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.
The Rock Garden and Native Plant Garden have entered their lush summer growth already, so enjoy a stroll in the shade of our tree canopy this Memorial Day Weekend. We will be open on Monday during regular Garden Hours.
If Marta McDowell’s last book, Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, was a stroll down the memory lane of childhood whimsy, her latest book, All the Presidents’ Gardens: Madison’s Cabbages to Kennedy’s Roses—How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America, feels like a journey into the secret, lesser-known world of political plantscapes that shaped foreign policy and inspired American lifestyles.
Although one might think Presidential garden history would be a bit dry, I can assure you it is not—in fact, I read the entire book in one evening. It is Marta’s “voice” that creates a sense of fascination within the reader. Her wit and insight shines through as she describes the White House Gardens, sometimes utilitarian and spare, and other times lush and extravagant. (In fact, Marta, could you go back in time and rewrite all my high-school and college history books?)
Wendy Ford in the Landscape Design Summer Intensive in 2015
The New York Botanical Garden puts the “intense” in “Intensive” this summer with accelerated educational programs that get students on their way to achieving career goals, learning new skills, and earning prestigious Certificates in Landscape Design, Floral Design, or Gardening. Three students who completed last year’s programs and are set to graduate this month sat down to talk to us about their experiences and how the Intensives made an impact on their lives.
“What are those purple globes?” people always ask. And each time they’re surprised to find that the bobbing heads of these tall, spindly plants are actually related to a dinnertime staple.
While the Rockefeller Rose Garden is only just getting started, this week is the ideal time to see some of our fragrant species roses and one-time bloomers—they won’t be back until next spring.
Hybrid Spinosissima rose, Rosa ‘Harison’s Yellow’ in the Rockefeller Rose Garden – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Chanticleer Garden, a 35-acre public garden not far from Philadelphia, is considered to be one of the greatest, most magical gardens in America. Open to visitors from April through October, Chanticleer’s six gardeners are responsible for the design, planting, and maintenance of particular areas of the property, including 15 distinct garden “rooms,” each on the scale of a good-sized residential garden, and each with its own look and feel.
Each gardener’s artistic vision is beautifully documented in The Art of Gardening: Design Inspiration and Innovative Planting Techniques from Chanticleer available at NYBG Shop (Timber Press, $34.95). Lavishly photographed by Rob Cardillo, and co-authored by the Chanticleer Gardeners, the book reveals the gardeners’ personal styles, as well as their varied approaches to color, to the use of sculpture and other media, to experimentation, and to choice of plants.
