Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Photography on August 10 2011, by Ann Rafalko
This mama duck decided that one of the beds in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden would be a perfect place to start a new family, so she built a nest right in the middle of one!
Mama Duck says “Quack!” (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in People, Video on August 9 2011, by Plant Talk
Early this year, the New York Botanical Garden partnered with National Book Foundation and Poetry Society of America to create a literary element to our audio tours. With support from an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, we reached out to a number of NYC-based authors and poets and asked them to produce works based on their experiences or certain areas of the Garden.
Below you can see one of our contributors for the summer: author Ana Boži?evi? who chose the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden as her inspiriation for her work, Rose Hopscotch.
You can access the audio tour two ways:
Using your cell phone, call 718.362.9561 and type in the number next to the audio tour symbol on signs throughout the Garden grounds. You can even call from home if you’d like.
What do you think of the new Audio Literary Tour? Are there any NYC-based authors you’d like to see for upcoming seasons? Leave us a comment and let us know!
Posted in Photography on August 9 2011, by Ann Rafalko
The dramatic curves of the genus Lilium.
Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Around the Garden on August 8 2011, by Mertz Library
The Floral Flyer ran on weekends and holidays at The New York Botanical Garden from May 1949 until the early 1970s, when it was taken out of service. The Flyer is a precursor to the Tram available to today’s Garden visitors. Current tram operation began in the early 1990s and it is available daily.
An announcement about The Floral Flyer first appears in the April 1949 issue of The Journal of The New York Botanical Garden:
“OPERATION of a three-car tractor train around the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden is scheduled to begin in May, provided the roadway now nearing completion over the new bridge across the Bronx River is ready for use by that time. The train, which is similar to those borrowed from the Zoo for tours of the grounds during Garden Week in May 1945, is the gift of Mrs. Harold Irving Pratt, who played a prominent part in the plans for the Botanical Garden’s 50th Anniversary celebration at that time. It is to be named the Floral Flyer.
“Each of the three cars will hold 16 passengers. While the train’s schedule and route have not yet been determined, it is expected that it will go to the Conservatory, along the road through the woods to the new bridge in the vicinity of the Rose Garden, north from the Rose Garden along the gorge of the Bronx River, skirting the Hemlock Forest, the collections of deciduous trees, and the magnolias, then turning westward over the boulder bridge and south to the Museum building.”
Mrs. Pratt herself christened The Floral Flyer on May 26 using a watering can filled with daylilies “as emblematic of the New York Botanical Garden’s scientific and horticultural accomplishments.”
The Flyer made more than one thousand round-trips over the Memorial Day weekend, in 1949. The fare that first summer for non-members was twenty cents for a twenty-minute, gas-powered ride. The cost of a modern day tram ride is included in the price of All-Garden Pass or Membership.
Posted in Photography on August 8 2011, by Ann Rafalko
The dahlia may be ‘Bashful,’ but the bee–hard at work–is anything but.
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Photography on August 7 2011, by Ann Rafalko
On the Seasonal Walk (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Photography on August 6 2011, by Ann Rafalko
The Rock Garden in Summer (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Around the Garden on August 5 2011, by Plant Talk
Last week we told you about some very special visitors coming to the Garden. Because last week was Smurf Week in New York City (in honor of the new movie The Smurfs ®), the Everett Children’s Garden played host to two of the hottest stars in Hollywood today: Papa Smurf and Smurfette. Check out this short video below highlighting their visit.
And just because the Smurfs are gone doesn’t mean the fun is over at the Children’s Garden. Right now the “Flowers to Fruits” program runs everyday (1:30-5:30 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. on weekends). Children can make a Nature Field Notebook and identify the dizzying diversity of flowers and pollinators that inhabit the Adventure Garden during the summer months. Create a pollinator puppet, pot up a plant, and visit the pond to spot frogs, turtles, and other wetland wildlife.
Find out what’s happening during your visit to the Garden in our “Plan your visit” section of our website.
Posted in Photography on August 5 2011, by Ann Rafalko
The seed of the London plane tree is anything but plain.
Platanus x acerifolia ‘Pyramidalis’ (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Photography on August 4 2011, by Ann Rafalko
Like the wide open prairie, or Texas Hill Country, except it’s the Bronx!
The Everett Children’s Adventure Garden (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
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