New York City has made a wonderful commitment to greening up the neighborhood and the High Line is one of its finest examples. It is one of many local initiatives–such as Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, A Million Trees, and Battery City Park–to bring nature back into the urban environment.
The High Line is the reclaimed site of an abandoned railroad track that has been turned into a vibrant park and a magnet for city dwellers. People swarm to the park during their lunch break or after work, and it has rapidly become a premier tourist attraction.
The park is emblematic of good city planning. It has user-friendly peel up benches that rise organically from the walkway and decadent chaise lounges that give a spectacular view of the Hudson. One of my favorite spots is the 10th Avenue viewing station. In an age where we are bombarded by electronic stimulation, the viewing station offers a place to congregate and quietly watch the city moving below.
Sometimes the ordinary can look extraordinary just by making a few changes. This is the case with dusty miller (Centaurea cineraria) in the Home Gardening Center. In one of the beds we have ‘Gloucester White’ growing alongside Salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish’ and Petunia Supertunia® ‘Vista Silverberry’. This is how you would expect to see it in a display–partnered in a nice color combination with other annuals.
In an adjacent bed, however, we have done something different. The same dusty miller, ‘Gloucester White’, has been grown into a standard. The two specimens that you see are between four and five years old. Dusty miller is a vigorous grower and forms a woody stem fairly quickly, making it an ideal candidate for a standard.
As you walk through the Home Gardening Center and peer into the Trial Beds, you will see some unusual sights this year. The Trial Beds are well represented with plants from a number of exotic places such as New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Africa, and Thailand.
When you enter the Garden, the first bed is a riotous collection of oranges, chartreuse, and gold. One of the centerpieces of this display is a plant that is indigenous to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Flag bush, or Buddha’s lamp (Mussaenda frondosa), is a tender shrub. In this region it will grow to look more like a large perennial than a shrub, reaching about three or more feet in one season. It has large white poinsettia-like bracts and small, bright orange flowers. You can place the flag bush in full sun or partial shade. It likes rich, well-drained soil, so remember to amend your soil with organic matter such as compost before you plant.
The other day I was walking through Helen’s Garden of the Senses in the Home Gardening Center and I spied one of my favorite hydrangeas, Hydrangea macrophylla Mini Penny™. These days she is reaching about three feet tall and forms a solid four-foot-wide mass. A profusion of large, pale pink blooms spills over onto the walkway.
The intricate floral structure of this mophead hydrangea means that the blossoms have incredible detail and subtle color changes. Mini Penny™ is a dwarf hydrangea that is ideal for any homeowner’s foundation planting. She plays nicely with other shrubs and perennials and adds a sophisticated flair to any garden. If you plant her, all your neighbors will think you know how to garden–even if you don’t.
Last week we discussed the container displays at the Mosholu Gate entrance (the train station entrance) of the Garden. This week we will take a look at the containers that adorn the recently-opened Bedford Gate.
Bedford Gate was created in honor of the new parking garage that the NYBG built adjacent to the train station is outfitted with the best garage door opener system, this welcomes everyone with a sense of futuristic novelty. Once you park your car in the garage, walk over the Bedford Bridge, cross the street and enter the Garden. The Perennial Garden walk, which takes you past the Home Gardening Center, Seasonal Walk, the Conservatory and the Perennial Garden, is right there. The Garden Café is also situated directly across from the Home Gardening Center. It is certainly a convenient point of entry.
While the Mosholu Gate containers are in full sun, the Bedford Gate is in a shady part of the Garden. Tall trees provide a cool canopy while rhododendrons, azaleas and variegated Japanese hakone grass create the understory planting. The containers at the Bedford Gate are two large, faux terra cotta containers. The display includes some of the annuals we discussed last week. Coleus ‘Red Carpet’ and the golden-leaved sweet potato vine named ‘Margarita’ spill over the edges of the containers. Repeating annuals in multiple container displays throughout the Garden creates a nice sense of continuity.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG’s Gardener for Public Education.
