Each year, as winter charges through, every commercial break on television chimes in with the daydream of a tropical paradise–swimsuits, warmth, and salsa music. Suddenly a car horn blares and the vision fades, leaving a woman with a headcold shivering at an icy New York bus stop. It’s as predictable as the sun rising. But while we can’t just let you hop through the visitor gates in your neon two-piece, The New York Botanical Garden brings more than a mirage to the table; the daydream becomes reality this month. Starting January 21, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory brings the tropics to the city with Caribbean Garden.
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For the past few weeks we have reflected on the strange weather that we experienced last year, discussing the physical damage to the Garden during the October storm and the identifying characteristics that signal future issues. The erratic behavior of the weather from September onwards reminded me of a time several years ago when an Indian summer lasted well into December. The temperatures crashed in the following January and we experienced winter almost overnight.

Some of you may remember that year. For the broad-leaved evergreens at the Garden, this was the year for winter injury, and there are several reasons why a plant experiences this.
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Our historical archives are something of a treasure chest for history buffs, stuffed with 100-year-old photographs of a Garden in transition. I sometimes find myself digging through them just for contrast and comparison (and the fashion sense of our forebears; I really want to bring back flat-brimmed straw hats). My latest dig yielded some interesting results, not to mention a new series we hope to keep up with in the future.

More specifically, it produced a Library Building (better known then as the Museum Building) and its surroundings at the turn of the century:

The Museum Building -- November 15, 1901

Mediterranean spurge (Euphorbia characias 'Glacier Blue')

Gloves, hat, scarf–I brought none of these things when I went wandering the Garden during lunch yesterday. The climate was just so perfectly suited to a stroll. And the greatest benefit of working at the NYBG is that–no matter the climate–there’s something out on the grounds worth visiting. It’s true there’s no luck of a permanent spring with buds and blooms sprouting up from corner to corner, but winter has its own subtle and touching charm.

This season’s odd patterns of sun and darkness make for confusing daytime walkabouts; I hadn’t expected to step out of the office at 3 p.m. only to find dusk creeping along at the edges of the afternoon. Adjusting to this kind of Norse winter is a slow process. (Being a southerner, anything north of Georgia is practically Norway to me.) But I decided that I was already out and about, and despite the settling dark I was going to soak up as much enjoyment as I could from the remains of the day.
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Not every New York institution knows the good fortune of having a surplus of skilled photographers. What better place to hone your picturesmith’s craft than a 250-acre utopia of nodding flowers, century-old trees, and classical architecture? I suppose it justifies the horde of zoom lenses I see on a daily basis.

This past weekend, friend of the Garden and long-time member Pat Gonzalez stopped by with her camera for another early-morning trek across the grounds. The woman must drink straight rocket fuel with her coffee to get up and in the gate before the sun even stumbles over the horizon most days. But she’s got a fantastical knack for snapping some of the most miraculous photos of our local raptors, so who’s to tell her not to?
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I thought I would post something a little more appropriate to the season this morning, even if the season has been completely upside down, backwards, and inside out. And might I add that the conifers were particularly beautiful in the early twilight last night? Walking around and between the earth-broaching stone by the sleeping Azalea Garden–just before sunset–is a lesson in zen.

I recommend it.

Blue Atlas Cedar (Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca’) — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG’s Gardener for Public Education.

Trees possess a physiognomy and physiology just like we do. If you are an arborist, a dendrologist, or just a lover of trees, you can walk into the woods and read the life stories of your local trees simply by tilting your head upwards and carefully observing your surroundings.

In lay terms this means that you can tell a lot about a tree just by looking at it and understanding the basics of how it functions. The snow storm we encountered at the end of October was an opportunity to reflect on the intimate relation that growth, structure, and environmental impact have on the lives of trees. I subtitled last week’s blog “No Tree Left Behind” because virtually every tree was at the mercy of last October’s unexpected snow, when the majority of deciduous trees still had full canopies.
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What does this look like to you–a dragonfly, maybe? My first instinct was to blurt out “raspberry sherbet,” proving me the worst inkblot test taker.

Miltoniopsis Lady Snow ‘Paper Doll’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Cochliostema odoratissimum — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

There’s a rain forest in New York, you know–a small sanctuary from the foreboding weather reports and windchill factor. (Hint: It’s in the Bronx.)

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen