If the Garden wears spring like jewelry, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden is our Hope Diamond—and at 80% of the way to peak bloom, this is the time to see it. Our Rose Garden Weekend is shaping up to be a festival of flowers both classic and contemporary, from hybrid teas and shrub roses to the most superlative floribundas.
Stop in all weekend long for live music and dance, plein-air painting, drinks, and talks with the Garden’s top rose experts that’ll set you on the path to a thriving rose garden of your own. You might even win one of our incredible plants to take home—learn more here.
And if you’re not yet sold, have a look at just a few of the flowers in bloom this week.
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
One of the great things about being on Garden staff is the opportunity, twice each year, to access the grounds when they are closed to the public—namely during our exhibition staff orientations. The first one happens before the summer exhibition (like Frida), and the second takes place ahead of the Holiday Train Show. I usually arrive about an hour and a half early so I can do some shooting.
We recently had our orientation for Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas. While walking along Magnolia Way, I spotted this mama Wood Duck. I noticed a few fuzzy heads peeking out as well. Soon, a few heads turned into 12 as they went for a swim! Never a dull day at NYBG.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
The Culinary Herbal: Growing & Preserving 97 Flavorful Herbs follows fast on the heels of another title from Timber Press, The Herbal Apothecary. Co-authors Susan Belsinger and Arthur O. Tucker, along with photographer Shawn Linehan, bring “more than a century of experience in gardening and cooking” to bear in Herbal. The book is, in the authors’ words, a “book for gardeners who like to cook and cooks who want to grow the best-flavored culinary herbs, as well as for the everyday herbal enthusiast.” After a few words about taste and scent, and the role they play in cooking and eating (hint: they’re essential!), Belsinger and Tucker move right into the herbs.
Herbal is organized alphabetically by common name, and each herb is presented with a full-color photograph that lays it out, cut, as if ready to be cooked with. The description includes whether or not the plant is annual or perennial, its cold tolerance, preferred light, and moisture and soil requirements. General notes about the history of the plant are included, along with a list of edible parts, comments on how the plant might be prepared in foods, and sections on cultivation, propagation, harvesting, and preserving.
If the Garden wears spring like jewelry, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden is our Hope Diamond—and at 80% of the way to peak bloom, this is the time to see it. Our Rose Garden Weekend is shaping up to be a festival of flowers both classic and contemporary, from hybrid teas and shrub roses to the most superlative floribundas.