The many colors of coleus make container plantings stand out.
One of the easiest ways to get to The New York Botanical Garden is via the Metro-North railroad. If you take the Harlem Line from either Grand Central or 125th Street, you can get to the Garden in 10 to 20 minutes depending on where you board. On the weekends, Metro-North offers inexpensive City Tickets which are just slightly higher in cost than subway fare. Once you get off the train, simply walk across the street and into the Garden.
Upon entering, you will see two large, square in-ground containers directly in front of the ticket booths. This year, these containers are adorned with a dramatic combination of easy-to-grow annuals that highlight the merits of mixing light and dark colors together in the garden.
The large containers include two different types of coleus (Solenostemon)–a staple of any urban container arrangement. Coleus is easy to propagate and comes in a riotous spectrum of colors and combinations. One of the varieties, ‘Alabama Sunset’, is often on gardeners’ “Top Ten” lists for successful summer annuals. It is a striking combination of brick red and golden yellow.
From time to time I teach flower arranging. It gives me the opportunity to play with color and exercise my artistic side. It is also rewarding to teach Garden visitors simple tips and techniques for producing colorful displays for their homes. With Monet’s Garden in full swing, I decided last weekend to focus on French floral arrangements.
I wasn’t terribly successful in uncovering the art of French floral design. It seemed like it’s become trendy to designate a floral design as being French, and I have had a hard time deciphering between those who were simply jumping on a marketing bandwagon and the true Francophiles.
I did discover a few sources that discussed the art of French floral design, however, and their bouquets and centerpieces were breathtaking. They were too elaborate for me to recreate, but they provided me with some principles that I could replicate in my simpler renditions.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG’s Gardener for Public Education.
Gene Sekulow with Bernie Conway, Assistant Gardener
Tuesdays on Plant Talk are generally a time for me to voice my opinions on what we have growing in our plant paradise at The New York Botanical Garden. From time to time, however, I like to interview my colleagues and badger them on their areas of expertise. Today, I am going to share with you a discussion I had with Gene Sekulow–one of the wonderful volunteers helping us to keep the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden growing beautifully.
I first asked Gene to name his favorite rose, and on this topic he waxed lyrical. His favorite bloom in the garden is a 2006 Meilland grandiflora introduction named ‘Mother of Pearl’. He likened the pale pink blossom on the rose to the color of Meggie Cleary’s evening dress in The Thorn Birds. For those of you with a penchant for sentimentality, this is the scene when Meggie glides down the stairs and the besotted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart, realizes that she is no longer a child but a woman. The dress was a rose dress–as Father Ralph describes, “ashes of roses.”
Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG’s Gardener for Public Education.
Last week we discussed disease resistant roses. This week we will continue along the same vein with a discussion of Earth-Kind® roses.
The concept of Earth-Kind® roses began in Texas in the late 1990s, when a professor at Texas A&M was asked for recommendations on roses that were attractive and low-maintenance. The professor realized that no systematic study had been done in this area and set about creating the Earth-Kind® trials.
The creators of the program set up strict protocols that could be followed all around the country. The goal of the program was to eliminate the use of fertilizer, reduce the use of insecticides and fungicides by 98%, eliminate annual pruning and deadheading and reduce supplemental irrigation by at least 70%.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG’s Gardener for Public Education.
Our discussions of vegetable gardens are going to be temporarily cut short due to the glorious activity in the world of roses. For the past week, the NYBG‘s Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden has been in peak bloom, exuding a luxurious perfume that can be experienced from a distance.
This past Saturday, The New York Botanical Garden joined the Manhattan Rose Society in hosting the 12th annual Great Rosarians of the World symposium. They may sound like an imposing, exclusive collective, yet they are a jovial group that welcomes even the most casual rose grower. The symposium is open to the public and offered as a course in our Continuing Education catalog.
New York City has made a wonderful commitment to greening up the neighborhood and the High Line is one of its finest examples. It is one of many local initiatives–such as Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, A Million Trees, and Battery City Park–to bring nature back into the urban environment.
