Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Horticulture on March 28 2014, by Todd Forrest
Todd Forrest is the NYBG’s Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections. He leads all horticulture programs and activities across the Garden’s 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape, including 50 gardens and plant collections outside and under glass, the old-growth Thain Family Forest, and living exhibitions in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
For most people who anxiously await the end of winter, spring begins when the first brassy bulbs emerge from just-thawed soil. Not for me. While I am as enthusiastic about the appearance of snowdrops, crocuses, reticulate irises, and glories-of-the-snow as your average winter-weary garden watcher, what really warms my heart are early spring flowers that don’t make the evening news—those of our native red maples (Acer rubrum).
As March transmogrifies from lion into lamb, I look skyward hoping to catch a glimpse of the flowers of red maple as they peek out of disintegrating winter buds. At a distance, a red maple tree in full bloom is a tangle of gray limbs enveloped in a carmine haze. The individual flowers are quite small, but a mature tree can produce hundreds of thousands of five-flowered clusters, which together create the most ethereal of all spring spectacles.
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Posted in Photography on March 28 2014, by Matt Newman
An iris blooms along Seasonal Walk – Photo by Amy Weiss
Posted in Adult Education on March 27 2014, by Plant Talk
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.”
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Posted in Photography on March 27 2014, by Matt Newman
I like to think we’re slowly chipping away at this stubborn winter cold with the power of the sunniest yellows. Cocktails don’t hurt the effort, either. This Saturday, March 29, we’re launching into our next Orchid Evening with one of my own spirits of choice, Four Roses bourbon. Mixed with punchy citrus, honey syrup, and those all-important bitters, it’ll remind you that spring really is in swing. But tickets have been selling out, so don’t wait too long to snag yours. And if you’re looking to make a full night of it, hit up our Priceless NY champagne pre-party for a bit of bubbly in the Shop in the Garden.
The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Programs and Events on March 26 2014, by Lansing Moore
Spring at the Garden is full of festivals! Beautiful scenery, delicious refreshments, and activities for all ages are the perfect way to spend a spring weekend. From daffodil season to tulip season and beyond, we have plenty of activities over the next three months to help make the most of the grounds as their brilliant colors return.
Our popular Culinary Kids Food Festival returns April 14 with a week-long, family-friendly food festival celebrating the relationships among plants, farms, and your favorite treats. Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden staff and the culinary team, Growing Chefs, will offer cooking demonstrations, recipes, and hands-on activities—with plenty of music and food tastings to add to the fun. Kids can fill up their Festival passports as they tinker with the science of kitchen chemistry and get to the root of foods at a variety of activity stations with themes like “The Chicken and the Egg” and “The Buzz on Bees Sweet Bees!” The daily 1 p.m. cooking demonstration will feature kid-friendly recipes and tasty samples, while local chefs will share tips and more.
But that is only the first in a full season of outdoor adventure. Read on for May and June’s exciting upcoming festivals!
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Posted in Photography on March 26 2014, by Matt Newman
In the Ross Conifer Arboretum – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Adult Education on March 25 2014, by Leda Meredith
Leda Meredith is the Gardening Coordinator for Adult Education
After months of an especially relentless winter, spring is officially here! It’s not only the time when sunshine and blossoms beckon, but also when we need to get busy in the garden. The gardening you do now will determine the success of your landscape through summer and even into fall. Tasks to tackle can include anything from preparing your soil for the coming year to making the leap toward designing a pollinator-friendly garden. For those of you more concerned with indoor plants, it might be time to think about a spring repotting!
Whatever your focus, NYBG’s Adult Education courses offer you plenty of opportunities to become a better gardener. They might even give you the confidence to try something entirely new in your home garden. Here are my picks for the classes that will give you the skills you need for your best gardening year ever:
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Posted in People on March 25 2014, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG’s Gardener for Public Education.
While attending New England Grows—a regional tradeshow and educational forum that takes place in Boston each year—I was lucky enough to hear the ecologist and public spokesperson, Nalini Nadkarni, give a lecture on rain forest ecology and its importance as a biological system.
Dr. Nadkarni’s research was not conducted on the forest floor, but rather at great heights above it. She quite literally harnessed the tools of the arborist’s trade and hoisted herself and a team of researchers 100 feet up in the air to explore the biological communities that thrived in the upper layers of the rain forest’s canopy.
Up in the treetops, Nadkarni and her team found a surprising diversity. The plants they came upon were expected: orchids, bromeliads, ferns, mosses, and lichens. These epiphytic plants are an important component of tropical arboreal communities, surviving and thriving by collecting water and nutrients from rainfall trapped in their foliage. What surprised the researchers, however, was the complexity of the arboreal ecosystem.
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Posted in Photography on March 25 2014, by Matt Newman
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Tiffany’s might have taken some inspiration from the blue-green seafoam of one of our favorite species (and rightfully so). See it now in the aquatic plant house of the Conservatory—it won’t be swirling its colorful skirts forever.
The jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in What's Beautiful Now on March 24 2014, by Lansing Moore
With such wild changes in temperature, this year’s crop of early spring blooms is a hearty bunch indeed. The Garden party is already getting started in the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden, whose enthusiastic residents are always some of the first to rise from their slumber.
The vibrant ‘Arnold Promise’ witch-hazel (Hamamelis × intermedia) is blooming alongside the snowdrops (Galanthus) and winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis). The Ladies’ Border is also lovely at the moment, with Amur adonis (Adonis amurensis) in bloom and both the paper bush flowers (Edgeworthia chrysantha) and viburnum (Viburnum × bodnantense ‘Dawn’) in bud.
For serene shades of white and violet, stop by Wamsler Rock to see more snowdrops alongside the early crocus (Crocus tommasinianus). Click through for some gorgeous close-ups of those intrepid blooms that herald the long-awaited spring!
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For most people who anxiously await the end of winter, spring begins when the first brassy bulbs emerge from just-thawed soil. Not for me. While I am as enthusiastic about the appearance of snowdrops, crocuses, reticulate irises, and glories-of-the-snow as your average winter-weary garden watcher, what really warms my heart are early spring flowers that don’t make the evening news—those of our native red maples (Acer rubrum).
