Gazania ‘Big Kiss White Flame’ — Runner-up, 2012 AGA

Beauty pageants sweep the spectrum from bad reality TV to the Westminster Dog Show. But here, as you might have guessed, swimsuit competitions and obstacle courses aren’t all that high on our totem of concerns. Instead, our brand of popularity contest skips the stage glitz and gets right down to the core themes of plant competition: hardiness, longevity, and the aesthetic of the perfect flower. Over the course of next year’s American Garden Award selections, we’ll be pinning down the plants that best display those traits. Better yet, we’ll be doing it with everyone’s help!

Each year, the AGA organizers reveal an exclusive selection of top-rate flower cultivars, all in the running to become the next “Best in Show.” But as judgment by jury goes, we’re not talking about ivory tower botanists and professional rosarians behind a gavel. Nope, this is strictly a public affair–you, me, and anyone willing to chip in their two cents can vote. And with trial beds spread throughout nearly 30 botanical institutions across the United States, including the NYBG, that gives almost everyone a chance to pitch in and choose the next Miss America of the plant world.
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Whether you’re coming in to catch the Holiday Train Show before December’s crowds pile in, or to glean a bit of feathered wisdom from Debbie Becker’s Saturday morning Bird Walk, this weekend is squarely focused on relaxation. Because we know that in between the crush of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and winter holiday preparations, there’s hardly a sliver of space to squeak in your chill time! Of course, at the NYBG there’s a wider window for taking it easy.

With a light schedule and reasonable temperatures promised for Saturday and Sunday, this is your opportunity to explore 250 acres of New York City’s finest natural sanctuary. If you’re looking for activities, there’s always the Bird Walk for picking up a new hobby, or maybe you’d rather take a load off with the heat on? For that, stop by the Holiday Train Show in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory before hoofing it over to Ross Hall for a bit of history on our decades-long tradition.

Over in the education department, you can join in a two-hour rundown of the herbal arts through a course on making tinctures, salves, and oils from nature’s bounty. And, of course, there’s Gingerbread Adventures waiting for the kids in our Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. Why would you even consider passing up a hand-decorated cookie (of your own artistic creation, of course) before leaving?
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This is a super-important reminder, everyone: you have one more day! That’s all that remains of your window to submit photographs to the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition before the judges close up for deliberations. And if you can’t have your submissions in by Friday, November 30, you’ll find yourself waiting at least another anxious year before you have an opportunity to win over $18,000 in prizes, international recognition, and your work in a professional exhibition!

Even if you can’t find the time to hike outdoors in search of that perfect shot, there’s no reason to give up hope–IGPOTY accepts old photos, as well. Just head over to their official competition page for guidelines on what to pull out of your portfolio. In the meantime, here are a few winning photographs from past years to jog your inspiration.
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Debbie Becker has been The New York Botanical Garden’s resident bird expert for over 25 years, and continues to lead her popular Bird Walks on Saturday mornings throughout much of the year.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Each year, The Audubon Society holds a Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in which bird watchers throughout the country volunteer to count birds in a specified area, setting out at dawn and closing their notebooks at dusk. This year in the Bronx, birders will bring their binoculars to The New York Botanical Garden, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, City Island, Bronx Park East and other local parks and coastal areas. Based on the counts they come up with for each bird species seen, tallies will be pooled to represent each of the five boroughs.

The purpose of the final count determines the climate of the bird population, as species representation can fluctuate due to disease, weather, habitat destruction, and food supply. At the NYBG in particular, there have been some remarkable numbers observed in the last 10 years. For example, the population of American Crows at the Garden was once counted at over 500. Today, we are lucky to see just one or two. This is owed to the arrival of the West Nile Virus, which has decimated crow populations in our area.

Tufted Titmouse

Likewise, declines among the Tufted Titmouse, Chickadees, and the House Finch have struck hard. Populations of these small visitors were explosive in the 1990s, but conjunctivitis–an inflammatory eye disease–has caused them to dwindle since the late 2000s. In this case, however, the cause is more easily tackled; dirty bird feeders quickly pass the disease from bird to bird, so cleaning your feeders with soapy water each week can prevent the epidemic from spreading. Already, numbers of these bird species are slowly rebounding.

Then there are the new species which have been observed, those we hope will stick around long enough to be counted. Red- and White-winged Crossbills, rarities to the NYC area, have been observed around the NYBG and throughout many other locations in the city. Weather and food-related problems further north have driven these pine cone feeders south and into our vicinity.
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It’s a bittersweet Tuesday afternoon at The New York Botanical Garden. On the one hand, we’re sitting square in the turkey-shaped shadow of what is undeniably my favorite holiday. On the other–and I say this with my own little chorus of sighs–2012′s weekly Greenmarket comes to its delectable end on Wednesday, November 21! I know, it’s a heartbreaker. But if you’re going to draw the curtains on your farmer’s market (or put it on hiatus, as in this case), there’s no better time for a food-centric going away party than the day before the year’s most extravagant meal.

If you haven’t already run your obligatory supermarket gauntlet, think about skipping this year’s cavalcade of canned goods and making your way to the Garden for a selection of the freshest fruits and vegetables you’ll find anywhere. Add the Greenmarket’s gourmet pies, breads, and other baked goods to the mix, and all you’ll need to hunt down is a turkey (figuratively speaking, of course–our wild turkeys are of the “look but don’t touch” variety).

