This Weekend: A Labor Day Lark

Posted in Around the Garden on August 29 2014, by Matt Newman

As one of the last gasps of summer, Labor Day weekend is a chance for NYBG to throw open its gates on a Monday and welcome everyone for what tends to be the closing week of our summer exhibition. And this year, things are no different—we’re rapidly approaching the September 7 end of our Groundbreakers exhibition! If you haven’t found a moment to get away and visit us here in the Bronx, now’s as good a time as any and maybe even better.

Those of you with kids in tow will be happy to know that we’re going full-tilt in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden with our SousaKazooza events, the last of the season. Bring your little ones for some music, marching, and crafts to keep them busy. And for the adults, we’re still offering our full suite of Groundbreakers events alongside a sweeping schedule of tours—Azalea Garden, Rock Garden, Conservatory, Native Plant Garden and Garden Highlights among them—to help you make the most of your afternoon.

Head past the jump for the full schedule, and don’t let the last few weeks of warm sunshine get away from you!

Saturday, August 30

Rock Garden Tour – 11:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
The Rock Garden is a 2 1/2-acre oasis complete with a pond and waterfall and featuring alpine plants from six continents. Join an expertly trained Garden Guide for a walking tour to see and learn more about these jewel-like plants.

Family Adventures: SousaKazooza! – 12–4 p.m.
In the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
Ongoing craft, 12-4 p.m.
Presentations with parades, 12, 1, 2, & 3 p.m.
Kids learn about John Philip Sousa and two of America’s distinct instruments, the sousaphone and kazoo. Participants make bandleader hats and receive a kazoo with which to march around. On Labor Day, September 1, participants are encouraged to come back and take part in a performance in the Ross Hall, for families and friends!

Native Plant Garden Tour – 12:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
Join a tour guide for an insider’s view of the newly designed Native Plant Garden. Enjoy a mosaic of nearly 100,000 native trees, wildflowers, ferns and grasses designed to flourish in every season.

From Ragtime to Jazz: The Roots of Pop – 1 & 3:30 p.m.
In the Ross Hall
Music from the period of Groundbreakers—ragtime, jazz, Broadway, and beyond to Hollywood—had a great impact on American culture. Enjoy a variery of styles in live performances by a trio of artists, including musical producer, pianist, and historian Terry Waldo, featuring the works of Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, Irving Berlin, and Tin Pan Alley composers such as George Gershwin, George M. Cohan, and Dorothy Fields.

Garden Highlights Tour – 2:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
Sights and scents flourish across the 250 acres of the Botanical Garden. Join a Garden Guide for a walking tour featuring highlights of the gardens and plant collections.

Sunday, August 31

Garden Highlights Tour – 12:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
Sights and scents flourish across the 250 acres of the Botanical Garden. Join a Garden Guide for a walking tour featuring highlights of the gardens and plant collections.

Conservatory Tour – 2:30 p.m.
Meet at the entrance to the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory
Explore the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, an acre of plants under glass, with one of the Garden’s Guides. Take an ecotour around the world through 11 distinct habitats, including two types of rain forest, deserts of the Americas and of Africa, and aquatic and carnivorous plant displays.

Monday, September 1

Azalea Garden Tour – 11 a.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
Join us for a guided tour of the 11-acre site that offers an encyclopedic collection of the world’s azaleas planted along a broad hillside punctuated by rock outcrops and shaded by mature native trees.

Rock Garden Tour – 2:30 p.m.
Meet at the Reflecting Pool at the Leon Levy Visitor Center
TheRock Garden is a 2.5-acre oasis complete with a pond and waterfall and featuring alpine plants from six continents. Join an expertly trained Garden Guide for a walking tour to see and learn more about these jewel-like plants.

Family Adventures: SousaPalooza! – 3:30 p.m.
In the Ross Hall
Bring your kazoos and marching band hats! Children who have participated in SousaKazooza are invited to participate in a final presentation of their musical studies during the 3:30 p.m. performance of From Ragtime to Jazz: The Roots of Pop. Children will have the opportunity to perform on stage with professional musicians of The Terry Waldo Trio and show off their newly learned skills on the kazoo.

Ongoing Children’s Programs

Family Adventures: Focusing on Nature
In the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
Weekdays; 1:30–5:30 p.m.
Weekends plus Holiday Mondays; 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Children will explore the art of garden photography and will even have the opportunity to become garden photographers themselves. Through a series of stops within the Garden, they will see the world through a new lens as they learn how observations in science and nature have been recorded throughout time. They will also receive tips about perspective, scale, and framing when taking photographs.

Dig, Plant, Grow: Pollinator Palls: Bees and Butterflies
August 19–October 3
In the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden
The Family Garden is buzzing in late summer! Join us to learn about important pollinators: our honeybees and the monarch butterflies passing us by on their way to Mexico.

Mario Batali’s Kitchen Gardens – 1:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden
Kids can explore with Mario’s Menu Mystery game, featuring favorite vegetables and herbs from nine of his restaurants’ kitchens, including Otto and Del Posto.

This Weekend: A Labor Day Lark

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