Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Archive: July 2011

Sweet and Stinky!

Posted in Learning Experiences on July 21 2011, by Ann Rafalko

Garlic growing in the Family GardenThe Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden is a New York City treasure. It’s an amazing one-and-a-half acre site where children and families can learn about plants and the natural world through hands-on gardening. Each afternoon children–with help from their parents, volunteers, and staff–are encouraged to dig, weed, compost, plant, tend, and harvest in garden plots. These ongoing gardening activities are complemented by a changing roster of programs that encourage children to explore seasonal garden-related themes.

This month’s theme is Sweet and Stinky! Aromatic alliums such as onions and garlic, and herbs such as basil and oregano love the summer heat. Follow the “sweet and stinky” smells to the Family Garden to discover these culinary champions. Savor the scents and tickle your taste buds at our cooking demonstrations or try these delicious recipes at home!

Get the recipes below!

It’s Smurfy! The Smurfs Are Coming to NYBG!

Posted in Around the Garden on July 21 2011, by Ann Rafalko

Smurfs Week NYC at NYBG
Tuesday, July 26 – Sunday, July 31

Brainy, Papa, Grouchy, Gutsy and Smurfette in Columbia Pictures' THE SMURFS.

Celebrate the release of the new movie, The Smurfs ®, with Smurfy fun for kids all week. Embark on a Smurf-errific scavenger hunt exploring the gardens to find things Smurfs love, like mushrooms and berries. Plus, have fun spotting their wildlife friends like frogs, turtles, and birds. Thursday, July 28 ONLY!! Meet Papa Smurf and Smurfette from 1:30-4 p.m. in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden!

See where else in New York City the Smurfs will be popping up!

From the Field: Bill Buck in Tasmania

Posted in Bill Buck, From the Field, Science on July 20 2011, by William R. Buck

Ed. note: The blogging bryologist, Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Botany, Bill Buck, is back! This time, Buck is reporting from Tasmania where he is researching mosses for a week before flying to Melbourne for the International Botanical Congress.

July 15, 2011; Hobart, Tasmania, Australia; final entry

Once again we awoke to a frost, this one so heavy that it almost looked as if it had snowed. We assumed that the frost would not be in the forest, and we were right. Our first scheduled stop was not too far away, along a trail leading to a view of St. Columba Falls. The falls are named for an Irish Catholic saint who copied the Psalms around 500 A.D., which started a war, and who was then exiled to Scotland. The falls were named by an Irish woman who discovered them and who had herself been exiled to Tasmania.

Echidna!
Echidna playing ostrich

On the way to the site we finally saw an echidna, a porcupine-like marsupial. We slammed on the brakes, only to have the only other car we saw all morning blow its horn at us. Nevertheless, we scrambled out of the car to get a better look at this strange little animal. Like an ostrich, it had buried its head in the leaf litter, presumably thinking that if it couldn’t see us then we couldn’t see him. It was great to see this odd Australian animal. The only animal we didn’t get to see that we really wanted to was a wombat.

St. Columba Falls
St. Columba Falls

But duty called, and leaving our new friend behind, we headed up the road to the falls. Because St. Columba Falls is a popular tourist destination (just not first thing in the morning on a winter weekday), we were cautioned not to leave scars from our collecting along the trail. It’s just a short walk to the falls, which is one of the highest in Australia. Although I only found a single moss that I hadn’t seen previously on the trip, I found that many of the mosses I had seen sterile at other sites were fertile here. I collected these judiciously so as to have them as reference material in the herbarium.

Bill and co. go sampling, but this time for cheese! More below.

Today at the Greenmarket

Posted in Around the Garden on July 20 2011, by Ann Rafalko

NYBG Greenmarket TomatoesThe Greenmarket is open today until 3 p.m.! Be sure to stop by.

It’s a beautiful day to get out and sample the goods from our fantastic vendors. 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 (Waterlilies! Daylilies! Roses!) that a quick trip to pick up beans and blackberriescould easily turn into an all-day affair.

Here’s a look at what’s fresh and delicious today at the Greenmarket:

Plums, peaches and blackberries are in season this week!

Gajeski Produce has beautiful bunches of sunflowers and statice, corn, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, beets, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, new potatoes, scallions, string beans, kale, blueberries, black cherry tomatoes, peppers, shallots, basil, cilantro, lettuce, broccoli, new potatoes, scallions, onions, dill, blackberries, blueberries and eggs.

NYBG Greenmarket SunflowersMigliorelli Farm has peaches, snap peas, lita, zucchini, carrots, beets, radishes, fennel, turnips, dandelion, collards, escarole, fennel, kale, chard, broccoli, broccoli rabe, cilantro, swiss chard, parsley, mustard green, bok choy, arugula, parsley, apples, corn, lettuce, blueberries, basil, dill, cilantro, apples, cucumbers, lettuce, blueberries, tomato juice and sauce.

Local honey can be purchased from The Little Bake Shop. Pies of all sorts-cherry, blueberry, apple, and raspberry in the Linzer tart and chocolate croissants, quiches, and scones

Bread Alone has sourdough, multigrain bread, foccacia breads; raisin nut, Ciabatta, and peasant rolls; as well as muffins, tarts, danishes, cookies, baguettes, scones, tarts, cookies, danishes, muffins are also available.

NYBG Greenmarket BeetsRed Jacket Orchard has plums, sour cherries, apples, gooseberries, jams, and juice.

