Happy Fourth, everyone! Not only is the Garden open for regular hours today, but it’s a Wednesday, meaning free grounds admission for any and all visitors. The Greenmarket will also be going until 3 p.m., with a smorgasbord of locally-sourced fruit, vegetables, cheeses, baked goods and other tasty stuff to offer. I should probably chime in with mention of that most American of Independence Day staples, apple pie–there’ll be a bit of that, too.
From all of us here at the NYBG, here’s to a safe, happy, and delicious Independence Day. May your grill-outs be grand and your burgers brilliant. Or your tofu dogs terrific, if that’s more your style!
Nymphaea ‘Arc-en-Ciel’, not to be confused with long-running Japanese rock group L’Arc-en-Ciel. Each seems to have liked the French translation of “The Rainbow” enough to claim it as a name.
Ever grown a daylily? For flower gardeners, it’s likely; they’re now some of the most ubiquitous flowers kept among horticultural circles, rivaling even roses in their widespread adoration. From the 20 original species found in the wilds of India, Japan, China and Mongolia, we now have tens of thousands of recognized cultivars on the market–the fan following of this flower is nothing to scoff at. But we owe the modern fame of Hemerocallis to a single man, one whose work at The New York Botanical Garden birthed an industry.
To this day, Daylily Walk‘s early summer show can and does sneak up on us. The sloping path begins along Garden Way, the road that runs past the Library Building. From there it branches in a curving swoop around the Garden Café before joining Perennial Way by the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. The walk leads you through thickets of conifers, bordered in late June by hundreds of daylilies in the colors of sunset, pomegranate seed, and safety cone orange. Think of a ribbon of rainbow sorbet connecting two of the NYBG’s most iconic pieces of architecture.
News that a rock star is living it up in our Hardy Water Lily Pool had some of us…well, confused. I pictured the lead singer of The Kinks doing the backstroke between the pads of the Nymphaea–not exactly Garden-approved behavior, superstar or not. But the revelation that this was a water lily named ‘Ray Davies’ only brought up more questions.
We answered those, too. In the meantime, Nymphaea ‘Ray Davies’ played coy with its color. My visit to the pool toward the end of last week turned up a circle of foliage sans flowers, with no sign of a show. Then came Ivo.
Sorry for the blatant tease. Just wanted to pass along a reminder that the gem-like fruits and vegetables of our Greenmarket will be back on Wednesday (and every Wednesday from now through November). Okay, I’m not really sorry–I’m suffering the pangs of raspberry desire just like you are.
Echinacea may be synonymous with the health supplement aisle in your local organic market, but it gets its name from a far older comparison: the Greek word echino, which means “sea urchin.” That spiny head is a dead giveaway.
Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinstern’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
This might be a bittersweet Saturday for birders. Why? Well, truth be told, we’re bidding adieu to the Bird Walk! But don’t sweat–it’s only for a couple of months. As if the heat hadn’t already driven the point home, the calendar tells us it’s summer, and that means it’s time for a hiatus. Saturday marks this season’s last opportunity to don your boots and binoculars for an expert-led bout of birdwatching. (I am on an alliterative roll today.)
Debbie Becker has been at the head of these outings for over 25 years, making her the absolute authority on the NYBG‘s hawks, owls, and Pileated Woodpeckers (now resettled in the Garden after over seven decades). We can’t wait to have her back on September 1! But there’s no reason to make yourself wait that long, right? Come out tomorrow for the last walk of what I’m still stubbornly calling spring.
Daffodil Hill heads into summer with an air of Little House on the Prairie, I think. But no running through the fields, please–not even with overalls on.
Back in January, I began posting photos in a new series tentatively titled “Past in Focus.” I had an aim of seeking out archived Garden images and recreating those scenes as they exist now–to see in today’s landscape hints of the last century. The photographers and I made the decision to wait until the NYBG was in its full spring growth to set out, though; we figured the pictures would carry more drama and gravity if the contrasts ran high, and now that everything is lush and lively, we come to find out that our well-meaning plan wasn’t quite feasible the way we envisioned it.
Last week, Ivo, Mark and I set out with tripods, cameras, a stack of lenses and a crumpled sheaf of old photo copies in hand. I’m not exactly Man Ray, so the other two did the hard work while I tagged along as a notebook-wielding nuisance; certainly they knew the ins and outs of the Garden’s layout better than I did at this point. After only 10 or 20 minutes and a few head-scratching shuffles around the front of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, we were already stymied. Not only were the spring trees too leafy in places for us to tie in many of the landmarks seen in the original photographs, but the actual landscape of the Garden had changed. Hills had been raised, pathways rerouted, new collections added.
