Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in What's Beautiful Now on May 10 2019, by Matt Newman
The Azalea Garden is filled with spring color for our Mother’s Day Weekend Garden Party! Here, see some of Senior Curator of Woody Plants and Landscape Project Manager Deanna Curtis’s favorite semi-evergreen varieties in bloom, along with other surprises you can find in this unmissable spring collection.
[Not a valid template]Posted in Programs and Events on May 10 2019, by Ursula Chanse
Ursula Chanse is the Director of Bronx Green-Up and Community Horticulture at The New York Botanical Garden.
Join us for the first tour of the 2019 Bronx Food and Farm Tour Series!
This Saturday, May 11, NYBG’s Bronx Green-Up is excited to present the School Gardens and Farms Bus Tour, highlighting three unique Bronx school gardens and farms that demonstrate a bounty of learning and growing.
Posted in People on May 10 2019, by Matt Newman
As part of #plantlove at NYBG, we’re talking with people from all over the Garden about what inspires their passion for plants. Today, meet Daryl Beyers, Adult Education Gardening Program Coordinator and instructor at The New York Botanical Garden.
I grew up with a love-hate relationship with plants. I loved all the trees and flowers surrounding my childhood home but hated the three acres of lawn my father made me mow on the weekends. This consideration of plants as either inspiration or chore formed the horticultural ethic of my university studies in landscape design and my early professional practice in gardens. Then, while teaching my first gardening course at NYBG nearly a decade ago, I unearthed another plant-people relationship: “To grow a plant is to know a plant.”
The fierce curiosity of my students to learn and understand the how and why of gardening showed me how and why we all connect with plants. Our #plantlove manifests in many ways, such as through the care and attention given to a houseplant, the calming influence of a groves of trees, or the exuberance of walking through wildflowers. Every plant has its charm, but as they charm us we charm them too, into forms and functions that shape where and how we live. That’s what gardening is.
Posted in Garden News on May 8 2019, by Plant Talk
By Kristine Paulus, Plant Records Manager; Deanna F. Curtis, Senior Curator of Woody Plants and Landscape Project Manager; and Todd Forrest, Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections.
NYBG’s 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape and two glasshouses feature 50 gardens and collections that comprise more than one million plants. Well-maintained and displayed collections show the diversity of the plant kingdom and enrich the experience of all who see them. Beautiful displays make visitors stop and examine plants more closely and learn more from their experience, thus fulfilling NYBG’s mission. More than 90% of the plant collections are accessible to visitors every day the Garden is open. All of the plants in the collections are available for research purposes as needed by members of NYBG’s Science Division staff.
Collections are displayed in many ways. They may be incorporated into the landscape, as are the conifers in the Benenson Ornamental Conifers, featured within dedicated gardens, such as the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, presented in organized beds, such as Daylily/Daffodil Walk, or combined in educationally themed and interpreted displays, as in the Upland Tropical Rain Forest Gallery of the Haupt Conservatory. Additionally, collections are displayed in themed exhibitions, such as the annual Orchid Show.
Posted in Programs and Events on May 7 2019, by Matt Newman
If you’ve never thought of taking up composting before, or you simply never thought it was possible while living in a New York City apartment, the NYC Compost Project hosted by NYBG is here to help.
Posted in Children's Education on May 7 2019, by Tai Montanarella
Tai Montanarella is the Marian S. Heiskell Associate Director of School and Out-of-School Programs at The New York Botanical Garden.
What does a Bronx high school student enjoying a spring break vacation today have in common with pioneering 19th-century American botanist John Torrey? If they participated in the week-long Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) Citizen Science Institute held at NYBG’s GreenSchool, they found at least one lofty commonality: engaging in scientific pursuits during leisure time.
It was during the capstone seminar with Esther Jackson, Public Services Librarian at the Garden, that they discovered this connection and other surprising ones. Esther shared the current work citizen scientists are doing transcribing The John Torrey Papers, an important collection of documents of Torrey’s correspondence, manuscripts, notes, and botanical illustrations held in the Archives of the Garden. Students learned from reading these historic documents how the scientist whose work collecting, describing, and classifying plant specimens from around the world wholly resounded with their own experiences over the course of their week across Garden grounds and beyond. More importantly, they came to connect how the rigorous work they engaged in might one day also hold historical significance to important contributions to science.
Posted in Humanities Institute on May 6 2019, by Samantha D’Acunto
Samantha D’Acunto is the Reference Librarian at The New York Botanical Garden‘s LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
On Friday, April 19, 2019, the Humanities Institute and NYBG’s Adult Education department welcomed a large crowd to the celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt with bestselling author Andrea Wulf. Her last book, The Invention of Nature, won many literary awards and was on The New York Times‘ Top Ten Books list. Her new graphic novel, The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, highlights the five-year expedition Alexander von Humboldt undertook in South America. Wulf collaborated with illustrator Lillian Melcher to capture the words and images of Humboldt’s personal diary and sketches which detailed his experience of the journey.
Posted in What's Beautiful Now on May 3 2019, by Matt Newman
Whether it’s the eagerly anticipated waves of azalea blooms, the beauty and perfume of the lilacs, or the crowds of colorful warblers that migrate through the Garden, May is a particularly picturesque month at NYBG. And there’s plenty to do beyond admire the scenery. Lilac Weekend kicks off tomorrow with activities, live music, and the return of our Plein-Air Invitational, followed by the games, music, and food of our Mother’s Day Weekend Garden Party. Soon after, Spring Uncorked brings the region’s best wineries back to the Garden for drinks and fun in our 250 acres. If you’ve been waiting to visit, consider this your signal!
[Not a valid template]Posted in Garden News on May 3 2019, by Plant Talk
The Palms of the World Gallery is one of the Conservatory’s 11 interconnected galleries, each featuring a different botanical habitat and specimens from around the globe. The Gallery displays New World and Old World palms, cycads, ferns, warmclimate monocots, and a variety of ground covers. Several specimens were cultivated from seed collected by NYBG horticulturists and scientists in the field.
As with all its permanent collections, the Garden is committed to the rigorous stewardship of the living plant collections in the Conservatory, entitled A World of Plants. Collections in glasshouses present a unique set of horticultural opportunities and challenges. The Conservatory provides protection from the elements, warm temperatures, and high humidity, so plants may be cultivated that would not survive outdoors in New York City. Adjustments are made throughout the year, including shading in summer to prevent temperatures inside the Conservatory from becoming too warm for visitors and unbearable for plants.
Because its habitats are designed specifically for palms and other warm-climate plants, the Conservatory requires its horticulturists to monitor plant vigor and ensure healthy soils through periodic rejuvenation and replenishment. Palms present a particular set of challenges when cultivated indoors because most varieties have primary growing points on top of their stems. Some inevitably grow too tall for the enclosure, requiring their removal and replacement with younger specimens.
The palm dome restoration provides NYBG curators the opportunity to perform essential horticultural work on the collection housed in the Palms of the World Gallery. Marc Hachadourian, NYBG’s Director of Glasshouse Horticulture and Senior Curator of Orchids, and Tropical Plant Curator Emerita Francisca Coelho developed a plan that preserves and protects important specimens while introducing new plants. Nearly 180 plants in the Gallery will be preserved in place or transplanted during the restoration process.
This article originally appeared as part of the Spring-Summer 2019 issue of Garden News, NYBG’s seasonal newsletter. For further reading, view the issue online and discover a sampling of stories about current programs and undertaking at the Garden.
Posted in From the Library on May 2 2019, by Esther Jackson
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
Nature Play at Home: Creating Outdoor Spaces that Connect Children with the Natural World (2019) by Nancy Striniste centers on the development of nature-friendly spaces for children to explore and learn about the outdoors. Striniste has a background as a landscape designer and an early childhood educator, and is the founder and principle designer at EarlySpace. In Nature Play, she synthesizes for readers her over 30 years of experience in creating spaces for children.
Nature Play is a delight from the first page. Striniste is an excellent writer who uses clear prose and a strong structure to guide readers in both the creation of nature-friendly spaces for children and in understanding the “why” behind certain features. Enclosures and shelter offer a feeling of safety; pathways can set a pace for how a garden should be experienced, or facilitate navigation of different spaces. The book includes instructions for 12 step-by-step nature play projects, complete with illustrations. It also provides a helpful synthesis of the current state of nature play theory. A detailed and thorough bibliography elevates the work to be a helpful reference resource for teachers and garden educators alike. As a bonus, most of the plants featured are native to North America, with non-native species indicated clearly.