What’s Beautiful Now: Winter’s Hints

Posted in What's Beautiful Now on January 28 2013, by Matt Newman

Other than a few valiant (or confused) snowdrops peeking up from under the soil, the bulk of the NYBG‘s outdoor flowers continue to sleep it off until the early days of spring. That makes the Garden’s beauty less reliant on the landmarks of a map, and moreso on the simple love of exploration! The Forest, home to such a thick canopy in summer, now shows off the linework of its illustrated branches. The warm gradient of the grasses and reeds stands in for bobbing flower heads. And in months like January, the landscape takes on iced-over contrasts with a dab of the noir aesthetic.

2012’s winter offering proved closer to an endless fall than anything climatologists would have preferred, creating some interesting consequences in plant behavior. But this year, climate change aside, winter is making at least the tiniest effort to act the part! For one, buying these boots was hands-down my best decision of 2013–I’ve already saved myself a few embarrassing falls in the snowdrifts we get every few days. Even the fast-flowing Bronx River is still sloughing off the ice that crept in over the course of last week’s dipping thermometer.

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Fleeting as it can be, we appreciate the winter around here, and so do the plants; the cold is an alarm of sorts, cueing them in to the necessary changes they’re supposed to go through each season. Without winter’s clock turning over as intended, buds come up late, flowers jump the gun, and our horticulturists have an interesting time catering to the new schedules. So, in honor of winter’s hint of a comeback, we invite you to come and soak up the boot weather while you still have the opportunity.

There’s a little under two months until the vernal equinox puts winter back in its box, so keep your eye on the weather forecast! Seeing flurries fall on the trees around here is like living in a holiday film, and that’s not hyperbole.