Wilde-Menozzi will lead students throughout Garden grounds, including the Thain Family Forest, Azalea Garden, and the newly opened Native Plant Garden to encourage students to ask questions like, “What are the messages of spring, ‘the cruelest month,’ and yet, what does the message of transformation elicit How can it be put into words?”
Wilde-Menozzi is the author most recently of two books. The first, The Other Side of the Tiber, is a memoir of her many years spent living in Italy. That experience also serves as the backdrop for her second new book, Toscanelli’s Ray, a novel set in Florence.
She shared her thoughts on writing, nature, and a life spent abroad.
In New York City, where space comes at a premium, it helps to live by the mantra “Great things come in small packages,” even when it comes to gardening. Container gardens, tree well plantings, and terrace gardens are the easiest way to add a small-scale garden to the average city apartment, and they can be beautiful, too.
Over the course of two sessions in March, Daryl Beyers showed his class how to get the most out of placing a few plants in a simple pot. The results were these charming, self-contained gardens, perfect for even the most space-starved New Yorker.
If you would like to try your hand at container gardening, the Garden’s Adult Education program is offering two special Saturday sessions in May! “All About Containers” is a daylong boot camp on May 4 in the Bronx and will cover all the basics of container gardening.
White, a former advertising executive, and founder of Showhouse magazine was looking for a new career path in 2009. “I came to a career night and thought floral design would suit me well. I’ve always loved arranging flowers, but was a total novice.”
The Garden’s been good for fungus, lately. This shot comes from one of our Adult Education courses in the last couple of weeks, and now is as good a time as any to point out that we have another two-parter beginning this Thursday, October 18. The Medicinal Mushroom Workshop zeroes in on the use of mushrooms for health purposes throughout history and into contemporary medicine, so if you’re looking to find more information or snag a spot in the class, head this way.
The New York Botanical Garden is, first and foremost, a world-renowned collection of flora. But you’d be hard-pressed to spend more than a few minutes walking under the boughs without recognizing the sing-song notes of our most gregarious residents. The birds of the Garden represent some of the most varied fauna in New York City, and not only are we a haven for passersby making the trip to cozier climates, but we’re further home to a menagerie of year-round species in all shapes and sizes.
It so happens that we get the best of both worlds in the fall. Migrating species gather up for the flight south while the locals buckle down for the coming winter, and Debbie Becker, binoculars in hand, is always there to see it; join her for our in-depth NYBG birdwatching course beginning in October and you’re sure to walk away with a new skill.
While the herons and egrets are soon to take flight for the season, and the hummingbirds already have their eyes on the clock, few realize how abundant the wildlife is here in the autumn. Thankfully, Becker has the roll call down pat. She’s been leading Saturday Bird Walks at the NYBG for over 25 years, making her one of the area’s foremost experts on NYC’s winged things. And while newcomers are always welcome to glean what they can from her weekend walks, motivated beginners won’t want to pass up Becker’s primer on birdwatching fundamentals.
For Abbey Liebman, a fashion design artist in New York City, enrolling in the Botanical Art Summer Intensives was a rewarding way to broaden her skills in fashion design and the arts that was “well worth the money.”
“After taking just a few of the NYBG classes, I have already done freelance design work in botanical art for an apothecary company’s labels. I’d like to do more work like that or begin selling my own art,” says Abbey. She plans to get a certificate at NYBG over the period of a few years while she continues to work at her regular job.
Ed. Note: Our delectable cooking adventures, botanical art primers, and flower arranging courses make the NYBG‘s Adult Education program one of the most robust horticultural experiences in the nation. True to form, we will soon offer courses for the amateur perfumer, introductions to what can only be called “plant alchemy.”
Read on for an interview with Julianne Zaleta, who brings her perfumer’s knowledge to the table in Natural Perfume Blendingand Aromatherapy 101. Each is an upcoming part of this summer’s Botanical Spa course series, bringing the sensuous and luxuriant side of gardening home.
How did you start and how long have you been making your own scents?
I’ve been making my own scents for about ten years, but my love affair with plants started a very long time ago, in my mother’s garden when I was a child. When I look back I can see that my whole life has been about taking the next logical step to understanding and appreciating the plants around me. I’ve been a gardener, floral designer, herbalist and aromatherapist and I feel it’s all led me to this.
“Chasing the light” is a phrase you’ll sometimes hear used by visual artists–often photographers and, in a slightly different sense, painters. The importance of illumination defines the form and attitude of what’s captured on canvas. And in the case of Lucy Reitzfeld’s art, it becomes a fundamental theme. Her paintings have centered on a search for “palpable” light, that which strikes the facades of skyscrapers and seems to fall on untouched snow–the instances when light appears to move and morph in such a way that you might reach out and touch it.
Along with Lucy’s husband, Robert Reitzfeld, the creative pair’s unique aesthetics work in complementary contrast, creating impressions from the rural and the urban. But for Lucy, whose work often straddles the line between in-the-field experiences and the insulated creativity of the studio, the methods of crafting are somewhat different. The traditions of the Impressionists and the plein air method are alive and well in her interpretations of the world around her.
Try and name a few important crops, just off the top of your head. Were grapes or hops found anywhere on that list? They probably weren’t the first plants to come to mind, but there’s almost no doubt whatsoever: they’re two of the most constant influences on culture throughout our history. Beer and wine have been the indulgence of choice for entire civilizations, from Pharaohs to Caesars and up through our modern society.
As part of our Botany of Indulgence classroom series (see: chocolate), Donald McClelland brings his homebrewing know-how to our Midtown classrooms for an in-depth chat on the art and science of fermentation, pegging perfect flavors, and the equipment needed to start your own cask or keg at home. His experience is soundly based on personal necessity (and the life of a student, of course).
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