Last week’s penultimate Greenmarket highlighted squash, scallions, chard, turnips, apples, pears, spinach, and a rainbow of potatoes. On the baked front, we enjoyed plenty of pies and cookies, cupcakes, muffins, a selection of jams to smear on them, and apple cider to wash it all down. And that’s just what I could fit into this brief post without going overboard; there’s more than enough left of the fall harvest to set your Thanksgiving table and then some.
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I took an aimless jaunt around the Garden yesterday to see what the birds were singing about. Of course, I rarely have a goal when I set out, and this was no different. I checked to see whether the trees had given up all of their fall color (they haven’t), and if the NYBG‘s wild turkeys were still tottering around without care for man, beast, or passing Garden tram (they are). In the Forest, breezy reds and yellows still clung to many of the trees, and there was that pervasive, comforting sense of autumn isolation to wrap yourself up in. But what’s going on by the Visitor Center can only be called a holiday hubbub.

I saw winter-bare trees wrapped in strings of lights, wreathed benches, and a conifer display primped and preened, anxious for someone to come along and flip the switch on its own light show. And further down the path, just outside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, I picked up on the telling twinkle of the season’s defining event: the Holiday Train Show! Horticulturists, model makers, and toy train aficionados have kept their noses to the grindstone for weeks, making sure that each elevated track and glowing window is left perfect for the thousands of New York fans ready to pour through those Conservatory doors. And because there are new models to be seen this year, the challenge was that much greater. But, as always, it’s worth the work they put into it to see so many grins.
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We’re seeing a lot of countdowns, lately. Fall is drawing to a close, the IGPOTY submission deadline is on the horizon, and we’re pipping off the days until the opening of the Holiday Train Show. Near at hand, we’re also staring down the November 21 close of 2012′s Greenmarket season; tomorrow–Wednesday, November 14–marks the penultimate chance to get your fresh fruits, vegetables, baked goods and cheeses before our vendors close up shop until next summer. And why, oh why, would you choose to skip out on fresh eats?

I didn’t think you would!

Last week’s menu was stuffed with fresh-from-the-oven goodies by both The Little Bake Shop and Meredith’s Bakery (you’ll find a reliable herd of staffers making a mad dash for the whoopie pies each Wednesday morning). Chocolate croissants, cupcakes, cookies, fruit pies, and plenty of freshly-baked breads took center stage, while Migliorelli Farm’s apple cider donuts weren’t exactly flying under the radar, either.
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This Wednesday’s weekly NYBG Greenmarket is back on track, meaning you’ll be free to stock up on fall’s freshest vegetables as the city starts bundling up for the coming winter chill. Seeing as it’s now November, this is also one of three remaining chances to do so; the Greenmarket’s marathon of summer and fall harvests will come to a close on Wednesday, November 21.

But that’s still plenty of time! Time enough to enjoy the last of the greens, a wealth of winter gourds, pumpkins piled high, and–with any luck–a few jugs of freshly-pressed apple cider (the crown jewel of fall eats, really). The weekly Greenmarket is also an opportunity to bulk up your pantry with hand-picked foods for the coming Thanksgiving smorgasbord. Not that I really need to remind your appetite about the apocalyptic dietary decisions you’ll be making–even without healthy fruits and vegetables.
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Ahhh, the comforting vignettes of fall’s arrival: the Grand Allée‘s tulip trees tinged with gold, families touring the Garden in matching jackets, a ravenous horde of pumpkin patch ghouls dragging themselves up from their earthen tombs.

Er, yeah, we place the blame firmly on Ray Villafane and his cadre of spooky sculptors for that last one.

In the midst of our Halloween month (because why would you ever celebrate the most frightful holiday of the year for only a single night?), we continue on with another fall tradition that hits each week through November 21: the Wednesday Greenmarket! Bearing in mind the ongoing creepfest in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden and elsewhere at the NYBG, you’ll of course find piles of pumpkins and seasonal gourds to decorate your porch. But there are also plenty of fall favorites to keep on your list that you’re not obliged to carve into jack o’ lanterns, because one cannot live on pumpkin pie alone–at least not for more than a week or two.
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It’s an early weekend update today! This Saturday and Sunday, the NYBG plays host to an event that never fails to have us bouncing off the walls with anticipation: the Giant Pumpkin Carving Weekend. But before we set up New York’s most original Halloween horrors here at the Garden, Ray Villafane and his crew of sculptors are taking their talents–and one or two giant pumpkins–to midtown. Naturally, we’re not about to let them gallivant through Manhattan without us, so a few of us from the Plant Talk offices are picking up and shipping off to join in on the fun.

If you happen to be in midtown through this afternoon, you’re welcome to stop by! We’ll be setting up shop at Grand Central Terminal this morning outside the west entrance, just off Vanderbilt Avenue. You can watch as Ray’s team carves up a display pumpkin of gargantuan proportions, while Ray himself works on the centerpiece of our Halloween spread–the pumpkin patch zombie. Each sculpture will then shuffle its way to the Garden proper to become part of the main event this weekend.
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