Come learn about healthy choices and safe food preparation from the Cornell University Co-operative Extension and get a free blood pressure screening from Montefiore Hospital staff.

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 their booth. Taste what’s fresh at their weekly cooking demonstrations.

From the Field: Bill Buck in Tasmania

Posted in Bill Buck, From the Field, Science on July 19 2011, by William R. Buck

Ed. note: The blogging bryologist, Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Botany, Bill Buck, is back! This time, Buck is reporting from Tasmania where he is researching mosses for a week before flying to Melbourne for the International Botanical Congress.

Thursday, July 14, 2011; Pyengana, Tasmania, Australia

Bill Buck searching for bryophytes
Bill Buck searching for bryophytes

Winter reared its ugly head again today. Sunrise was at about 7:00 a.m., and as soon as it became light, it was obvious that a heavy frost had whitened the landscape, including our car. So, after thawing out the car, we headed to our first site, the Weldborough Pass Rainforest Walk.

Under the canopy, the frost hadn’t covered everything, and since our primary stop that day would be at a much higher (and thus much chillier) elevation, checking out the forest, which is dominated by large southern beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii) with an understory of large tree ferns (Dicksonia), seemed like a good idea. The multitude of tree ferns at this locality was a special treat. We found a large number of bryophytes and lichens (as well as epiphytic ferns) that prefer the spongy, moist root mantles that comprise the tree fern trunks. We also found quite a large number of mosses that we had not seen before. It took a while for our fingers to thaw from the morning chill but the collecting helped keep us active and warm. In fact the collecting was so good that we ended up staying in the Weldborough Pass Rainforest an hour longer than we had scheduled. We decided to quit at a very good time, though, because as we were packing our collections into the car trunk, two other cars of tourists drove up to use the trail. We cleared out in a hurry before they could see the divots and scars we had left from our collecting!

More mossy adventures below.

Fragrant Daylilies

Posted in Gardening Tips on July 19 2011, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education.

Daylily WalkDaylilies start appearing in the garden in June, but the heyday for these flowers is in July. Starting from the beginning of July until the third or fourth week our Daylily Walk is awash with color. This is happening right now at the Garden!

Daylilies are generally grown for their large, trumpet shaped blossoms that jump out at you in a mixed planting, shouting ‘look at me’. And you should; they come in a vast array of shapes, colors and sizes and there are over 52,000 cultivars to choose from–many of them garden worthy companions.

When you are navigating catalogs and descriptions to find a daylily that suits your gardening style there is a basic terminology that is helpful to know. The throat is the interior of the flower, the eye zone lies just above it forming a band of color on the petals, and a halo is a faint band of color.

Some daylilies are bi-colored, some are doubles and some have a graceful recurved (curling backwards) shapes. While size, color and form are generally the attributes that gardeners assess when buying a daylily, fragrance is another factor to consider.

Learn more about fragrant daylilies below.

From the Field: Bill Buck in Tasmania

Posted in Bill Buck, From the Field, Science on July 18 2011, by William R. Buck

Ed. note: The blogging bryologist, Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Botany, Bill Buck, is back! This time, Buck is reporting from Tasmania where he is researching mosses for a week before flying to Melbourne for the International Botanical Congress.

July 13, 2011; Weldborough, Tasmania, Australia

The rental car travels under a novel underpass in the Blue Tier Nature Preserve
The rental car travels under a novel underpass in the Blue Tier Nature Preserve

Today was mainly a travel day. Before leaving Hobart we ran by Paddy’s office to spread our still-wet specimens on his floor to dry while we are in the field. We headed north out of Hobart toward St. Helens. This town reminds me of some of the small coastal towns in Florida where I grew up, with touristy stores and lots of retirees. We lunched here and then turned inland to our collecting site of the day, the Blue Tier Forest Reserve.

We were a bit dismayed when we arrived at the road into the reserve only to find a “Road Closed” sign at the entrance. However, the road wasn’t blocked so we decided to chance it, which ended up being not nearly as bad a decision as it could have been; it seemed as if a road crew had preceded us! Many of the trees that appeared to have fallen across the road had already been cleared, and the one tree we found that was still over the road had amazingly fallen so that the large branches held the trunk off the ground and formed a kind of tree overpass.

Bill Buck and the Goblin Forest Walk Sign
Bill Buck and the Goblin Forest Walk Sign

Once under the tree, the road got narrower and began showing signs of erosion from previous heavy rains, but it was passable with only a minimal bottoming out of our rental car, though we did seem to be dragging branches under the car almost constantly. When the landscape leveled out, at about 700 meters, we came to a car park for the reserve. The air was decidedly cooler and the area around the parking lot was open, presumably kept so by grazing wallabies, based on the large number of droppings. There were several trail options for leaving the parking lot, and I just couldn’t resist the Goblin Forest Walk.

Learn what a pademelon is below!

A Summer Stroll Around The Waterlily Pool

Posted in Around the Garden, What's Beautiful Now on July 18 2011, by Ann Rafalko

The Waterlily & Lotuses Pool in the courtyard of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a magical place. Summer breezes ripple the surface, playing with the glittering reflection of the Conservatory; koi stick their heads clear out of the water, as if begging for a scratch under the chin; and kaleidoscopic waterlilies and lotuses stir gently, like drowsy dancers at the end of an evening of waltzing. The colors and lingering aromas of these exotic flowers create a enchanted atmosphere, perfect for afternoon daydreaming.

More beauty below.