The Forest may only just now be hinting at its fall colors, but soon you’ll see all the reds, oranges, and yellows of this vivid season in action, sweeping across the canopy as cooler weather sets in. But do you really know why and how the leaves change colors? To answer that question, we put together a little video, spotlighted below now that the true fall scenery is beginning to make itself known. Learn a bit more about leaves this week!
Todd Forrest is the NYBG’s Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections. He leads all horticulture programs and activities across the Garden’s 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape, including 50 gardens and plant collections outside and under glass, the old-growth Thain Family Forest, and living exhibitions in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Approximately thirty thousand trees add shade and scale to the Garden, including thousands of mature oaks, maples, sweet-gums, beeches, birches, tulip-trees, black-gums, and other deciduous beauties in the Native Plant Garden, Azalea Garden, and dotted across the hills and dales of our historic landscape. All of these wonderful shade trees make fall at the Garden a heart-breakingly beautiful mosaic of yellow, orange, burgundy, scarlet, and brown, particularly when late October and early November days are bright and nights are crisp but not freezing.
All of these wonderful shade trees also make the annual ritual of fall leaf pick-up a Herculean task for Garden horticulturists, who take up rakes, blowers, mowers, vacuums, and any other tool they can think of and spend the better part of three months each year in an elaborately choreographed leaf gathering and transporting dance across the Garden’s 250 acres. If all goes as planned, leaf pick-up begins in early October and is mostly finished before winter’s first substantial snowfall.
New Yorkers tend to look down a lot, and for good reason. It’s a busy town. So it’s important to be reminded sometimes that looking up can lead to remarkable sights!
While we won’t be open on Thanksgiving Day, a fact the Garden’s turkeys are all too fond of, there’s still the entire holiday weekend to go! We’ll be taking advantage of it with the ongoing Holiday Train Show, several tours of specific collections and seasonally fascinating autumn plants, and some fun for the kids in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.
It’s also a perfect opportunity to get a head start on working off those Thanksgiving and Hanukkah carbs before any incoming December feasts you have planned. Of course, there’s no better place to do this than our Forest trails. While most of the leaves have already fallen, there’s a certain elegance to the netting of branches that overlays the trails in our 50-acre old growth woodland, and I doubt you’ll find many places in this bustling city quite so insulated from the urban world outside.
Check out our relaxed schedule below for detailed information on the tours we’ll be having throughout the weekend, and if you’re leaving town for the holidays, here’s to safe and stress-free travels!
Once more unto the crisper drawer, dear friends, once more. As with all good things, the Greenmarket has a beginning and an end (at least as far as 2013 goes), meaning Wednesday, November 27 is your final chance this year to stock up on fresh fall flavors picked from the best farms in our neck of the woods. And with winter peeking in on us here in New York, now’s as good a time as any. Whether you’re planning to replenish your surplus of fruits and vegetables used for Thursday’s Thanksgiving feast or you’re still looking for a few choice items to top off your cornucopia, we’ll have you covered.
The autumn harvest highlights the heartiest stick-to-your-ribs edibles of the year, including all sorts of root vegetables—potatoes, breakfast radishes, turnips—and familiar favorites like broccoli, cauliflower, and winter squash. Fruits are still a big draw, as well, with apple varieties like Shizuka, Golden Russet heirloom, Margil, Braeburn, and Keepsake leading the pack. You might even get lucky and find some end-of-season Seckel pears. There are greens in abundance, and no shortage of seasonal pies, savory breads, cookies, and other baked goods to fill out your holiday table. And did I mention ciders and juices of all kinds? Yeah, we’re not about to miss out on hot toddies.
Our Fall Forest Weekends may have passed for another year, but we can still show some appreciation for the Forest denizens that make homes and hunting grounds among our many trees. This past Saturday and Sunday, Visitor Services Attendant Pat Gonzalez was again on hand during our Live Birds of Prey demonstration to soak up some knowledge and snap a few pictures. The results went straight into this slideshow of owls, hawks, falcons, and other raptors found in our neck of the woods.
The birds were brought in for a visit by the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary & Audubon Center, where many of them live as rehabilitated rescues that are no longer capable of surviving in the wild. But that hasn’t cramped their regal style any, as you’ll see below.
The hum and clack of miniature trains fills the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory right now. Familiar bridges made of branches and vines arch overhead, and miniature manors ring the walkways with lights glowing in their tiny amber windows. Okay, so that’s a little bit purple, but how else can you possibly describe our favorite winter exhibition? The Holiday Train Show is just about ready to throw open its doors this Saturday, November 16, and we couldn’t be more ready.
Ivo recently had a chance to peek inside and get a glimpse of the arrangements ahead of the weekend, so I thought I’d pile together some of the photographs he collected in the Conservatory and share them with everyone! With more trains than ever before, a fresh “Streets of New York” dining experience taking place in our Conservatory Tent, and all the ambiance of a perfect holiday season, you don’t want to miss this. (And did I mention Bar Car Nights are back?)
With the leaves on the trees peaking in a flurry of color, and the mums in the Home Gardening Center boasting their heartiest hues against dipping temperatures, autumn earns its reputation as a time for brief and fervent garden fireworks. But where most of the flowers and foliage drawing our attention are known as hardy hold-outs against the coming frost, it seldom pays to overlook the delicate beauty now closing out its season in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden.
The rose varieties in our collection, many of them bred for coddle-free survival in spite of the rose’s needy reputation, have put on a gripping show this year. So, to celebrate that longevity, I’ve put together a little gallery of the latest stars among the shrubs, some of the blooms bringing up the rear before the cold season sets in to close up shop until spring. It being hump day, I figured it couldn’t hurt to liven up your autumn afternoon with some reds and yellows in a different medium.
It’s colder now. For the time being, the plants in the Perennial Garden don’t seem to notice much, spilling over the borders of their beds in cozy rebellion.
