Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Central Park Conservancy
Posted in Horticulture on August 25 2016, by Joyce Newman
Joyce H. Newman is an environmental journalist and teacher. She holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden.
Dedicated 100 years ago in 1916 (on the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death), the Central Park Shakespeare Garden is one of the best Shakespeare gardens in the world. It was fully restored by the Central Park Conservancy in 1987 and is a great local getaway for plant and poetry lovers.
Landscape designers Bruce Kelly and David Varnell, hired by the Conservancy, expanded the area to four acres—repaving paths, adding lovely bronze plaques with Shakespeare quotations, and installing rustic fences and wooden benches (recently replaced by the Conservancy with newer versions).
The basic footprint of the garden has remained the same since the 1987 restoration, says the Conservancy’s Senior Gardener, Larry Boes. When he became the gardener in 2008, he moved several of the Shakespeare plaques to locations where he could actually grow the plants mentioned.
Read More
Posted in Programs and Events on September 17 2012, by Matt Newman
Countless acres of lush flora, over 230 bird species, a virtual menagerie of fish, insects, reptiles, and mammals–and that’s just Central Park. New York City may have a reputation for being the urban jungle, but tucked in and around the buildings are the greenscapes–including the NYBG–that land us in the upper echelons of woodland sustainability. Places where flora and fauna have thrived in spite of the metropolis built up around them. But it’s not as if it was an easy task to get to where we are now, as The Cultural Landscape Foundation‘s (TCLF) president, Charles Birnbaum, recently explained; it was a long and trying process, with green spaces across the city sometimes suffering under a lack of proper management. And that’s a part of the reason that we’re adding our voice to TCLF’s fall conference, Bridging the Nature-Culture Divide II: Stewardship of Central Park’s Woodlands.
On Friday, October 5, the NYBG joins with the Central Park Conservancy and institutions from across the country to examine today’s woodland sustainability, along with natural diversity, the role of people in the care of these landscapes, and public education. Speakers such as the Garden’s Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, Todd Forrest, will offer their expertise on the lessons learned by our park stewards over the years, while accomplished landscape architects and other national experts detail the challenges now faced in caring for these cultural icons.
Read More
