The Perennial Garden has a certain majesty in any season. Those benches never fail to offer a view.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Sit a moment in the sun-warmed air. Fall is here, the colors say so. Yellow, orange, maroon. The grapevine bare, waiting, wondering if snow will soon be there.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

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

Korean mums were first hybridized (bred) in Connecticut in the 1930s by a nurseryman named Alex Cummings. He was working on hybridizing cold-hardy varieties that would flourish in New England temperatures. A tall plant–a wild species he mistakenly identified as Chrysanthemum coreanum–fell into his hands and the results were the lavish Korean mums you see planted today in both our Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden and the Home Gardening Center.

The chrysanthemum that Cummings was working with turned out to be Chrysanthemum sibiricum, a wild mum with white-pink daisies, vigorous growth, and good branching. This species is also native to Korea, so the popular name of “Korean mum” is correct. Korean hybrids tend to be four feet tall with spectacular, daisy-like flowers that come in a wide range of colors, from pale yellow and dusty pink to burnt-orange and fiery red.

At The New York Botanical Garden, we have a selection program for the Korean mums. Each year we grow a wide variety of Korean mums in a kaleidoscope of colors. In the Perennial Garden, we group them as separate colors–a selection of red mums in the hot room, pink in the cool room–paired beautifully with fall shrubs and perennials to create vibrant autumnal displays.
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The dahlias aren’t ready to pack away their summer neons yet!

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

If you’re moping around your desk on this gray Friday with daydreams of dry shoes in your head, rest assured you’ve got a kindred spirit here at the NYBG. But if there’s any kind of karmic balance in the universe, this weekend should be the payoff, because forecasts are promising a mostly sunny Saturday and Sunday in the city with temperatures to make you think spring is throwing an encore.

In the Perennial and Rose Gardens, that spring sentiment has never been stronger. These spots are home to some of the Garden’s most vibrant fall blooms, as well as many of the last outdoor flowers you’ll see before winter sets in. You’ll want to shuffle your schedule book around to make room for our tours and demonstrations, where expert docents and Garden horticulturists–Sonia Uyterhoeven included–dish out tips and info on rose gardening, autumn chrysanthemums, and everything in between.
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Don’t miss out on this weekend’s Perennial Garden tour at 12:30 this Saturday! Along with the Rose Garden, it’s one of the prime Garden spots to see fall flowers before the snow sets in. (Assuming we even see any this winter.)

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Just checking in with some popular bombshells from the Perennial Garden. Got any plans to close out the weekend?

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Why do they call it an anemone, anyway? At a glance, the flower doesn’t seem to have much in common with the seagoing variety. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word comes from the Greek for “daughter of the wind.” Most sea anemones seem to fit that description, waving as they do in the ocean currents, so I suppose a flower bobbing in the breeze is close enough.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

It’s not that the daylilies are pleading with you to come see them. But looking like this, who would have to?

Hemerocallis ‘Poinsettia’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen