Skip to main content
 
Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Archive: August 2012

The Weekend Buzz

Posted in Around the Garden on August 24 2012, by Matt Newman

Would I say there’s a busy atmosphere about the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden this weekend? Definitely. But would I say there’s a…buzzy atmosphere? Seeing as I’m absolutely the kind of guy to kick off a wave of pained groans by dropping such a boulder of a pun, I’m going to go ahead and affirm that one. As of this week, New York’s favorite vegetable garden is looking beyond the tomatoes and cucumbers to the pollinators that make them possible, and that includes our lively honey bees!

Overlooking the NYBG‘s one-acre vegetable plot is a pair of active beehives that you can see and read about in one of our earlier picture galleries, but if you really want to grasp just what it is that has New York City’s rooftop gardeners going mad for apiculture, you and your children should come and visit. Through “Pollinator Pals,” we’re opening up this integral piece of the agricultural puzzle with fun activities for kids, as well as the opportunity to see first-hand how a beehive works and even sample a few different types of honey. The experience isn’t limited to what you get in a bear-shaped squeeze bottle at the supermarket–what’s growing near the hive can noticeably influence the nuanced flavors of the honey the bees produce.

Read More

Morning Eye Candy: Windflower

Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on August 24 2012, by Matt Newman

Why do they call it an anemone, anyway? At a glance, the flower doesn’t seem to have much in common with the seagoing variety. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word comes from the Greek for “daughter of the wind.” Most sea anemones seem to fit that description, waving as they do in the ocean currents, so I suppose a flower bobbing in the breeze is close enough.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

What’s Beautiful Now: Late Summer Roses

Posted in What's Beautiful Now on August 23 2012, by Matt Newman

Stick your head out the window. You don’t have to be full-on family dog weird about it–just poke it out there and see what the weather’s like. Is it a warm day, no sidewalks buried in snow drifts or ice hazard traffic advisories? Then odds are good that the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden should be somewhere in the top three lines of your list of destinations. There are over 4,000 rose specimens in this collection alone, and while spring is the season when visitors are most often scrambling to get a peek (understandably, as roses are like smelling salts after the listless gloom of winter), many people don’t realize that there’s a confetti of colorful rose cultivars blooming at the NYBG for a solid six months out of the year.

Skip over to the Rose Garden right now (while the weather is almost confusingly decent, hence the skipping; I’m talking sit-outside-for-lunch pleasant) and you’ll find the stage set with a show of shrub roses in pinks, whites, and reds. Floribunda, grandiflora, hybrid tea–they’re all there, petaled like petticoats and parasols.

Read More

Morning Eye Candy: DIY

Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on August 23 2012, by Matt Newman

We geek out pretty regularly over the photos snapped in the Home Gardening Center, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overheard visitors asking “What’s that?” as they pass by this humble (or not-so-humble, depending on what’s in bloom) corner of the NYBG. For those not in the know, this is where we show off our practical chops–where the home horticulturist can come for some back yard inspiration.

Not only does the HGC house the Pauline Gillespie Gossett Plant Trials Garden and a composting demonstration area, but it’s also where we host our weekend gardening demonstrations. So if you’re here on a Saturday or Sunday, get a glance at the schedule before you hoof it into the Garden. “Free” and “super helpful” are usually the best ways to describe our learning sessions, meaning they’re worth making time for.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Hummingbird Buffet!

Posted in Around the Garden on August 22 2012, by Matt Newman

The Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)

Not all home gardens are focused on the artful arrangement of their perennial plantings, or the ways in which the borders complement the patio furniture. Instead, it’s sometimes best to let form follow function. And I’m not just talking about the Gordian knot of cucumber vines in your vegetable garden! Of all the green conceits you can put to work in your yard, one of the most casual and native gardens you can grow is the one that will draw the greatest attention from your neighbors–though admittedly neighbors of a feathered variety.

Attracting hummingbirds to your plot is more than a game of luck; now and then you need to be proactive. And when it comes to inviting wildlife to your garden, it can’t hurt to start with a proven lure.

There’s a fireworks show taking place in the NYBG‘s Azalea Garden this month, thanks to a single native plant known as Lobelia cardinalis, or the “cardinal flower.” This colorful perennial is native and common throughout much of North America, springing up in wetlands from Texas east to Florida, and north to New Brunswick in Canada. So if you live on the east coast, you’ve already checked off one important box on the list of the lobelia’s growing requirements. Easy, right? In the northeast in particular, having a collection of lobelias in your burgeoning hummingbird garden is a sure step to attracting the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)–the only North American hummingbird to nest east of the Mississippi.

Read More

Weekly Greenmarket Preview: Plum Delicious

Posted in Around the Garden, Programs and Events on August 21 2012, by Matt Newman

Don’t fold up your handkerchief just yet! You’re going to need something to keep your hands dry this Wednesday, because August may still be National Peach Month, but the fuzzy fruit’s friends–the juiciest plums and pears–are sliding right into their summer harvests. That means Bartletts, Seckels, and more Italian plums than you can stuff in your reusable bag, all waiting to make the trip from this week’s Greenmarket stalls to your own personal dining room still life. You do have a fruit bowl at home, right?

Whether it’s that first, tangy-sweet bite of a plum you’re craving, or an afternoon spent snacking on pear slices in the last of the hammock weather, you’ll find ripe fruits, vegetables, baked goods and more stacked high for Wednesday’s NYBG Greenmarket. It runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and as always, one-hour parking at the Mosholu Gate entrance and Garden grounds admission are completely free. As with many of the greenmarkets around NYC, attending growers also accept EBT, WIC, FNMP and NYC Health Bucks.

Read More

What’s Out There Weekend: Tour New York’s Greener Side (for Free!)

Posted in Programs and Events on August 21 2012, by Matt Newman

No such thing as a free lunch? Maybe not! But free fun is another story altogether. Thanks to a collaboration with The Cultural Landscape Foundation, The New York Botanical Garden is joining organizations across New York City for a weekend of exploring the most iconic landscape architecture our metropolis has to offer, and in our case, a special focus on the important design contributions women have made to the Garden’s 120-year history.

It’s called “What’s Out There Weekend,” and it’s likely the largest tour event you’re going to see this year. Just think of it as a giant field trip through the world’s greatest city, where you get to pick and choose your destinations as you go. On October 6 and 7–following the Central Park Woodlands conference on Friday the 5th–the Garden becomes one of 25 organizations across the five boroughs to open their gates, offering expert-led tours to registrants at no cost (unless you count a couple of MetroCard swipes to zip around town).

Read More