The Botanical Garden’s living collections is among the greatest in the world and contains more than 1 million plants. Jon Peter, Plant Records Manager, periodically shines the spotlight on a particular species that can be found within our 250 acres.

Botanical Name: Sassafras albidum

Common Name: Sassafras

Family Name: Lauraceae (Laurel family)

Native Range: USA—Maine to Florida, west to Michigan and Texas
Canada—southern Ontario

USDA Hardiness Zones: 5 through 9A

Locations within NYBG: Forest, Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, Native Plant Garden

Site Requirements: Sun to partial shade; well-drained, moist soil

Interesting Note: This species has been used for centuries in a variety of ways. The root bark was used to flavor root beer, the leaves and bark used to make tea, and the oils used in soaps. It was known in folk medicine as a tonic and a purifier of the blood and still has a reputation as a stimulant, and as a treatment for syphilis, rheumatism, and skin disease. Most of these uses ended in the early 1960s when it was found that the active ingredient safrole is carcinogenic.

In the native habitats of North America it has exceptional valuable as a food source for insects, birds, and mammals. The sassafras has many great ornamental qualities as well: from its gorgeous furrowed bark and three forms of leaves to its fragrant twigs and beautiful autumn color. Sassafras is under utilized in the North American landscape.

Mondays are rough. We understand. So to help you ease into your week, some eye candy of the Garden in fall.

Learn more about spending a day in the country, without ever leaving the city, here.

These Images of the Garden from Autumns Past Set the Mood

Yesterday a colleague and I headed over to the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden for a video shoot with the curator of the garden, Peter Kukielski. I’m new to The New York Botanical Garden, and haven’t been able to explore the 250 acres of gardens, exhibitions and forest as fully as I would have liked to by this point (Oh meetings! Oh weather!), so imagine my surprise when we crested the hill overlooking the Rose Garden and were enveloped by the intoxicating scent of the roses welling up to meet us.

Unreal. I wish smell-o-vision existed so I could give you a small preview of the aroma! Sadly it doesn’t. And even though I had previously read about the phenomenal show that the roses put on in fall, I still wasn’t prepared for how glorious the Rose Garden is right now. So, if you’re in the New York City area this weekend and looking for something to do, come to The Garden and take time to smell the roses. You won’t be sorry.

Roses not your thing? Never fear! There’s plenty going on at The Garden this weekend.

Garden Tests Roses for Sustainability in Earth-Kind Trial Bed

Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden.

Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden.

Family Garden Celebrates Caribbean, China, Ireland, Italy, Korea

New Varieties Shine as English Grower and Garden Awarded this Weekend

Michael Marriott is Technical Director at David Austin® Roses, where he has worked for over 25 years.

The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden is quite simply one of the very best rose gardens in the world, and so I am always very keen to have our new varieties planted there. The curator of the rose garden, Peter Kukielski, has been very generous with his allocation of space to the David Austin English Roses, with long stretches of them in the beds on either side of the garden’s entrance.

Each year David Austin Roses introduces several new varieties, and, hopefully, Peter will find space for three or four plants of each variety. Our latest introductions are Princess Alexandra of Kent, Young Lycidas, Wisley 2008, Sir John Betjeman, and Munstead Wood.

Princess Alexandra of Kent (above, right) is a particularly impressive variety with very large, full-petaled flowers that are a warm, glowing pink. They have a wonderful tea fragrance, which develops into lemon and, later, hints of black currant. It makes an attractive bushy shrub of about four feet tall.

Young Lycidas also has large impressive flowers but they are a much deeper color, being a wonderful blend of deep magenta, pink, and red. The outer petals tend toward light-purple, although, interestingly, this is in contrast to the outside of the petals, which are quite silvery. The growth is bushy, the stems tending to arch in a most attractive way. There is delicious fragrance that starts as pure tea but then changes to a blend of tea and old rose, with intriguing hints of cedarwood.

