I know we said that this year’s kiku exhibition would only run through Sunday, November 18, but we’ve had a change of heart; the display is just too popular to draw the curtains on it! For now, the Bourke-Sullivan Display House will keep its doors open to the public through at least this Friday, November 23.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Can you blame me for the flood of kiku imagery hitting Plant Talk lately? Well, you could, but I’m willing to bet that you understand my motivations on sight alone.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Remember: it only lasts until Sunday, November 18!

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Our Fall Forest Weekend is a go! Join us all through Saturday and Sunday to celebrate what our 50-acre old growth Forest has to offer, as well as the particolored creations of Kodai Nakazawa in our stunning kiku installation, and the seasonal sculpture of Manolo Valdés. Check here for the event schedule!

Chrysanthemum ‘NYBG Series Orange’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Captured under glass in an intimate snapshot of a generations-old artform, this year’s Kiku collection is now up and running in the Bourke-Sullivan Display House, a wing of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections at the NYBG. And as exhibitions go, this one–as always–is a vital testament to the heights of beauty and expertise that horticulture can reach.

Like so many of our exhibitions, Nolen’s master horticulturists have spent months behind the scenes, sculpting and training otherwise commonplace flowers into shapes unlike anything seen in a workaday home garden. Thousands of chrysanthemum blooms across a rainbow of colors now take on the forms of Ogiku, Ozukuri, and Shino-Tsukuri. Now, those names may strike mysterious chords at first, but they’re easy enough to understand–if not recreate–once you spend a little time with our handy, dandy primer.
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Just a little peek at the chrysanthemums creating rainbows in the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections, where the Bourke-Sullivan Display House is now holding this year’s Kiku creations. If you’ve never seen botanical sculpture at its most essential height, visit the Ozukuri, Kengai, Ogiku, and many other stylistic mum masterpieces from now through Sunday, November 18.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Fall Flowers of Japan closes Sunday! See it while you still can.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

The New York Botanical Garden didn’t just start growing traditional styles of Japanese chrysanthemum–called kiku in Japanese–on a whim. It’s a labor intensive process that the Japanese have been perfecting for centuries, passing down techniques from generation to generation. Some of the more complex display styles can take a team of gardeners almost a year to pull off, which also includes the fabrication of multiple sets of giant metal frameworks upon which the flowers are trained. Training the plant, forcing its buds, timing the blooms; kiku is most definitely not for novices.

Watch a short documentary about Fall Flowers of Japan and the art of kiku below.

I was in the Conservatory yesterday giving a tour of Fall Flowers of Japan and kiku, and we all agreed that these gorgeous, enormous chrysanthemums look like a sky full of little fluffy clouds. What do you think?

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen