Water lilies are a summer staple here that you really can’t overlook. The Conservatory pools are replete with reds, yellows, purples, whites, and pinks, each bloom bobbing up from below to create a mosaic of unique hues. Surrounded by the tall (and enormous) lotus blooms bordering the pools, it’s a singular experience. But however majestic these flowers are, they’re not out of reach for the home gardener, even here in New York.
Join us this weekend at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory for a home gardening demonstration focusing on the quirks and qualities of the water lily, discovering new varieties, container planting methods, and tips on how to keep your aquatic collection thriving.
Over in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, we’ll be hosting demonstrations of a different, slightly more palatable form—literally. Each Saturday & Sunday at 2 and 4 p.m. you can join Family Garden staff for cooking demos in the Whole Foods Market Kitchen. In summer, we’re especially fond of the sweet and stinky elements of the vegetable patch, so expect to touch on garlic and onions while you’re there. Chances are you’ll be able to follow your nose if you get lost!
Beyond our hands-on activities, you’ll find elements of our ongoing Wild Medicine exhibition woven into almost everything taking place in the Garden, whether it’s the Italian Renaissance Garden in the Conservatory, the classical music and dance in the Ross Hall, or the time-worn pages of ancient herbal manuscripts in the Library. So even if you’re just coming for a stroll in the Forest, make room in your schedule for a little bit more—you won’t regret it.
Charles M. Yurgalevitch, Ph.D., is the Director of the School of Professional Horticulture.
On Wednesday, July 24, 2013, the School of Professional Horticulture at the NYBG hosted the first-ever Green Industry Intern Field Day in the metro NYC area! Over 80 people attended, with every borough represented at this event, in addition to Long Island, upstate New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. An undergrad student even traveled from North Carolina State University to attend. This Field Day was created for interns interested in a career in horticulture, ecology, landscape design, or ecological restoration—for anyone who loves working with plants and wants to improve our environment and the world by doing so.
We opened with a brief assessment of the state of horticulture in 2013—namely, the shortage of trained and skilled plants people. Despite high-paying opportunities, there is a notable lack of people going into the nursery and landscape management business. In the UK, 72% of horticulture firms cannot find skilled workers, and a report from the Royal Horticultural Society found that young people in Britain don’t view gardening or working with plants as a skilled career. The importance of plants in our lives and on our planet cannot be overstated, making the need to encourage education in horticulture and the science behind growing plants all the more significant.
This canna lily cultivar has led something of a confused life. First introduced in 1898 by C. Sprenger, Dammann & Co. of Naples, Italy, it wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th century that horticulturists began confusing ‘Roma’ with ‘Florence Vaughan’, a predecessor introduced by A. Crozy in Lyon, France around 1893. Whatever the catalyst for the mix-up (other than the obvious similarities), you’ll still see this cultivar mislabeled on shelves today.
The come-and-go summer heat may be a bummer for some of us here in the city, but not so in the Native Plant Garden‘s flourishing meadow, where spikes of purple blazing stars and sunflowers of all sorts bask day in, day out with the bees, dragonflies, and birds that come to visit. The effect is one of a brightly-colored painting with a lot of air traffic. But foot traffic is welcome, too! Now is the ideal time to see the Native Plant Garden’s swaying grasses and flowers in peak summer form.
Kevin Character recently stopped in to chat with Kristin Schleiter, our Assistant Vice President for Landscape Gardens and Living Collections, where she got us caught up on the two-year process behind the meadow’s planting—from its start as a meandering collection of scrappy sprouts to the elegant sea of green that it displays today.
While there’s certainly a wild quality to the Native Plant Garden, trust me when I say that everything planted there was carefully chosen to demonstrate local flora, native planting techniques, and a year-round beauty that shines through whether you’re here in July or November. Still, missing the meadow in such rare form would be a shame!
Can you guess what’s starting up in the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections? It’s a time-consuming but rewarding process, best undertaken with a deliberate hand and a keen eye (not to mention years of training). And it lands this fall.
I might drum up a debate with this declaration, but the dream summer dining experience isn’t about a.m. iced coffees or candlelit cafe dinners under patio umbrellas. It is about noon brunch served on the balcony, tailed by an outdoor stint with the grill. It’s about eggs benedict, fresh fruit salad, and a tall Bloody Mary in a highball glass. And while I can’t say we’ll have the vodka or the Worcestershire sauce on hand at our Greenmarket, we’re all set with the tomato juice.
Ditto for the eggs, and plenty of baked foundations for that hollandaise-drenched staple. Though if the prepwork is too much for you, you could always leap on one of the savory quiches that have been showing up with Meredith’s Bread over the last few weeks. And for a late lunch, our other vendors are pulling their weight on the grill lately with potatoes, onions, corn, tomatoes, and so much more. All of which you can preface with the salsa verde you make from the plump tomatillos on sale, cozied up in their leaves like little presents.
While we can’t be sure just what will show up on the tables at this week’s Greenmarket, summer is a gift for gourmets, so don’t waste these mild temperatures ordering in with the blinds drawn. Instead, load up on fresh produce, put your kitchen to work, and get outside! How often do you have an excuse to wear sunglasses at a meal, anyway?
This week, we’re joining ConEdison as a supporting partner in their Plug Into Summer Fun contest, an opportunity for you and your friends to win daily prizes at locations around New York City. Better yet, we’re the Grand Prize Partner this week! If you missed out on any of our recent evening activities, such as Sunday’s Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs or our last Wild Medicine Cocktail Evening, this is your chance to laugh all the way to the bank with free trips to our upcoming events. Pair that with tickets to one of our Halloween adventures in October, and you’re staring down a prize worth $600! Considering you could easily enter this contest while lying on your couch, the cost/benefit tally is definitely leaning in your favor.
Being the weekly grand prize partner has its perks, too—you don’t have to wait until the end of the week to enter, for one. You can enter up to three times a day from now through Friday, August 2, to give yourself the best possible chance of taking home the reward. And because each entry also puts you in the running for the daily prizes offered by ConEd’s other partners, there are plenty of chances to land some winnings. All told, the contest is offering 36 prizes in total and runs until August 23!
Water lilies are a summer staple here that you really can’t overlook. The Conservatory pools are replete with reds, yellows, purples, whites, and pinks, each bloom bobbing up from below to create a mosaic of unique hues. Surrounded by the tall (and enormous) lotus blooms bordering the pools, it’s a singular experience. But however majestic these flowers are, they’re not out of reach for the home gardener, even here in New York.
