Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Archive: July 2013

This Sunday: Our Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs!

Posted in Programs and Events on July 24 2013, by Matt Newman

Family Dinner with Mario Batali's ChefsFour days and counting! We’re ticking off the calendar squares ahead of summer’s first Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs, and with good reason: we’ve had the menu for weeks and it’s making us unbelievably hungry. Simple, right? Of course, the seasonal flavors and aromas are anything but. This Sunday, July 28, Chef Cruz Goler of Lupa Osteria Romana teams with Chef Frank Langello of Babbo, creating a kitchen super group in the NYBG‘s own Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden.

If Mozzarella di Bufala, marinated strip steak, pistachio olive oil cake, and the fresh, kaleidoscopic flavors created by two of New York’s best restaurants pique your appetite, this MasterCard® Priceless event isn’t something you’ll settle for missing.

The three-course, family-style meal doesn’t skimp, providing expertly-paired wines, sparkling Italian water, and all the fixings necessary for a picture perfect night around the table. But it wouldn’t be a proper Garden event without some extra variety, so we’ve gone ahead and flushed out the evening with a romp in the Family Garden. Expect plenty of hands-on gardening crafts and activities to keep the little ones occupied, while we encourage adults to get their hands dirty, too. We’re also bookending the dinner service with cooking demonstrations by Mario’s Chefs, giving you a glimpse into the expertise that creates each gourmet recipe. Even better, you’ll be able to ask them questions as they go!

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This Week at the Greenmarket: (Goose)Berry Delicious

Posted in Programs and Events on July 23 2013, by Matt Newman

GreenmarketThe heatwave’s bid us adieu, and just in time for this week’s Greenmarket. That’s good news for everyone who was sweating it out for last week’s event (though judging by the vegetable hauls recorded on Instagram, you weren’t all that bothered by the sun last Wednesday). In any case, our vendors will be keeping up their presentation of the July harvest with even more fresh-picked and delicious goodies to offer.

Last week we saw the arrival of peaches from Migliorelli Farm, accompanied by blueberries, corn, eggs, and all sorts of tomato and apple sauces and juices. From Red Jacket Orchards, the gooseberries were the big surprise, following raspberries, black currants, apricots, sugar plums, and then some. And from Meredith’s Bread (a breakfast favorite around here—be there early or you may miss out on some stuff), cherry, mixed berry, and apple-raspberry crumb pies; cinnamon rolls, brownies, cookies, and sweet breads—chocolate cream cheese, carrot cake, and banana nut among them.

What’s new for this week? We don’t know yet! With the vagaries of weather and crops to deal with, harvest times aren’t often set in stone. But we’ll have more news on that come Wednesday.

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A Whiter Shade of Pale

Posted in Gardening Tips on July 23 2013, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.


Phlox 'Miss Lingard'
Phlox carolina ‘Miss Lingard’

When Keith Reid penned the famous lyrics to the debut song for the British rock group Procol Harum in 1967, his inspiration for the title came from a conversation he had overheard at a party when a man exclaimed to a woman, “You have turned a whiter shade of pale.”

Reid thought it was a cool compliment and wished he had uttered the phrase. Quite frankly, I am glad I wasn’t the woman. Coming from the tan generation, I don’t think I would have taken kindly to the utterance.

If pale was trendy in the UK in 1967, it’s certainly still trendy in the NYC plant world in 2013. I was giving a class on perennial garden maintenance as part of my Home Gardening Series, which meets every Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. (free to all garden visitors), and I was amazed at how many ‘rad’— or should I date myself and say ‘groovy’—perennials were a whiter shade of pale.

Phlox carolina ‘Miss Lingard’ seems to be popping up everywhere this year. I see her in the new Native Plant Garden, in the Children’s Adventure Garden, in the Home Gardening Center and on my tours of the High Line. She is an early version of the stalwart Phlox paniculata ‘David’—a must for any white garden.

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The Amazon Water Lily: Adapted to the River’s Rise and Fall

Posted in Science on July 22 2013, by Scott Mori

Scott A. Mori is the Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany at the The New York Botanical Garden. His research interests are the ecology, classification, and conservation of tropical rain forest trees.  His most recent book is Tropical Plant Collecting: From the Field to the Internet.


Ghillean T. Prance showing the underside of a leaf of the Amazon water lily.
Ghillean T. Prance showing the underside of a leaf of the Amazon water lily. Photo by S. A. Mori.

The waters of the Amazon fluctuate as much as 45 feet in years of heavy rainfall, meaning plants growing along the river are alternately subject to flooding in the wet season and dry soils in the dry season. To tolerate these extreme habitats, some Amazonian plants have evolved adaptations to both situations. A perfect example is the Amazon water lily (Victoria amazonica), which has adjusted its annual life cycle to the rise and fall of the rivers by growing rhizomes and new leaves from seeds, flowering at high water, fruiting as the water recedes, and surviving low water levels as seeds—each one surrounded by an impervious seed coat that protects against desiccation.

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