’s tackle one thing at a time. As with so many things, your passions can often find their footing when you’re a kid, meaning taste and good eating habits start early. So to help our young gourmands get off on the right foot, we’re setting aside an entire week dedicated to the celebrated relationships between plants, farms, and every kid’s favorite foods.
Join us February 17 through 23 for a full week of edible fun in our Conservatory Dining Pavilion, where our staff and a team of experts from Growing Chefs will be on hand offering demonstrations, choice recipes, and hands-on activities backed by plenty of music and food tastings. A variety of activity stations will have your little ones making the rounds from pickles to cheese, tinkering with the kitchen chemistry that brings the staples of your table to life. And a daily cooking demonstration at 1 p.m. supplies kid-friendly recipes and delicious samples with support from local chefs.
On November 23 we had the singular pleasure of hosting one of America’s most prolific and critically acclaimed writers, friend of the Garden and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. And though you may know his many works in print—he likes to call his poems “a form of travel writing”—his oeuvre took on an entirely new luster as a sold-out crowd of fans, Garden Members, and curious readers gathered in the Ross Hall for an hour of recitation by the living master himself.
Even if you couldn’t make it to the Garden to hear Collins read in person, you’re not out of luck. Our videographer was on hand to preserve the moment in its entirety! So head below for a full reading of poems covering trains, winter weather, the quintessential New York experience, and all the slices of life that have made Collins so revered among writers. If you happen to be at the NYBG in the coming weeks, look for the poetry boards placed throughout Perennial Garden Way, each one offering bits of verse from our visiting poet as part of Poetry for Every Season. It’s the perfect complement to the charming architecture and zipping trains of the Holiday Train Show.
This weekend we bid farewell to the Tropical Paradise exhibition, so this weekend is the last chance to enjoy all the tours, demonstrations, and samples surrounding this trip to the tropics. After Sunday, it won’t be long before the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory’s next stop in the Florida Keys for The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary, opening Saturday, March 1.
In addition to the lively tours and guided walks taking place throughout the grounds, this weekend the Garden welcomes couples, friends, and singles alike for a romantic roster of Valentine’s Day events. After all, what says “be my Valentine” better than an effusion of flowers, and what are we if not the largest bouquet in the five boroughs?
Start building up an appetite now, because the 
After this icy week, we’ve all earned some down time. Luckily the Garden has many opportunities to explore this weekend, both indoors and outdoors.
This Valentine’s Day, skip the usual dinner-and-roses routine and immerse yourself in the 
