The behind-the-scenes happenings in the Native Plant Garden are still our little secret until 2013, but we’ll occasionally pass along a rare sneak peak. We can’t wait either.

But there’s plenty to see in the meantime. Today and tomorrow we’re holding special docent-guided tours through the Rock Garden, as well as gardening demonstrations related to the Alpine plants we grow there. Make a plan to come and visit us, and don’t forget to vote for us through Partners in Preservation!

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Preparing trillium rhizomes for planting

I went up to our Native Plant Garden the other day to check on the progress of the restoration, an undertaking being handled by my colleagues, John Egenes and Michael Wronski.

Our Native Plant garden has been closed for the past year and is undergoing a full-scale redesign that is spearheaded by the design firm Oehme van Sweden, whose work has been seen in the Chicago Botanic Garden and United States National Arboretum. As part of the firm’s plan here at The New York Botanical Garden, the location will be broken down into disparate native habitats that include a wetland, a sizable pond, and a meadow. It will also have a large woodland area.

My colleagues spent most of their time over the last year preparing the soil in different sections of the garden, adding truckloads of compost and leaf litter. The topography of the garden has since changed and many areas have been graded, making paths ADA accessible for wheelchairs.
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The Native Plant Garden is designed to showcase the beauty of native plants throughout the year. If this were spring, I might be talking about the planting of the woodland, where trillium, lady slippers and ferns were planted in April and May. But this is another time and another season.

Now the meadow is in focus. We haven’t had a meadow in the Native Plant Garden for a very long time–not since the old one succumbed to dodder. But once in bloom, the meadow will be an open, full sun grass garden punctuated with flowers. It has three distinct conditions available for plants, each offering a different environment to support a variety of species.
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