With April sunshine ushering in spring in full force, it is easy to have green on the brain here at the Garden. Not only is it National Garden Month, it is also Earth Month, during which the Garden will present programs, tours, and demon-
strations featuring ways to get in touch with nature and become more eco-friendly.
Many special events will take place on Earth Day, April 22, including:
Composting made easy with our Gardener for Public Education, Bronx Green-Up, and the NYC Compost Project in the Bronx: Learn how to make compost tea, get answers to your questions on compost, and pick up tip sheets, all in the Home Gardening Center.
Vegetable Gardening for a Green Planet: Find out the easy steps for stocking your kitchen with homegrown foods all season long.
Kids activities in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden and the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden: Plant saplings, make crafts from recycled magazines, learn about earthworms, and more!
Also, take advantage of the gorgeous springtime blooms throughout the Garden’s 250-acre landscape, including the 50-acre Native Forest.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center.
The care of your garden depends on your cultivation practices, how you are using the space, what you are growing (trees, shrubs, perennials, vegetables, annuals), and how intensively you are gardening. It is also influenced by soil conditions and your microclimate.
One of the latest trends in gardening (although not new) is that the soil is a dynamic, living system that needs to be managed, not by pouring harmful chemicals and salts into it, but by supplying it with its nutritional and cultural needs. Healthy soil means healthy plants—plants grown in fertile soil are less prone to pest and disease problems.
Gregory Long is President and CEO of The New York Botanical Garden.
On Saturday, April 10, the Botanical Garden celebrates the opening of its new Midtown Education Center with a free Open House and programs involving New York City’s finest gardening authors and professionals. I invite you to drop in at the Center at 20 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) for the event, which will run from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Speak with the Garden’s experienced instructors in Botanical Art & Illustration, Floral Design, Gardening, and Landscape Design. Take mini-classes, watch demonstrations, hear about the skills you can learn, and review portfolios of current students while considering the courses from among the daytime, evening, and weekend classes.
Since 1917, The New York Botanical Garden’s Adult Education Program has helped students receive unmatched horticultural training. Many of our students have discovered new careers through the Garden; others have cultivated their passion for new, rewarding green hobbies. The top-notch instructors, hands-on classes and seminars, and engaging lecture series you’ve come to expect from the Botanical Garden are now conveniently located just two blocks from Grand Central Terminal.
Jessica Blohm is Interpretive Specialist for Public Education.
The statue of La Giraldilla you see atop a tower in the Conservatory’s Palms Gallery reflecting pool as you enter The Orchid Show: Cuba in Flower represents one of the most ancient and best-loved symbols of the city of Havana. The statue sits atop one of the oldest stone fortresses in the Americas, Castillo de la Real Fuerza (Castle of the Royal Force), a defensive fort built in 1538 after an attack on Havana by French pirates.
The bronze statue, created by Cuban sculptor Jeronimo Martin Pinzon, was added to the Castle in the early 1630s. The female figure is thought to represent Doña Isabel de Bobadilla, wife of Cuban Governor Hernando de Soto. When Governor de Soto sailed from Havana in 1539 to conquer Florida, he left Doña Isabel to govern in his stead, making her Havana’s only female governor.
Legend has it that from that day on, Doña Isabel spent hours in the highest part of the Castle awaiting her husband’s return. Governor de Soto died four years after his departure from Cuba on the banks of the great river he discovered, the Mississippi. A few days later, Doña Isabel is reported to have died of a broken heart. She is posed forever looking out to sea for her husband’s ship.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. For hands-on demonstrations and orchid tips, join her in the Conservatory’s GreenSchool every Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. throughout The Orchid Show.
One of the joys of working at The New York Botanical Garden is that you are surrounded by experts, enthusiasts, and curious minds. The Garden has a large team of talented research scientist who convene on a regular basis to share their work and interests in an in-house seminar series.
Recently, we were spoiled with the presence of Robbin Moran, Ph.D., Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Botany, who specializes in the study of tropical ferns and lycophytes. But rather than his usual discussions of systematics and pteridophyte matters, he shared with us his recreational reading over the past year: the six books that Charles Darwin wrote after his publication of On the Origin of Species that pertain specifically to the study of botany. Those of you who attended our exhibition Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure in 2008 will remember that the celebrated naturalist was an avid experimenter and committed to the study of botany.
Laura Collier is Marketing Associate at The New York Botanical Garden.
Since I started working at the Garden, my friends, family, and acquaintances assume I instantly acquired all sorts of plant-related knowledge. I have to politely explain that, while I love being at the Garden, my position doesn’t provide me with a wealth of horticultural learning. But, times arise when it’s time to step up and get some hands-on training. And that’s exactly what I’ve done with The Orchid Show: Cuba in Flower.
Besides regularly stopping by the Conservatory on my lunch break to check out the show and all its blooms, I’ve decided to purchase an orchid from Shop in the Garden, to bring a bit of the show to my home in Queens. Luckily, I’m not expected to be an expert at the Shop when picking out flowers. Along the shelves full of orchids are signs with great tips about orchid care and details about each type. (For more great tips, click here)
Garden Scientist Talk Reveals What’s New in Northeastern N. America
Robert Naczi, Ph.D., is Curator of North American Botany.
Since its founding in 1891, The New York Botanical Garden has been a center of scientific study of the plant life of northeastern North America. Generations of Garden scientists have been active in writing books that aid in the identification of plants that grow spontaneously within this vast region, which extends from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, and south to Virginia and northern Missouri (more than 25 percent of the area of the contiguous United States). This region hosts about 5,000 species, including many that are essential for a healthy environment, economically important, and quite beautiful, such as Lilium superbum (turk’s-cap lily, pictured here).
The most recent book on the subject is Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada by Henry A. Gleason and Arthur Cronquist (1991, The New York Botanical Garden Press; also available electronically). Professors, students, land managers, conservationists, and gardeners universally regard it as an indispensable reference. Advances in botany since 1991 have made a major revision of the Manual an obvious necessity.
With April sunshine ushering in spring in full force, it is easy to have green on the brain here at the Garden. Not only is it National Garden Month, it is also Earth Month, during which the Garden will present programs, tours, and demon-
