Family Concert, Plein Air Painting, Dutch History, and More
Gayle Schmidt is Manager of Public Education.
We can all appreciate the beauty of the Garden especially now in spring, but there is so much that goes on behind the scenes to make it what it is, especially the exhibitions. For months, the horticulturists at the propagation range have been chilling and forcing bulbs to make them ready for The Glory of Dutch Bulbs, another beautiful show. This weekend we share some of those tips as we celebrate bulbs and Dutch culture with additional tours and home gardening demonstrations as well as with special guest lectures and programs.
The inspiration for the exhibition is the recognition of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the region, and the weekend’s lectures bring to light the history of how the Bronx has been changed since Dutch settlement. Local historian Peter Derrick from the Bronx County Historical Society describes how the area developed from Dutch farms to the few parks and wild spaces that remain today. Pat Ernest, former educator at the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, speaks about the original residents of the Bronx, the Lenape, as well as Jonas Bronck, the first European to settle in the Bronx, in 1638.
Peter Rose, author and scholar, explores how Dutch recipes and customs changed in the New World. Through a lusciously illustrated slide presentation on the food and drink seen in the paintings of the 17th-century Dutch Masters, we discover the connections to the food we eat today. Samples of some Dutch treats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis after this lecture, which is sponsored by the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. These programs take place in the Ross Lecture Hall, where visitors can also view The Heirloom Tomato exhibition on display in the Ross Gallery.
In the meadow of the Ruth Rea Family Garden, Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum staff re-create a playful day in the life of early Dutch settlers. If you take the trails of the Native Forest to get there, you can imagine what the whole of New York City looked like before any development took place.
On Mother’s Day the Bronx Arts Ensemble presents a musical performance for families, The House That Ruthie Built: A Bronx Baseball Fairy Tale. The audience is invited to participate in the entertainment as they learn about musical instruments and are amused by the actors having fun on stage.
Each Sunday during of The Glory of Dutch Bulbs, instructors from the Continuing Education department will lead Art in the Open Air: Plein Air Landscape Painting at various locations on the Garden grounds. We invite visitors to take a moment to study the surroundings and capture its beauty on paper by their own hand. The instructors will be there to coach you along and show some of their talent.
Don’t miss the additional activities this weekend—you are sure to take away some new understandings!
The exhibition celebrates the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival in New York by bringing a touch of Holland to the Botanical Garden with a Dutch bulb flower show in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and a four-season display, including Dutch bulbs, along Seasonal Walk, hands-on activities for families, and programs highlighting the history and influence of the Dutch on New York City.
The artful display of bulbs, perennials, and grasses on Seasonal Walk was created by internationally renowned designers Piet Oudolf and Jacqueline van der Kloet, both of the Netherlands. HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and her husband were on hand for the ceremonial planting of Seasonal Walk last fall.
Martha Stewart and her team visited The New York Botanical Garden on April 25 for a ceremonial planting of Martha Stewart’s Culinary Herb Garden, which will be one of the many highlights of The Edible Garden, the upcoming summer-long celebration of growing great food. Click here to download the site plan for the garden.
Margaret Falk, Associate Vice President for Landscape, Gardens, and Living Collections, and Kristin Schleiter, Curator of Outdoor Gardens and Herbaceous Collections, plant the Culinary Herb Garden designed by Martha Stewart and her team of gardening experts.
Bruce Dryden, Assistant Foreman of Gardeners, plants Italian parsley and an assortment of other herbs from around the world in Martha Stewart’s Culinary Herb Garden. The newly planted herb garden is just one of the many highlights of The Edible Garden, from June 27 to September 13.
Ehret’s Work on Public View for First Time in Decades
Jane Dorfman is Reference Librarian/Exhibitions Coordinator in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
Magnolia altissima
Hand-colored engraving
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–70)
in Natural History of Carolina,
Florida, and the Bahama Islands
by Mark Catesby (1683–1749)
London: Printed for B. White, 1771
LuEsther T. Mertz Library
And so the idea to present Ehret’s work was conceived.
Starting with the rich collections of the Mertz Library, we gathered the works of Ehret and artists, scientists, and gardeners associated with him, including Philip Miller, Mark Catesby, Carl Linnaeus, and Mrs. Mary Delany, among others. As a result of this review, and in conjunction with extensive research about our subject, there emerged clearly defined exhibit themes: Ehret’s early life, his contact with Linnaeus, the influence of his patron Dr. Christoph Jacob Trew, and the role of the Chelsea Physic Garden and the horticultural world of 18th-century London that shaped and was shaped by Ehret. Based on our research, relevant images were selected.
