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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden

Garden Moments

Posted in Gardening Tips, Gardens and Collections on July 2 2013, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.

Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight'
Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Moonlight’

I often have visitors tell me that they love perennials, but their big challenge as gardeners is finding combinations that make it easy to synchronize bloom times. This is a real challenge particularly when the desire to create appealing plant partners meets a wish to provide multi-seasonal interest in the garden.

Annuals are an easy way to ensure season-long color, but they often lack the textures, stature, and architectural interest that perennials supply. In my walks around the Garden this year I have found two “garden moments” worth sharing—one serendipitous, the other planned. They are instructive examples in creating satisfying designs with limited plant palettes in your garden.

A few years ago, on a low stone wall in the Home Gardening Center, I planted a climbing hydrangea (Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Moonlight’). The climbing hydrangea is a woody vine that has blue-green, heart-shaped leaves and creamy white lace-cap flowers. It has stretched itself happily over the stone wall and filled in nicely.

Since the vine wants to crawl on the stone wall we needed to fill the space below, by its feet, and along the edge of the border. Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) seemed like a logical choice. This perennial only grows 12-18” tall and forms a nice clump, with large, scalloped, light-green to blue-green foliage. Furthermore, lady’s mantle flowers alongside the climbing hydrangea in June, producing clusters of showy chartreuse flowers.

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This Weekend: Triple the Fun!

Posted in Around the Garden on May 24 2013, by Ann Rafalko

Rosa Pink Double Knock Out 03It’s summer! Or is it? Given the unpredictable weather of the past few weeks, I guess it comes as little surprise that several days of hazy, hot, and humid afternoons would end with spring reasserting herself just as we hit the three day, “unofficial start of summer” weekend. But don’t let that put a damper on your long weekend plans! We’ve got plenty of warmth, color, and activities to help you relax going into the new season.

In the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, Wild Medicine: Healing Plants Around the World continues to delight with a one-two punch of geeky knowledge and Renaissance beauty. Enjoy tasting stations featuring delicious and healthy treats made from chocolate, tropical fruits, and soothing tea around the Conservatory Courtyard Pools where the hardy waterlilies are again in bloom. You can also spend time with Philip Haas’ amazing Four Seasons, monumental sculptural renderings of the surreal paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, “rendered in trompe l’oeil vegetables, flowers and other horticulture.”

Outside of the Conservatory, there’s plenty that’s beautiful and in bloom around our 250 acres. Favorite subjects of the Garden’s photography enthusiasts, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden and the herbaceous peonies are back in bloom, and a plethora of other gardens are also looking fine.

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