The blog staff first happened upon Joel Kroin crouched at the entrance to the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, a coffee pot in hand, cutting a peculiar figure as he went about his work so intently. Not only an NYBG Member but a horticulturist and artist, Joel’s interests carry him often between the greenhouse and the studio. He recently reconnected with us to share some of his latest photography.

His coffee pot (actually a makeshift pinhole camera) has since been replaced with a purpose-built wooden model, one that resembles an old-fashioned camera well enough to avoid any suspicion. “Certainly, the Garden staff have been less curious about what I am doing!” Joel says.
read more »

It won’t be long now. Our Caribbean Garden is moving right along, and already preparations have begun for our next exhibition. It’s not a haphazard process that brings us to these moments, either–everything that springs to life in our Conservatory and elsewhere is the product of months (if not years) of careful planning. In the case of this year’s Orchid Show (our tenth!), one man’s lifelong passion will make its mark on the NYBG.

“Eccentric” comes to mind when considering Patrick Blanc. What other adjective sticks so well? Clover-green hair and patent emerald shoes, a matching Aloha shirt and vintage jacket; Patrick’s a walking canvas for his profession. As a renowned botanist, plant hunter, and designer, Blanc makes his mark on the world of landscape design with grandiose ideas of verticality and hanging foliage–not just from baskets or trellises but from the very walls themselves. Gravity is no constraint worth considering for this worldly creative.
read more »

Meet Doug Tallamy, an expert on the importance of native plants in our landscape and how to care for them — Thursday, February 16, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Lisa Mattei.

Doug Tallamy knows how important a diverse native plant community is for other living creatures, especially insects. He has devoted much of his career to understanding the many ways insects interact with plants, creating essential food webs without which our ecosystems would fail.

His award-winning book and website, Bringing Nature Home, is a call to action for gardeners across the country to use native plants to sustain wildlife, promote biodiversity, and protect our ecosystems.

In his book, Tallamy recounts his own “epiphany” when his family moved to 10 acres in southeastern Pennsylvania, an area “farmed for centuries before being subdivided and sold.” He discovered that “at least 35% of the vegetation on our property consisted of aggressive plant species from other continents that were rapidly replacing what native plants we did have.” And he noticed something else: the alien plants on the property, such as the Norway maples and the mile-a-minute weeds, had “very little or no leaf damage from insects.”
read more »

The other day I had a conversation with one of my colleagues, Ivan Ragoonanan, about his native Trinidad. During the course of the workday he often drops interesting pieces of information about the vegetation from his homeland. I was interested in an anecdotal history of some of his favorite plants.

Local customs and the different uses of plants not only tell us a great deal about the plants themselves, but also provide a wealth of information about the lifestyles of the culture and the relationship the community has to the natural world. These things bring to light the practical and utilitarian role of nature in our lives, as well as its “magical” qualities.
read more »

Kathie Miranda is the coordinator of the Botanical Art and Illustration program here at The New York Botanical Garden. She is a natural science illustration educator and artist, teaching and exhibiting nationwide.

Prayer Plant, © Kathie Miranda

During the recent American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) Conference, our very own Kathie Miranda was honored as the first-ever recipient of the ASBA Anne Marie Carney Award. The honor was given in recognition of outstanding work in an exhibition for Kathie’s colored pencil on Mylar painting, entitled Prayer Plant.

The family of talented artist and ASBA member Anne Marie Carney has created an endowment fund to award one upcoming botanical artist annually, a proposed tradition which has garnered enough donation funding to support it for the next 36 years. For the inaugural ceremony in Boston on October 29, a team of three jurors selected the artwork for the award.
read more »

With wintery weather on the way, it hardly seems like the time to be talking roses. The forecast looks chilly and the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden has been “put to bed” for the season, so what is there to talk about?

How about completely changing the face of rose growing for home gardeners in the northeast? That’s what rose garden curator Peter Kukielski hopes to accomplish with the EarthKind™ Rose Trials beds, located just south of Daffodil Hill. The goal of the EarthKind™ program is to identify cultivars that combine beauty with proven durability in the landscape, and that means they’ll receive no water other than what falls from the sky, nor fertilizers or pesticides of any kind.
read more »

Meet Diana Conklin, one of NYBG’s Adult Education instructors teaching a variety of botanical craft classes for the holidays.

Holiday wreath-making expert Diana Conklin was born and raised on a potato farm along the east end of Long Island–that was before the area was taken over by vineyards! And coming from a farming background, Diana’s love of all things botanical is deeply ingrained.

Her studio, Everlastings by Diana, remains on the family farm in one of their barns. There she specializes in creating stunning dried flower arrangements, many of which are displayed at local craft galleries and events.
read more »

In recent weeks, we’ve been telling you about the addition of a literary element to our collection of audio tours. We’ve also been working hard to recover from October’s unseasonably early snowstorm in time for the dedication of our 50-acre Forest.

In the spirit of this drive, here’s a video of author Camille Rankine‘s poem, “Instructions on the Forest,” which was filmed in and inspired by our recently rededicated Forest.
read more »

Transplants can be harrowing occasions, and not solely for the houseplants and conservatory wonders we love so well. It’s just as difficult to find yourself changing pots as a walking, talking outsider, a newcomer not only to the Garden, but the often overwhelming reality of New York City.

And this is exactly where I find myself as The New York Botanical Garden’s latest recruit.

The weather, the flora–they’re curious shocks to the system for a Florida boy. There are few evergreen copses where I’m from, and fewer rose gardens. Certainly the leaves don’t flush with shades of citrus and fire when fall makes its appearance. Rather, I’m more accustomed to hurricanes, swamp cypress and banana trees. And we don’t pull the stowed parkas from the crawlspace when October arrives, either; we’re more likely to say a silent “thank you” that the humidity will let up for a few months. Better yet, perhaps the mosquitoes will give it a rest.
read more »

Breaking developments in the world of giant pumpkin spiders! — How often do you get to write a sentence like that in all seriousness?

Artist Michael Natiello will be here this weekend carving up one of the world’s largest pumpkins. (You might know him as the man behind the Great Jack ‘O Lantern Blaze as well as the Haunted Pumpkin Garden here in the Children’s Adventure Garden).

That’s not the breaking news, though.
read more »