With 2024 behind us and an exciting slate of BIG plans just ahead for the new year, we’re reflecting on all of the good works we’ve accomplished—and great times we’ve had—over the last 12 months at NYBG. It was one of our most momentous years ever, and we can’t thank you enough for being a part of our ongoing story!

This past calendar year, over 1.2 MILLION people came to visit our 250 acres in the Bronx—our second highest visitation year ever. Because of your support, we were able to bring folks young and old closer to nature, with nearly 60,000 students and over 180,000 kids and parents taking part in our family education events, activities, and hands-on fun.

From the word “go” we kicked things off in sparkling fashion (literally!) with a full Garden rebrand that brought new opportunities for color and creativity to the way we communicate with you. We followed that up with The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion, a celebration of today’s sartorial scene that invited three of New York City’s up-and-coming designers to create imaginative new looks using countless colorful and diverse orchids. Thousands of people had the chance to “walk the runway” in our Haupt Conservatory, where Collina Strada by Hillary Taymour, Dauphinette by Olivia Cheng, and FLWR PSTL by Kristen Alpaugh dreamed up everything from ball gowns to swimsuits and tuxedoes—all crafted from living plants.

The warmth of summer settled in soon after, and with it came a journey through the rabbit hole for Wonderland: Curious Nature, which transformed the Haupt Conservatory and its surroundings via the enchanting Oxford garden styles that inspired Alice’s beloved story. Classic English floral displays gave way to the strange and fantastical as visitors explored, spotlighting plants of outlandish size, bizarre mushroom formations, and carnivorous plants that took on a whole new light as the sun set for dancing and drinks at Wonderland Nights.

Fall was vibrant as it came time for Fall-O-Ween—a fan-favorite event at the Garden where gargantuan pumpkins and spooky scarecrows took over NYBG as the autumn leaves crunched underfoot. Adam Bierton once again joined us with his tools in tow to carve dozens of pumpkins into monstrous and comical faces each weekend, culminating in this year’s masterpiece: a vignette of Alice falling down the rabbit hole, which he and his fellow carvers created from a pumpkin weighing over 2,000 pounds.

At the Edible Academy, NYBG Trustee and food historian Jessica B. Harris, Ph.D., held a closing ceremony and symposium for the third year of the African American Garden, an exhibit she curated which cast a spotlight on the myriad ways the African Diaspora—and the food plants carried with it—came to define the American culinary and cultural experience. Seeds collected from the many plants in the collection were recently distributed to community gardens and urban farms all over the Bronx, ensuring they live on for years to come.

And we didn’t miss a beat keeping the festivities going into winter! The Holiday Train Show^® returned for its 33rd year as NYC’s favorite holiday tradition, and true to form it delighted thousands of kids and families alike with nearly 200 landmark miniatures made entirely from plants, and dozens of model trains bringing the miniature cityscape to life in the Haupt Conservatory. After dark, we flipped the switch for Holiday Train Nights, illuminating the entire glasshouse for a night of live holiday tunes, festive drinks and bites, and making new seasonal memories—whether you were at an all-ages evening, or one of our exclusive 21+ events. With many of these celebrations completely sold out, we’re looking forward to bringing the party back next winter!

While our exhibitions team, horticulturists, librarians, event managers, and hundreds of other Garden staffers were making these celebrations of art and culture possible, our other experts were equally hard at work. We launched our first-ever podcast, Plant People, with host Jennifer Bernstein, NYBG’s CEO and The William C. Steere Sr. President. In our first season, she delved into the way plants and people are interconnected in lively chats with researchers, environmentalists, authors, and culinary historians (to name a few). And after a successful launch, along with winning an award for “Best New Podcast” during the Signal Awards, we’re already putting together season two.

In our science division, a busy year of conferences, long-term studies in the field, and new plant discoveries took our expert botanists to destinations like the tropical archipelago of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, Indigenous communities of Mexico, and even the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A highlight event was our participation in COP16, the UN’s climate and biodiversity conference, which took place this year in Cali, Colombia. Our Chief Science Officer, Mauricio Diazgranados, Ph.D., had an opportunity to return to his country of birth with a team of NYBG scientists for the event, where they met with colleagues from all around the world to discuss the future of our planet. This culminated in the signing of a major new agreement with the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean to develop research on biodiversity and promote restoration strategies that will apply NYBG’s resources and expertise to conservation efforts in the region.

Because of you, we’re heading into 2025 full of excitement for what’s to come. We hope you’ll stop by soon as we continue to build on our long history of world-class horticulture, inspiring art, scientific discovery—and sharing the beauty of the plant world for everyone to cherish and enjoy.