The barren branches that fill the sky come winter are a sore sight for some, but if you look at a naked tree in just the right way, there’s more beauty there than you might at first believe. Of course, not everyone needs a special angle to see that–I think bare trees are almost more fascinating than their spring and summer alter egos. Such complex geometry to be seen once the foliage falls away! And no place in the Garden exemplifies this kind of beauty quite like Tulip Tree Allée.
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Thomas Alva Edison died on October 18, 1931–eighty years ago today.

In the late 1920s, Edison was deeply engaged in plant research. His goal was to discover a domestic source of rubber,  a plant that might produce better material than what was available at the time. (The plant turned out to be goldenrod.)

This effort was spearheaded by the Edison Botanical Corporation and funded by Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. Research was done by the corporation and by Edison himself at The New York Botanical Garden as well as at Edison’s labs in West Orange, N.J. and Fort Myers, Florida. The great inventor spent several years periodically working at the Garden and its Library, along with assistants John Kunkel Small, Barukh Jonas, William H. Meadowcroft, and others.

Learn more about Thomas A. Edison’s research at the Garden below.

Hello everybody, Ann here. I’m back from my summer vacation, jet-lagged but so happy to be home for this beautiful New York City weather! My intention of blogging from the road was pure, but I was thwarted by technology. Who would have ever expected it would be so hard to find reliable wifi (or “weefee” as they say in France) in London and Paris? Regardless, I had a great, garden-inspired trip. Here are some pictures I snapped on a rainy day visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

IGPOTY Exhibition at Kew

If you win one of the categories or special commendations in the IGPOTY contest, your photos will be on display at this beautiful outdoor exhibition at Kew Gardens. The photos are printed onto a special kind of vinyl and hang outside year-round. The exhibition is right near the main gate, and is therefore one of the first stops for Kew’s many visitors. The quality of the winning IGPOTY photographs is extraordinary, so hone your chops by joining in on one of our monthly photo contests. I can’t wait to see at least one photo from NYBG hanging here next year!

The Temperate House at Kew Gardens

There are three main glasshouses at Kew, and many smaller, secondary houses as well. They are very old and very lovely.

Staircase to the Temperate House Walkway

Both the Temperate House and the Palm House have catwalks around the upper levels that you access by climbing these mysterious-looking, vine-laden staircases.

The View from the Temperate House Catwalk

These catwalks give you an unusual perspective on trees that is nearly impossible to gain in nature.

Don't Forget to Bring a Brolly

As might be expected, rain is a common occurrence, so don’t forget to bring an umbrella. Of course, if you forget yours, though (like I did), the shop sells very nice ones.

Sheltering from the Rain

Should you choose not to use an umbrella, however, there are plenty of trees to shelter under while waiting for the showers to pass. This one is near the Sackler Crossing, a really cool walkway/bridge over Kew’s big lake.

King Willam

One of my favorite things at Kew was this garden known at King William’s Temple. It is planted with flowers, trees, shrubs, and herbs from the Mediterranean, and smells divine, especially in the rain. It is full of lavendar, rosemary, olive trees, cypresses, and so many other plants. It reminded me quite a lot of our current exhibition, Spanish Paradise: Gardens of the Alhambra.

A Typical English Garden

Just before I met up with two of my colleagues at Kew, I dashed through the Plant Families Beds and the Student Vegetable Plots just as the sun peeked out. This garden at the entrance to this area, at least to my mind, exemplifies everything that is beautiful about the English garden. It is a profusion of colors, heights, and textures, and is a joy to behold.

Badgers!

We’ve got beavers, Kew’s got badgers! I think I know which one I would prefer to run into on a dusky forest trail ….

The Palm House

And finally, I couldn’t possibly leave you without a shot of the structure that probably helped inspire the Garden’s founder, Nathaniel Lord Britton, to push the great men of New York City to found The New York Botanical Garden. The Palm House is an absolutely breathtaking work of engineering, and a great thing of beauty.

If you love The New York Botanical Garden, and you find yourself with a few days in London, you should absolutely go visit Kew Gardens. There are, inevitably, a lot of similarities between Kew and NYBG, but England’s climate, and Kew’s history, make the 30 minute trip out to Kew entirely worthwhile. I hope you have enjoyed my very brief tour of Kew, and that you’ll stay tuned next week for my adventures at Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny.

Special thanks to Mary from IGPOTY for showing me around Kew, and to Claire and Nicola at Kew for the cup of tea.

Of course, we’re not referring to the potholes you might encounter this spring on the Mosholu Parkway or the Cross Bronx Expressway. We’re a botanical and horticultural research library after all, far more interested in natural history, so when we say potholes we mean glacial potholes.

This enormous one was photographed in 1913. Originally it would have been twelve feet deep, four to five feet in width, tapered at the bottom. And its earliest published description might have come from Nathaniel Lord Britton, first Director-in-Chief of The New York Botanical Garden, in the proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Britton told a meeting of the Academy, on June 5, 1882, that the above as well as other potholes were “brought to my notice by the late Professor A. Wood. They are located on the western bank of the Bronx River, about midway between Bronxdale and Williamsbridge…near the western end of a now dismantled and impassable bridge, with stone abutments, and in the northern part of a hemlock grove which fringes the stream for about a mile below. It is one of the most picturesque spots in the vicinity of New York City, and a walk along the little river from Bronxdale to Williamsbridge is always enjoyable.”

Housed in the archives of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library, this historical photo also accompanied “Pot-holes in The New York Botanical Garden”—an article by paleobotanist Charles Arthur Hollick, in the September 1913 issue of the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, page 157.

“Pot-holes are bowl- or basin-like depressions in rock,” Hollick wrote, “caused by the abrasive action of gravel or cobble stones when churned around in the depressions by rapidly moving water. A pot-hole has its beginning in an irregularity or inequality in the rock bed of a stream, in which gravel or perhaps a single cobble stone or other rock fragment finds logdment. If the conditions are favorable, so that the foreign material is free to move and the current of the stream is sufficiently rapid to churn or swirl it around, the original inequality in the stream bed becomes deeper and more or less circular in shape, from the abrasive action of its contents, and a pot-hole is formed. A pot-hole, therefore, no matter where it may be located, is definite evidence that the rock in which it was excavated must have been, at some time, a part of the bed of a rapidly flowing stream.”