Creating a masterpiece takes more than simple inspiration. It requires preparation–arranging each color and readying the canvas. And as with a painting, Monet’s Garden at the NYBG is a work of art with as much going on behind the scenes as happens in the open.
Marc Hachadourian, Manager of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections, takes us through the expansive collection of delphiniums, poppies, nasturtiums and other flowers that will soon embody our homage to Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny. Months of careful tending in specialized growing environments have allowed us to tease the flowers into bloom all at once, re-creating the artist’s living muse at its kaleidoscopic peak. But you won’t have to wait that long to see them.
If you haven’t reserved your tickets yet, get to our ticket page! The doors to the French master’s private paradise open to New York on May 19.
We’re entering the weekend of our Spring Gardening Open House, leading a seasonal tour de force through the explosive color of the Azalea Garden, the awakening Rose Garden, and of course, the Rock Garden! It’s a perfect cocktail of the mesmerizing and the serene (though the afternoon wine tastings can’t hurt, either). And more than an opportunity to revel in the spring landscape, it’s a chance to brush up on your gardening techniques.
Meet with expert Garden Tour Guides for a tour through our iconic landscapes, then stop in with our talented gardeners for casual demonstrations on the care of azaleas and Alpine plants. The Rock Garden in particular is the home of New York’s most revered Alpine collection, as well as an integral piece of Nature’s Showplace, so make a point of spending some time there. If anything, it will help you to experience the very thing we’re trying to restore!
Suppose you really can’t draw, but always wished you could…especially when it comes to drawing those gorgeous blooms in your backyard. Well now’s your chance to make your wish come true: Botanical Drawing I is just one of the new summer intensive classes offered by NYBG starting in July. Think of it as a summer camp experience designed for grown-ups.
With the botanical drawing class, in just one week you’ll learn specific techniques for drawing accurately, including professional standards of form, measuring, foreshortening, and perspective. The classes are offered in July (9 through 13) or August (6 through 10), at NYBG and the Midtown Manhattan Center, respectively.
The sun doesn’t have a monopoly on picturesque afternoons. Really, it’s all about how you choose to appreciate your surroundings. This week’s rain had many of us muttering under the cover of our umbrellas, but the way in which an overcast sky saturates spring colors tends to make up for the inconvenience.
Not that we’re ungrateful for this weekend’s forecast–the chance of a drizzle keeps dropping, and dropping..
More from our local do-it-yourself shutterbug! Followers over the last year will have seen our previous contributions from Joel Kroin, whose pinhole captures cast a narrow bridge between the charm of old-fashioned photography and modern composition. His shots of the Garden grounds almost give a tricky glimpse into the past.
Normally Joel doesn’t bring his pinhole camera to the Garden quite as often once the leaves return. “With so many flower and leaf colors, this time of the year is not my favorite since leaves obscure fine plant lines,” he says. In this case, one shot in particular catches our eye, as well as the essence of the Rock Garden–a classic Alpine landscape underscored by the peaceful gush of water over stone.
Not quite the garlic you were looking for? Schubert’s Garlic, or Allium schubertii, is indeed related to the bulbs you find haphazardly piled together in the produce section of your local supermarket. As part of the onion family, it even gives off that familiar smell when bruised or broken. But Schubert’s Garlic is known more for its bright sprays of pink and green florets than for its culinary uses.
My only run-in with the legacy of Pythagoras lies in a mathematical theorem: A2+B2=C2. One of those familiar formulas you’re smacked around with in middle school geometry, something most of us had to suffer. (“Suffer” being relative to whether or not you’re as mathematically stunted as I am.) But in the shadow of this Greek philosopher’s lauded contributions to the number game, what else do we find?
Beans, actually–the same delicious, colorful family of foodie favorites we were talking about only recently. It’s thanks to the obscure (dare we say esoteric?) knowledge of Matthew Wills that we were clued into the rather demented history of the legume.
Bear with me here. I’m not running off on a mad tangent about the piddling dietary habits of a long-dead philosopher. Or maybe I am. It was during Pythagoras’ lifetime as a renowned Greek thinker and teacher that he seeded a bushel of ideas far above and beyond his maths. He also created a religion of sorts. And within the guidelines of that religion, supposed dietary restrictions. I say “supposed” because Pythagoras never wrote anything down himself; it was owed to his followers in succeeding generations that anything the man thought or declared was ever saved for posterity. In and among reflections on the transmigration of the soul and the importance of music, we find the humble bean.
Creating a masterpiece takes more than simple inspiration. It requires preparation–arranging each color and readying the canvas. And as with a painting, Monet’s Garden at the NYBG is a work of art with as much going on behind the scenes as happens in the open.