Wisley 2008 (left) has smaller flowers, but they are perfectly formed, the petals arranged in a rosette. The color is absolutely pure soft-pink, the color fading perhaps just a little toward the outside. It is quite vigorous and very bushy and makes a very good landscaping rose. The fragrance is fresh and fruity with hints of raspberry and tea.

Sir John Betjeman is quite modern in appearance, the color being a bright deep-pink and intensifying with age. It flowers particularly freely and has a very bushy habit. The fragrance is light and rather “green.”

Munstead Wood is arguably the most obviously attractive of the group. The flowers are large and a deep-velvety crimson, with a strong old-rose fragrance with hints of blackberry, blueberry, and damson. It will stay a compact rose even in the warmer parts of the United States.

Please do visit the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden—it is superb. You can see the whole range of roses, and they are most beautifully looked after.

This weekend in New York, at its 10th annual conference, the Great Rosarians of the World™ will honor world-renowned hybridizer of English Roses David Austin and present its 2010 Rose Garden Hall of Fame Award to the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. Come to the Botanical Garden on Saturday, June 12, for a lecture series on growing sustainable roses and for a reception in the Rose Garden. Through July 1, 2010, vote for the Rockefeller Rose Garden as American’s Best Garden.

For Arbor Day, Staff Name Some Favorites; Tell Us Yours

Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.

In honor of Arbor Day tomorrow, I asked some of the Horticulture staff to divulge their favorite tree at the Garden. With over 30,000 trees to select from, this could be daunting. For some, it was a cinch and they rattled off a tale about a special specimen. For others, it was like picking a favorite child, so they gave several choices.

Todd Forrest, Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, judiciously noted: “My favorite tree is always the one we just planted, because it helps ensure that our historic landscape will have trees for people to enjoy for decades to come.” (But he later did offer up a name, see below.)

Here, then, are some exceptional trees at the Garden and the reasons why they made the grade. Let us know which of the thousands of trees at the Garden—and we keep planting additional ones—is your favorite. We’d love to hear from you. read more »

Children Learn About Plants Through Hands-on Gardening

Toby Adams is Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden.

Clickety clank. Bumpity bumpity bump. Two pairs of ears stand up scanning the Family Garden for the noise. Clickety clank. Bumpity bumpity bump. Two curious, twitching noses aim this way and then that.

“What’s that clanking and bumping?” wondered sleepy Darwin, the Family Garden’s newest resident rabbit (at left in photo).

Newton hopped around his hutch, the Family Garden’s original resident rabbit had heard these noises before. “I think I know what the clinkety clanks and bumpity bumps are,” Newton assured Darwin. “The Family Garden must be open again!”
read more »

Some 100-Year-Old Specimens Destroyed; 150 Others Damaged

Todd Forrest is Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections.

While gardeners are accustomed to coping with the slings and arrows of outrageous weather, this winter has tested the patience of even the most experienced horticulturists among the Garden’s staff. Two wet, heavy snowstorms in February caused significant damage to the Garden’s historic trees, but nothing prepared us for the damage of the nor’easter that hit New York the weekend of March 13 and 14.

The deep snow that fell only two weeks before had not even completely melted when the torrential rains started late in the week of March 8. The combination of snowmelt and rain completely saturated the ground, creating the perfect conditions for what foresters call “wind throw”—trees, roots and all, torn out of the ground by fierce winds. With winds holding steady at between 30 and 40 mph and gusting to over 70 mph, many of the Garden’s historic trees had no chance.

By Sunday, March 14, 50 of our trees, including many historic conifers planted in the early 1900s and oaks older than the Garden itself, were lying across the ground. More than 150 other trees lost limbs or were otherwise damaged. Nearly every small tree planted in fall 2009 was uprooted. While our arborists will be assessing the full extent of the devastation for weeks to come, we are already mourning the loss of some of our favorite trees, including a Ponderosa pine planted in the Ross Conifer Arboretum in 1904 and a blue Atlas cedar planted in the Benenson Ornamental Conifers in 1966. read more »