Skip to main content
 
Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Archive: July 2015

Experience al Fresco Garden Dining with Mario Batali’s Famed Chefs

Posted in Programs and Events on July 8 2015, by Matt Newman

Family Dinners

With summer’s warmth and the verdant greenery that fills the landscape around this time of year, it’s almost a given that most of us will spend at least one night enjoying an al fresco meal in view of the setting sun, soaking up the benefits of shorts-and-sandals weather while there’s still time to spare. Of course, dining outdoors with the benefit of a top-tier chef at the helm is that much better, right?

Read More

Amazing Asters: A Colorful Guide for Home Gardeners

Posted in Shop/Book Reviews on July 8 2015, by Joyce Newman

Joyce H. Newman is an environmental journalist and teacher. She holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden.

Plant Lover's Guide to AstersA new series of photo-driven guides for the home gardener called the Plant Lover’s Guides devotes each lavishly illustrated book to a single popular plant. One of the newest installments in the series focuses on asters. It is written by Paul Picton and his daughter, Helen, specialist growers who operate prize-winning Picton Garden, near Malvern, in Herefordshire, England.

The Pictons are passionate experts in the field and their garden holds more than 400 different forms of asters that flower at their peak in the late summer and fall, right up to the frosty winter. Their book, The Plant Lover’s Guide to Asters ($24.95, Timber Press), available at the Shop in the Garden, recommends the best varieties and designs for different growing conditions, along with color combinations that work well, and in-depth advice on planting and maintenance.

Read More

A Walk Among the Daylilies

Posted in Horticulture on July 6 2015, by Rachel Rock-Blake

Rachel Rock-Blake is the Assistant Curator of Outdoor Collections at NYBG.

Hemerocallis fulva
Hemerocallis fulva

Among our many extensive botanical collections in the Garden, the daylilies have a story that is very close to the heart of The New York Botanical Garden. Considered the “father of the modern daylily,” Dr. Arlow Burdette Stout (1876–1957) spent a majority of his career as a scientist at NYBG. The daylilies that bloom along Daylily/Daffodil Walk this time of year include Hemerocallis species, Stout’s own hybrids, and selections of the tens of thousands of named cultivars that Stout’s work has inspired.

A mainstay in American home gardens and a common sight along our roadways in the summer, daylilies are actually not native to the Americas but rather introductions from Asia via Europe. As European settlers moved ever westward across North America, they brought daylilies with them as reminders of home. Stout grew up in the midwest, and as a child became interested in the bright orange flowers that his mother grew in their yard. Prior to his breeding program, very little work had gone into improving and diversifying cultivated daylilies. Stout saw potential in these plants, and a stroll along Daylily/Daffodil Walk in July is a testament to his vision.

Read More

Morning Eye Candy: Strangely Common

Posted in Photography on July 3 2015, by Matt Newman

The passion flowers growing around the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory—both inside and out—are consistently some of the most fascinating blooms to join us in summer. But their frizzy, tentacled forms are surprisingly commonplace in many tropical climates, where they’re often hybridized or cultivated for their flowers and fruit.

Passion flower

Passion flower (Passiflora) in the Haupt Conservatory Courtyard – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen