Oh happy day! The Greenmarket is back at The New York Botanical Garden! And while the staff may be very happy for the return of fresh produce, ice cold juices, delicious pies, and freshly-baked breads, the Greenmarket is really a boon to the neighborhood. Grounds admission is free on Wednesdays (there is an additional charge for entrance to the Conservatory and certain gardens), but there’s so much to see on the grounds right now (The Rose Garden! The Perennial Garden! The Forest!) that a quick trip to pick up some salad greens and strawberries could easily turn into an all-day affair.
Here’s a look at what’s fresh and delicious today at the Greenmarket:
At Gajeski Produce you can find sugar snap peas, spinach, lettuces, kale, collards, and zucchini. Herbs like basil, dill, and parsley are fragrant and flavorful. This year they will also be bringing fresh eggs from Feather Ridge Farm for all to enjoy.
Migliorelli Farm has cooked up homemade marinara sauce and tomato juice for a different way to enjoy the harvest. Bok choy, swiss chard, arugula, and cilantro abound.
Large and small fruit pies go fast fromThe Little Bake Shop–a variety of fruits are featured–cherry, blueberry, apple, and raspberry in the Linzer tart. Chocolate croissants are also available.
Bread Alone has multigrain and foccacia breads; raisin nut, Ciabatta, and peasant rolls; as well as muffins, tarts, danishes and cookies.
Red Jacket Orchard has strawberries, rhubarb, and Bosc pears. Red delicious, empire, and crispin apples, apple butter, and refreshing fruit juices are standard favorites.
You can learn more about Greenmarket, part of the Council on the Environment of New York City and one of the largest open-air farmers market programs in the country at their booth. Also today there will be health screenings from Montefiore Hospitaland a healthy cooking demonstration meeting at the market at 12:30 p.m.
The market is located inside the New York Botanical Garden near Tulip Tree Allee at the Mosholu Gate entrance. EBT/Food Stamps and WIC & Senior FMNP coupons are accepted.
Did you know that there’s a second rose garden at NYBG? It’s much smaller, but it’s even less pampered: It’s the EarthKind™ Rose Trials beds, just south of Daffodil Hill. The goal of the EarthKind™ program is to identify cultivars that combine beauty with proven durability in the landscape. These roses get no water other than what falls from the sky. In fact they get almost no attention at all (other than an occasional trim), and yet they thrive. If you think roses are fussy and hard to grow, check out these beds for some great choices for your own yard.
Check out this short video on the subject hosted by the rose garden curator Peter Kukielski himself.
The New York Botanical Garden has hosted many an exhibition over the years, from dazzling Orchid displays to Chihuly’s ethereal glass creations to the intriguing art of Japanese chrysanthemum growing and everything else in between. But never has an exhibition catered to all five senses in the way Spanish Paradise: Gardens of the Alhambra does.
The air in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is filled with fragrant herbs and zesty citrus blossoms, coupled with the colorful blossoms of ornamental sages and a range of flowering plants. Meanwhile, the Garden Cafe is serving up mouth watering slices of Serrano ham complimented by fruit-laden sangria. And for those of you who make the trip out on the weekend, the Arthur and Janet Lecture Hall is filled the rattle of castanets and the rhythm of a cajon (box-drum).
The Garden is pleased to host a summer residency for the dance group FLAMENCO: inside/out. The trio performs each Saturday and Sunday for the run of the show (through August 21st). You can catch them each day at 1,2, and 3 p.m. in the Lecture Hall and the show is included with your Garden admission. Here’s a little taste of what to expect, both in the Conservatory and the lecture hall!
There is nothing inherently complex about hostas. They are easy-to-grow, readily available, adaptable foliage plants for the shade garden. The problem with hostas is that they have a predisposition toward mutation, and there is a glut of similar looking cultivars on the market.
So how do you navigate the vast selection of these ubiquitous shade lovers to find a few outstanding specimens for your garden? The Azalea Garden provides an ideal opportunity for window shopping, offering ideas for choice cultivars and tips on how to integrate them into your woodland landscape design. In this new garden, azaleas are paired with ferns, sedges, grasses, and woodland perennials.
Hostas come from Japan, China, and Korea. The common name was once plantain-lily and the former Latin name, Funkia,was often used as a common name as well. There are around 45 species of hosta with over 7,000 cultivars. Two well-known species are the fragrant Chinese Hosta plantaginea and the waxy glaucous (blue) Japanese Hosta sieboldiana. Theyare parents to a myriad of successful cultivars on the market. Members of the plantaginea group tend to be heat lovers, while members of the sieboldiana group cannot take too much sun and warmth, their waxy blue coating starts to melt and turns green.
Hostas are notorious for having split personalities, meaning they sometimes change color during the course of the season. There are terms for this type of color instability: A hosta that changes from yellow or white to green is called viridescence; a change from green to yellow is called lutescence; and from yellow to white albescence.
Hostas are often classified by size: dwarf, miniature, small, medium, large, or giant. Each category has a different height range (given in inches) and average leaf size (given in square inches). For example, a giant hosta is over 28 inches tall and has a leaf surface area of greater than 144 square inches.
Three of our intrepid visual specialists (aka photographer Ivo M. Vermeulen, photo editor Mark Pfeffer, and videographer Rustin Dwyer) spent last Friday morning at the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, taking turns going up in the bucket truck to snap some truly stunning photographs and video of this spectacular garden at peak bloom.
Here’s a shot Ivo took from the bucket of Mark, Rustin, and our new Web designer Eduardo Almonte.
A little perspective.
Mark in the bucket.
And the results? Gorgeous!
The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden (photo by Mark Pfeffer)
Oh happy day! The Greenmarket is back at The New York Botanical Garden! And while the staff may be very happy for the return of fresh produce, ice cold juices, delicious pies, and freshly-baked breads, the Greenmarket is really a boon to the neighborhood. Grounds admission is free on Wednesdays (there is an additional charge for entrance to the Conservatory and certain gardens), but there’s so much to see on the grounds right now (The Rose Garden! The Perennial Garden! The Forest!) that a quick trip to pick up some salad greens and strawberries could easily turn into an all-day affair.
There is nothing inherently complex about hostas. They are easy-to-grow, readily available, adaptable foliage plants for the shade garden. The problem with hostas is that they have a predisposition toward mutation, and there is a glut of similar looking cultivars on the market.