Ficus foliis palmatis
Hand-colored copperplate engraving
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–70)
in Plantae selectae
by Christoph Jacob Trew (1695–1769)
Nuremberg: 1750–73
LuEsther T. Mertz Library
In addition to the Library’s noteworthy holdings, we wanted the public to truly experience Ehret’s artistic mastery, and to create that experience, original artwork needed to be displayed. To that end, we negotiated loans of original watercolors on vellum and also on paper from well-known institutions as well as private collections. Many of these works have never been on view. The result is a sumptuous exhibit of floral masterpieces that narrate the story of this remarkable artist, who without formal artistic training influenced, through his accurate and delicate renderings, the scientific and artistic worlds of botanical illustration.
Georg Ehret: The Greatest Botanical Artist of the 1700s opens tomorrow and runs through July 19 in the William D, Rondina and Giovanni Foroni LoFaro Gallery. During the show, there will also be a small display in the Library’s Rare Book and Folio Room window that focuses on the Chelsea Physic Garden, the site where much of Ehret’s floral examination and illustration took place. The display will describe the role of this celebrated Garden in the dissemination of important plants such as tea and cotton.
The Gallery is open during normal Garden hours. The Library is open Tuesday–Thursday, 12–6 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays, 12–5 p.m., until the end of June. Summer hours are Tuesday–Friday, 12–5 p.m. (closed on weekends). The Library will be closed Saturday, May 23.
Living Orchid Chandeliers and Wall Dazzle Visitors
Karl Lauby is Vice President for Communications.
Francisca Coelho has outdone herself this time.
The Senior Curator and Associate Vice President for Glasshouses and Exhibitions is principally responsible for the creation, implementation, and management of the exhibitions that have solidified The New York Botanical Garden’s reputation as an international leader in horticultural display.
But she’s taken her work to new heights with the sensationally popular Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern, which takes its final bow this weekend.
While the whole show is her handiwork, in particular she has created a set of four massive hanging baskets of tropical aroids and descending orchids that alone are worth the trip to The Orchid Show. The baskets or chandeliers—each containing a huge philodendron, six smaller philodendrons, six grape ivies, and 120 orchids overflowing and pouring down from high overhead—embody living art with hidden engineering, creative design, and clever construction.
Fran took designer Raymond Jungles’ illustration and executed it brilliantly, using pipes, cables, and four-foot metal baskets that, once arranged with flowers, became six-foot-wide creations. In rummaging through her storeroom, Fran saw just the right-sized tree baskets—baskets usually used for moving big trees in the nursery trade—and traced the manufacturer to McKenzie Nursery Supply in Perry, Ohio. She asked the company to make eight baskets to her design and placed one basket within another and tied them together to make four strong baskets that would hold the weight of the hanging plants. A smaller, 30-inch-wide basket holding the large philodendron was then placed within the large basket on a wire frame placed six inches above the basket bottom. Each large philodendron is flanked by six more philodendrons and six grape ivy vines.
To suspend the whole apparatus, Fran rigged up crossed galvanized pipes in a square formation from which the baskets are suspended. Then the whole planter was lifted—using two lifts, one for the basket and one for the person hanging the basket—and hung from the conservatory ceiling. It took four staff members working in unison to accomplish this.
The outside of the entire large basket was then wrapped in black chicken wire. The basket-within-a-basket design left enough room for Fran’s able gardening colleagues to create the chandelier effect by edging the baskets with two types of orchids, Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium, in the pink-lavender color range and hung upside down, defying gravity, 120 orchids to each basket.
But the chandeliers are only part of the fun.
Fran also built the Orchid Wall. While it looks spontaneous, whimsical, and picturesque, in fact, the wall is meticulously designed and executed with artifice, contrivance, and calculation. The wall, 8 feet tall by 25 feet wide, is covered with 800 orchids, all Phalaenopsis, each hand-tied one by one to create a wall of flowers that mesmerizes visitors. In the center of the wall is a giant staghorn fern, surrounded by the five varieties of Phalaenopsis. Fran herself tied each of the 800 orchids onto the wall and has great stories about how she arrived at that number, tied each one, and managed to keep the entire wall seemingly in subtle motion from top to bottom as well as appearing fresh for the six-week run of the show.
Come see for yourself these magnificent, unique orchid creations in this, the final weekend of The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern. Meanwhile, take one last chance to vote for your favorite type of orchid in our poll at right. So far, Vandas are in the lead by a large margin.
As we say goodbye to the orchids, we say hello to the Auricula Theater, a display in the Herb Garden of two types of alpine primroses in a presentation based on a centuries-old tradition.
And, of course, it’s spring all over the Garden. Walk around and see what’s in bloom, look for seasonal birds that are arriving and the recently born baby owls, participate in waking up the Family Garden, and more. Click on the daily highlights below.
Jessica Blohm is Interpretive Specialist for Public Education.
The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory features a plethora of interesting interpretive signs that offer a chance to learn about a range of topics concerning orchids: their diversity (the most diverse species of flower on Earth), their preservation, and the ongoing research and conservation efforts by Botanical Garden scientists in Brazil, the theme of this year’s show.
But the savvy visitor knows that the Conservatory is just one place at the Garden that visitors can brush up on their orchid knowledge. This year, the Orchid Rotunda display on the second floor of the Library building features not only beautiful orchids from the Oncidium group, but also highlights botanical researchers at The New York Botanical Garden such as Douglas Daly, Ph.D., Scott Mori, Ph.D., and Wayt Thomas, Ph.D., who have embarked on programs to preserve Brazil’s unique habitats and rich plant life.
In the Rotunda you can also find out about the diversity of orchids throughout the world and how in 1990 The New York Botanical Garden was designated a Plant Rescue Center by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
No Orchid Show visit is complete without a visit to see the beautiful orchids behind glass in the Orchid Rotunda.
Gregory Long is President and CEO of The New York Botanical Garden.
You owe it to yourself to join the plant, nature, and orchid enthusiasts arriving in record numbers to see the Garden’s absolutely world-class Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern.
The combination of creative talents Raymond Jungles, the designer, and Fran Coelho, who creates all of our Conservatory exhibitions, is mind boggling. This is something you could see nowhere else in the world—the design and execution are tropical horticulture at its most perfect. Notice in the photograph the huge hanging basket of tropical aroids and descending orchids—there is a matched set of four of these huge hanging baskets created by Fran Coelho. These baskets alone are worth the trip to the Garden, and they are only part of the fun.
Everyone who knows and loves plants must come to see this marvelous masterpiece. The exhibition runs through April 12, and come soon, because I suspect if you see it once, you will want to see it again.
I am usually measured in my praise for NYBG exhibitions, but this orchid show is spectacular—a gift to New York. Come enjoy an exhilarating experience.
This weekend marks the end of the nearly 10-month run of Moore in America, the largest outdoor exhibition of the famed sculptor’s work in a single venue in the United States. Visitors to the Botanical Garden were able to view his magnificent work across this historic landscape in four seasons (as seen here); the show opened May 24, 2008.
Art in Nature walking tours of the show will be held both Saturday and Sunday so you can get one more look at these monumental pieces in this wonderful setting.
Jane Dorfman is Reference Librarian/Exhibitions Coordinator in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
In conjunction with The Orchid Show, a small, but delightful array of orchid images is on view in the Rare Book and Folio Room and in the Reading Room of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library. The images were selected because they depict Brazilian orchids that are known to have been grown at the estate of Brazilian artist, architect, and landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994) and in the gardens that he created for others. The orchids highlighted include: Sobralia sessilis, Sophronitis grandiflora, Grammatophyllumspeciosum, and Laelia purpurata Lindl., the national flower of Brazil.
Walter Hood Fitch (1817–1892) one of the most celebrated lithographers of the 19th century, Mary Eaton (1873–1961), and Sarah Drake ((1803–1857) are some of the artists represented in the display.
Several images of Burle Marx and his home near Rio de Janeiro are also included.
To conserve the rare books on display, they will be replaced with other books midway through the exhibition.
The display is on view through April 10 during library hours: Tuesday–Thursday, noon to 6 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.
Gayle Schmidt is Manager of Public Education.
Vibrantly colored flowering bulbs and companion plants take center stage in 
In conjunction with 
Walter Hood Fitch (1817–1892) one of the most celebrated lithographers of the 19th century, Mary Eaton (1873–1961), and Sarah Drake ((1803–1857) are some of the artists represented in the display.