The family fun includes bird and butterfly walks, watercolor painting, a professional photographer’s booth where you can get a beautiful family portrait, lawn games and picnicking on Daffodil Hill (complete with food carts and free samples), music perfect for dancing from the Banjo Rascals, and on Sunday, a family concert presentation of Jack and the Beanstalk by the Bronx Arts Ensemble.
After enjoying the festivities, take mom for a stroll around our 250-acres where you will be dazzled by all the beautiful blooms. The Azalea Garden is as close to peak bloom as you can get, like stepping into a pink and red kaleidoscope! The tree peony and lilac collections–both located near the newly reopened Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden–continue to perfume the air with amazing aroma, and in the Home Gardening Center you can tiptoe among the tulips until your heart’s content. The Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden is verdant and green with vegetables and flowers popping up all over. Feel free to lend a hand, dig around, plant a little, and play in the dirt here. Everyone’s encouraged to give gardening a try in this one-acre veggie wonderland!
Paeonia lactiflora 'Kevin' (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
With apologies to T.S. Eliot:
The naming of plants is a curious matter;
It isn’t just one of those science-y things.
You may find me as mad as a rosy pink madder
When I tell you a plant must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First is the name of the plant’s closest family
Such as Viburnum or Lilium, Paeonia or Oxalis–
All of them sensible, Latinate names.
There are names that are fancier, if you think they sound geekier,
Some are for flowers, others for trees:
Such as or Eschscholzia or Hesperantha, Metasequoia or Crassulaceae–
But all of them sensible, Latinate names.
But I tell you a plant needs a name that’s unique,
A name that’s precise, and more descriptive,
Else how can a scientist keep her croci in a row,
Or catalog her samples, or publish her findings?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a few
Such as odoratum, elegans, or subedentata,
Such as lactiflora, stellata, or else cotyledon–
Names that along with the first never belong to more than one plant.
But above and beyond there’s still one name to go,
And that is a name that you may know best;
It is a name that only a human can bestow–
The reason behind it ONLY THE HUMAN CAN KNOW, and will never confess.
When you notice a plant in profound meditation,
The reason I tell you is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought of why did this human give me this
Ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
This peony is named 'Kevin'. Not that far off from a moss named 'Mark'.
I have been editing a lot of articles for nybg.org recently that involve long lists of the names of the many hybrids and cultivars we keep on Garden grounds. Anyone who has ever edited a long list in HTML can tell you that it is one of those tasks where it really is okay to let the mind wander a little. It has given me a lot of time to daydream about what kind of plant I would like to have named after me, if, you know, someday I just happen to meet the right hybridizer …. And I know I’m not alone in thinking about this, because when I posed the question yesterday on Twitter, “What would you most like to have named after you? A rose? A daylily? A hosta? Tell us!” the responses came fast and furious.
BloominChick shows her wild side in dreaming of “Something hardy, strong & beautiful. A tiger/wild Lily? (Those striking orange ones).”
There were also votes for a hosta, an orchid, a waterlily, and a butterfly (not technically a plant, but since so many plants can’t live without flowers, we’ll allow it).
The peonies that line Perennial Garden Way are getting set to explode into a riot of color and aroma. There are a few out, and hundreds more just waiting for the perfect weather to burst forth into a profusion of petals. Here’s a few of the early peonies to get you set for peony prime time!
‘Do Tell’
‘Kevin’ – Isn’t it great that there’s a peony named Kevin?
‘John Harvard’ – This peony which bears the colors of the Ivy League school founded by the man it is named for was one of the first to open this year, and is still going strong.
Mother’s Day is Sunday. Do not forget! Still searching for plans? We can help with our weekend-long Mother’s Day Garden Party in our brand new Native Plant Garden and surrounding gardens!
