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Inside The New York Botanical Garden

TPPC 2014: Week Five Winners!

Posted in Photography on February 24 2014, by Lansing Moore

cactus_thumbnail-240x264The fifth week of our Tropical Paradise Photo Contest has come to an end, and once again it is time to announce the talented winners. This week’s Macro submissions focused on our pricklier specimens, while those in the Sense-of-Place category demonstrated some dramatic lighting. It is a treat to see the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory through the eyes of our talented participants, and this weekend the space will be especially brilliant for The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary! In fact, our winning shot of the Conservatory captures the romantic atmosphere guests should delight in at our upcoming Orchid Evenings.

While we may have said goodbye to Tropical Paradise in the Conservatory this past Sunday, there is still one more week to enter the Photo Contest. Simply upload your photos from the exhibition to our Flickr group—don’t forget the #tropicalparadise hashtag—before the final deadline at 6 p.m. this Friday, February 28. You can find more information on the Photo Contest rules page. In the meantime, click through to see this week’s winners and get the details on when our Grand Prize Winners will be crowned. With only one week left, it could still be you!

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Morning Eye Candy: One More Shot!

Posted in Photography on February 24 2014, by Matt Newman

While Tropical Paradise has officially called it quits to make room for this Saturday’s opening of The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary, our Tropical Paradise Photography Contest is still running for the remainder of this week. This Friday, February 28, is the last day that we’ll accept submissions before we close our doors for final deliberations, so be sure and get your photos up on our Flickr group before then!

In the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

This Weekend: Farewell to Paradise

Posted in Programs and Events on February 21 2014, by Lansing Moore

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.

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Morning Eye Candy: Fine Jewelery

Posted in Photography on February 21 2014, by Matt Newman

I’m resigning myself, happily, to the flood of orchid photos we’ll be seeing from Ivo over the next couple of months. Everything from the boisterous moth orchids you know so well to elegant jewelry like this, an epiphytic orchid that grows on mossy trees in the Philippines.

Dendrochilum cobbianum – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

The Orchid Show: Bringing the Florida Keys to NYC

Posted in The Orchid Show on February 20 2014, by Matt Newman

It’s little more than a week ’til we throw the spotlight on The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary. The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a flurry of activity. New installations—of display architecture, of flowers in bunches and bundles—are going up daily, and while Tropical Paradise continues through this Sunday, February 23, you can be sure you’ll see hints of the exhibition to come if you visit our famed glasshouse now. You might not catch any Hemingway lookalikes riding by on scooters just yet, but make no mistake: the Florida Keys are coming to New York on March 1!

Karen Daubmann, our Associate Vice President for Exhibitions, joined us in the Conservatory not long ago to catch us up on the show’s progress. She also gave us a little peek into the inspirations behind this year’s exhibition, including the reflecting pools and modernist pergolas of the Susan Henshaw Jones Garden down in Key West. We’ll have more “Making Of” videos like this one in the coming weeks, so have a look to get a taste of what’s on the horizon.

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Sculpting the Land with Kim Wilkie

Posted in People, Programs and Events on February 19 2014, by Lansing Moore

Kim Wilkie

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.

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