This week, we’re back with Kevin Character to recap a few of the holiday events taking place at the NYBG through this weekend and beyond, including the very last of this year’s Bar Car Nights. The turnout this year has been massive, and while that makes for a top notch party, it also means that tickets to these special evening engagements are becoming scarce. If procrastination has been your status quo for the first two Bar Car Nights, now is the time to get jump on the opportunity! Register your tickets online to be sure you get a spot for December 22′s night of cocktails, elegance, and the glow of the Holiday Train Show–one of New York’s most beloved seasonal traditions.

In other major news, the Garden’s ongoing events are drawing such impressive crowds that we have decided to free up our schedule, opening the gates on Mondays through the end of the year to accommodate all of our visitors. That means you can join us a full seven days a week, at least up until the Holiday Train Show packs it in for the season.

Of course, Kevin’s rounds don’t limit him to the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, much as our Plant Talk fans love to catch him there. Over in the Shop in the Garden, he joins Maria Colletti for an introduction to our terrarium selection, something home horticulturists and gift givers alike are welcome to take advantage of. If you’re interested in piecing together your own plant world under glass, but can’t make it to the Shop to consult our experts, Conservatory Manager Christian Primeau is more than glad to get you caught up in this video.
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Ladies’ tresses orchids aren’t the most flamboyant flowers in the redesigned Native Plant Garden. Neither are they the most exotic orchids you’ll ever come upon. But seeing them sprout up from the wetland area, I can’t help but find these local perennials engaging. Few people realize how widespread the world’s orchid population really is, and far from being the exclusive charge of southern climes and tropical islands, members of the Orchidaceae family range across much of the United States and into Canada. Naturally, that includes New York.

But make no mistake: these aren’t the neon-painted Phalaenopsis orchids you see lining the shelves at your local florist, though their occasional fragrance makes up for such docile color. They’re small and narrow in profile, rising into a tall, green “spike” around which spirals a staircase of drowsy white flowers. They look a bit like stressed snowdrops, wound into coils that grow in stiff stands. Thriving in a wide range of habitats–fields, damp meadows, moist thickets and grassy swamps among them–that clean simplicity might explain the allure of this New York City orchid.
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Gobbling through life’s endless Garden buffet, oblivious to tour, horticulturist, or passing camera lens. It’s not a bad life, I think.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen