A couple of big announcements for the next few days! First off: it’s Labor Day weekend. For those of you who, like me, mentally zonk out and forget the calendar by Friday, this is a timely reminder that there’s a good chance you won’t have to listen to your alarm clock on Monday morning. So, after you’ve gotten your extra winks, know that The New York Botanical Garden will be open (we’re usually not on Mondays) for any and all visitors looking to make the most of their day off. The forecast for Monday is suggesting highs in the 70s, so I’m thinking there’s no excuse to keep yourself cooped up indoors.

Also on the schedule for this weekend–something we’ve been pretty anxious about–is the return of the Saturday Bird Walk. The Red-tailed Hawks are getting back to their center stage antics just in time for the end of Debbie Becker’s summer hiatus, so pack along a pair of binoculars and join us at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning for a trek around the Garden with one of New York’s most experienced bird watchers. Seeing as Debbie’s been doing this long enough to name our feathered guests with her eyes closed, trust me when I say that you’re in good hands.
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Go out into your back yard (assuming you have one) and pretend you have to not only identify, but describe, designate, and catalog every plant that’s growing there. Now multiply that challenge by the entire surface of the Earth, and you’re standing in a botanist’s shoes. Of course, it’s not going to be as easy as all that; as a plant scientist, you’re also racing against a clock that stubbornly speeds up with each passing year. Climate change, human development, and myriad other influences are wiping out species before you’re even aware they’re under threat–and there are hundreds of thousands of species to account for. Worse, the system you use to designate these plants as endangered isn’t exactly marching to the beat of your own drum.

This is where The New York Botanical Garden‘s experts step in, with a new system that could turn a challenging outlook for botanical conservationists into a bright future.
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Despite what the average travel agent will write on your final quote, you don’t actually have to max out your credit cards to enjoy a taste of the global landscape. Instead, you could just spend some time driving through the Bronx. Block to block, you’ll pass through communities sampled from a half-dozen continents, enclaves built on traditions of culture and cuisine. Korean, Irish, Chinese, Italian, Caribbean–they’re all represented in the people of our borough. And they’re all here, too, growing in the NYBG‘s Global Gardens!

This weekend, the Garden celebrates the bounty of our efforts with the Summer Harvest Festival, joining our knowledgeable Global Gardeners for a romp around the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. Bring your kids along for garden games, crafts, or a taste of what’s ripening in our many diverse plots. And for the parents (or especially precocious young chefs) there will be cooking demonstrations taking place at 2 and 4 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
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Suppose you really can’t draw, but always wished you could…especially when it comes to drawing those gorgeous blooms in your backyard. Well now’s your chance to make your wish come true: Botanical Drawing I is just one of the new summer intensive classes offered by NYBG starting in July. Think of it as a summer camp experience designed for grown-ups.

With the botanical drawing class, in just one week you’ll learn specific techniques for drawing accurately, including professional standards of form, measuring, foreshortening, and perspective. The classes are offered in July (9 through 13) or August (6 through 10), at NYBG and the Midtown Manhattan Center, respectively.
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This year is the 20th Anniversary of our Antique Garden Furniture Show. In honor of its celebration, I will review some of the basics for maintaining antique garden ornaments, but my best suggestion is that you stop by the show from April 26 through 28 and talk to the experts. We will have over 30 antique dealers who specialize in garden ornaments, catering to a wide range of tastes and budgets.

In anticipation of the show, I have been perusing the library’s collection of books, finding inspiration not only in the traditional tomes filled with marble nymphs and cast iron urns, but from modern design books that suggest repurposing local material.

I have started to construct my dream garden piece by piece. One item that is at the top of my wish list is a 19th century terra cotta oil jar from Italy. It was traditionally used to hold vats of olive oil, but in its modern rendition would make a wonderful focal point in an herbaceous border.
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If you’re coming to the NYBG on Sunday for The Nature Conservancy‘s Picnic for the Planet, try not to overdo it during lunch! You’ll want to save room for an evening outing sure to have gourmands salivating, because long-time Friend of the Garden Mario Batali is jumping in with an event of his own.

Building on his success in last year’s Family Garden events, the legendary Babbo chef will once again join with the NYBG in raising awareness about the power of the foods we buy and eat. Along with Mario’s partners, Lidia and Joe Bastianich, the trio’s B&B Hospitality Group honors this year’s Earth Day with a special promotion at each of its restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, sending every patron of their fine B&B restaurants home with a special Earth Day gift. Not only will you leave well-fed, but you’ll do so with a packet of B&BHG’s organic Cherry Belle™ radish seeds. It also doubles as a two-for one ticket offer to visit the NYBG this summer, all in the name of bringing environmental responsibility home.
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This weekend we enter the home stretch of the Orchid Show balanced on a bittersweet note. Thousands of visitors have had the opportunity to experience Patrick Blanc’s inspiring vertical architecture, stepping under, around, and between the reaching walls of tropical foliage and luxuriant orchid flowers. This year’s spring display is a masterwork only “The Green Man” could have conjured.

Going into the final week of our tenth anniversary exhibition, we encourage everyone who hasn’t yet made the short trip to the Bronx to put on some comfortable shoes and step out for a day at the Garden. Between the sunlit brilliance of these spring afternoons and the rare form of the Orchid Show, there are few excuses for missing out.
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Daniel Atha is an Associate Editor of NYBG‘s systemic botany journal, Brittonia, and a researcher specializing in floristics, taxonomy, and economic botany. He has taught classes in anatomy and systemics at the Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture and is currently working on a project to develop identifying DNA barcodes for plants of the Northeastern United States.

“I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.”

–Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric,” from Leaves of Grass, 1855

Urtica dioica L. (stinging nettle)

If told there was a substance promising that each of our five sons, and each of their five sons would grow up to be “massive, clean, tan-faced, handsome,” would we approach that substance with caution, treating it with respect and gratitude? Or would we rush out, blindly gathering as much as we could? Well… Mother Nature must have seen us coming because, while she created just such material, she cleverly devised a way to ensure we respect it.

The “substance” of course is stinging nettle. And of all the matter on earth, nettles come closest to providing our every need in one convenient package. Nettles help us grow strong and they keep us healthy and happy for life. Along the way they feed us, clothe us, transport us, soothe our pains and they even make us beautiful. Want more? They give it, body and soul, sacrificing all for the next generation.

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More specifically, this is the Bronx! I’m led to wonder how many people step out of the subway station on Grand Concourse, fully aware of what lies just a few blocks east.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Cherry blossoms and Easter pastels make for a fair combination, don’t you think? The calendar’s once again rolled into a holiday weekend at The New York Botanical Garden, which just happens to fall in line with the start of spring break for the schoolyard set. That makes for a rare opportunity: a Monday opening! This weather is too marvelous for the kids to sit at home.

The Orchid Show is, of course, the belle of the ball right now, but our 250 acres are making a strong showing as new plants and trees burst into their spring finery with each passing day. Walk among the fields of daffodils and tulips, admire the hellebores, or peek in on the early azaleas–and don’t forget the brilliant cherry and plum blossoms brightening trees throughout the Garden.
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