I got a nice surprise this morning when I stopped by the big pumpkins; I found Brant and Elanor Bordsen, of Marysville, Calif. standing beside their beautiful, pearly pumpkin chatting with Garden visitors and staff. I told them I was surprised and excited to see them here (I had no idea they were coming!), and they said that they decided that they wanted to be here when Ray Villafane cut into their 1,693 pounder, to remove the seeds themselves, and to watch the progress of his sculpture. I asked them if they had seen the concept drawing for his sculpture yet. They said no, so I pulled it up on my BlackBerry and showed it to them. They agreed that it was certainly spooky and would be quite the spectacle!
We’ve heard that people want to meet the pumpkins officially, so here they are! Introducing the four heaviest pumpkin the world, currently on display as part of the Haunted Pumpkin Garden.
We’re 7,000! 7,000 photos that is, uploaded to our photostream on the photo-sharing website, Flickr. And if you like taking your own photos (instead of looking at ours), we have a Group Pool, too (with nearly 10,000 user-submitted photos), where everyone is free to share their shots of the Garden.
The New York Botanical Garden didn’t just start growing traditional styles of Japanese chrysanthemum–called kiku in Japanese–on a whim. It’s a labor intensive process that the Japanese have been perfecting for centuries, passing down techniques from generation to generation. Some of the more complex display styles can take a team of gardeners almost a year to pull off, which also includes the fabrication of multiple sets of giant metal frameworks upon which the flowers are trained. Training the plant, forcing its buds, timing the blooms; kiku is most definitely not for novices.
They’re spooky and they’re ubiquitous, and they’re heading straight for the Bronx! That’s right, beginning this weekend, zombies will be invading the Haunted Pumpkin Garden, courtesy of pumpkin-carving provocateur Ray Villafane. Currently appearing on the Food Network’s “Halloween Wars,” Villafane will be calling the Garden home this weekend, where he’ll be carving two of the world’s biggest pumpkins into one unforgettable pumpkin sculpture.
Want to see what Ray has got planned? Head below the jump to check it. But be warned, it’s the stuff of pumpkin nightmares!
Mums and Japanese Anemones in Fall Flowers of Japan
We are celebrating the fall this year with Fall Flowers of Japan in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. As you walk into the Conservatory you are greeted by color, ranging from the blues and purples of gentians, to the autumnal bronzes, yellows, and reds of chrysanthemums.
Texture and form abound; the orchid-like flowers of toad lilies (Tricyrtis) are speckled, Japanese anemones (Anemone) feature cup-shaped flowers and fuzzy seed heads, and Japanese burnet (Sanguisorba) provide height with their burgundy bottle brush spires.
For the opening weekend I conducted a demonstration on how to recreate a little piece of Fall Flowers of Japan at home in the form of a fall container display or border. Today I am going to share some of my favorite plants for making a display of this nature with you.
Thomas Alva Edison died on October 18, 1931–eighty years ago today.
In the late 1920s, Edison was deeply engaged in plant research. His goal was to discover a domestic source of rubber, a plant that might produce better material than what was available at the time. (The plant turned out to be goldenrod.)
This effort was spearheaded by the Edison Botanical Corporation and funded by Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. Research was done by the corporation and by Edison himself at The New York Botanical Garden as well as at Edison’s labs in West Orange, N.J. and Fort Myers, Florida. The great inventor spent several years periodically working at the Garden and its Library, along with assistants John Kunkel Small, Barukh Jonas, William H. Meadowcroft, and others.
I got a nice surprise this morning when I stopped by the big pumpkins; I found Brant and Elanor Bordsen, of Marysville, Calif. standing beside their beautiful, pearly pumpkin chatting with Garden visitors and staff. I told them I was surprised and excited to see them here (I had no idea they were coming!), and they said that they decided that they wanted to be here when Ray Villafane cut into their 1,693 pounder, to remove the seeds themselves, and to watch the progress of his sculpture. I asked them if they had seen the concept drawing for his sculpture yet. They said no, so I pulled it up on my BlackBerry and showed it to them. They agreed that it was certainly spooky and would be quite the spectacle!
