Sometimes it’s the simplest combinations in hue that make the fall colors blossom.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Warm colors make the dropping temperatures so much more bearable. Now, all we need is a hammock..

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

The Holiday Train Show is in full swing under the glass of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, and we’ve even got a few new faces in this year’s display! Can anyone recognize this long-gone New York original? (I’ll give you a hint: back when the Dodgers baseball club was still a part of NYC, it took its name in honor of these rail regulars.)

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

The ginkgoes are all but done changing into their fall finery, creating sunny gradients of color.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

The Garden is closed today for Thanksgiving. With the gates shut, our turkeys are breathing a sigh of relief.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

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For many around the country, the upcoming weekend is a vacation in itself. The schedule usually involves such winning events as stuffing yourself silly for Thanksgiving; living off gourmet leftovers for the better part of a week; and forgetting about workaday hassles for a rare four-day weekend. (To everyone having to work on Black Friday, you have every ounce of sympathy we can muster.) The Thanksgiving Day Parade is what really brings home the nostalgia for some, and others the Sunday football. But as for me, it has to be the post-feast nap–that tryptophan is serious business.

Still, not everyone loves the idea of spending the entire holiday weekend cooped up in the house, playing host to a family that just wants to get out and do something. And that makes the coming days the perfect time to visit the Holiday Train Show, fresh off its grand opening on November 19 and picking up steam as we head into the winter months.
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For the first time in the Holiday Train Show’s 20-year history, you too can learn how to create architectural replicas from natural materials, just like the landmarks featured in our Conservatory displays.

Join Madeline Yanni, The New York Botanical Garden’s expert floral and crafts designer on December 17 for a special, hands-on class. Madeline will help you explore various architectural styles and crafting techniques, after which you can choose from an assortment of dried botanicals, like seed pods, bark, and branches, to make your own model. You’ll need to bring lunch, as well as a box large enough to put your models in.
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The Twin Lakes–located at the northernmost point of the Garden–are a great place to enjoy fall’s beautiful light.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

A few weeks ago, I was displaying some grasses and sedges for a home gardening demonstration when a woman asked me what the difference is between the two. Naturally, there are anatomical and sometimes cultural differences (always generalizations) between these similar plants, however, they are often categorized together and thought of as the same. To help clarify the differences, we will begin with a useful mnemonic:

Sedges have edges,
Rushes are round,
Grasses have nodes from the top to the ground.

Grasses and bamboos are in the Graminaceae family, sedges are in the Cyperaceae family, and rushes are in the Juncaceae family. When you look at a grass or sedge, what you see are the stems, leaves, and flowers. And in the case of this explanation, the stems are referred to as culms.
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Fall announces itself in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden with a flush of foliar color, as the flowers gently fade away.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen