When the daffodils have faded and the cherry blossoms are snoozing for the season, you can always count on the Azalea Garden to bring the next big pop to our 250 acres. And that’s exactly what this week is about. As of right now, the azaleas are at about 90% of the way to peak bloom, and we expect this weekend—during our Mother’s Day Weekend Garden Party—to see the height of color before they begin to fade.
With the flowers coming going at a rapid pace, you won’t want to miss out!
It’s Mother’s Day this coming Sunday, May 8, and as every year, there’s no better place to celebrate the holiday than here at the Garden. We’ll be outside for our Mother’s Day Weekend Garden Party with lawn games, arts and crafts, and plenty of food trucks on hand to make an afternoon on Daffodil Hill that much more relaxing.
Among the highlights of what you’ll see this weekend is the Azalea Garden, which is just about to hit peak color for the season with a sea of blooming purples and pinks. From there, you’ll want to stop in at the Native Plant Garden, where pleasant ephemerals dot the landscape. And the Rock Garden, ever a star at this time of year, changes near-hourly with its collections of alpine flowers.
This is one of the biggest weekends of the year at NYBG, and did I mention the newly renovated Lilac Collection is fit to overflow with color and fragrance?
Syringa vulgaris ‘Firmament’
Auricula Theater in the Perennial Garden
Rock Garden cascade
Azalea Garden
Native Plant Garden
Paeonia suffruticosa ‘Lotus That Shines in the Sun’
Sunday is the day that we celebrate mothers, and what better way to honor the person you really could stand to call more often than with a visit to the most beautiful spring landscape in New York City? Treat mom to an outing at our Mother’s Day Weekend Garden party—back this weekend and bigger than ever!
May 9 and 10 will be filled with family-friendly programs and activities all across the Garden, so click through to see the full rundown, and don’t forget to check out our tips for your visit to ensure a smooth and pleasant Mother’s Day experience for the whole family.
Mom deserves this sort of beauty year-round, but if you’re looking for a proper commemoration of all that she’s done for you—this year and in years past—our Mother’s Day Weekend Garden Party runs through 5 p.m. today. We’ll see you outside.
In the Cherry Tree Collection – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
This Sunday is the day we honor moms across the country, so come enjoy a spring afternoon with your family at the Mother’s Day Weekend Garden Party! All over the grounds are activities, arts and crafts, and ways to explore the grounds and appreciate the beauty of spring. Our Mother’s Day Brunch is now sold out, but there are plenty of other opportunities for food throughout the weekend. Read on for the full list of delicious food trucks and vendors, as well as the band who will treat guests to live jazz on Daffodil Hill all weekend!
Mother’s Day is this coming Sunday, May 11—make sure you don’t forget! For our part, the Garden will help you show mom how much you care during our Mothers’ Day Garden Party, offering a perfect weekend of spring activities amidst a landscape of flowers and greenery. This celebration has family fun for all ages, too, so no one has to feel left out!
Live jazz, croquet, badminton, hillside picnics and even our new giant chessboards present endless options of fun to explore. Why settle for breakfast in bed when you can give mom a day at the Garden, surrounded by a wide variety of food, drinks, and more? Click through for the full lineup of activities.
Spring at the Garden is full of festivals! Beautiful scenery, delicious refreshments, and activities for all ages are the perfect way to spend a spring weekend. From daffodil season to tulip season and beyond, we have plenty of activities over the next three months to help make the most of the grounds as their brilliant colors return.
Our popular Culinary Kids Food Festival returns April 14 with a week-long, family-friendly food festival celebrating the relationships among plants, farms, and your favorite treats. Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden staff and the culinary team, Growing Chefs, will offer cooking demonstrations, recipes, and hands-on activities—with plenty of music and food tastings to add to the fun. Kids can fill up their Festival passports as they tinker with the science of kitchen chemistry and get to the root of foods at a variety of activity stations with themes like “The Chicken and the Egg” and “The Buzz on Bees Sweet Bees!” The daily 1 p.m. cooking demonstration will feature kid-friendly recipes and tasty samples, while local chefs will share tips and more.
But that is only the first in a full season of outdoor adventure. Read on for May and June’s exciting upcoming festivals!
The family fun includes bird and butterfly walks, watercolor painting, a professional photographer’s booth where you can get a beautiful family portrait, lawn games and picnicking on Daffodil Hill (complete with food carts and free samples), music perfect for dancing from the Banjo Rascals, and on Sunday, a family concert presentation of Jack and the Beanstalk by the Bronx Arts Ensemble.
After enjoying the festivities, take mom for a stroll around our 250-acres where you will be dazzled by all the beautiful blooms. The Azalea Garden is as close to peak bloom as you can get, like stepping into a pink and red kaleidoscope! The tree peony and lilac collections–both located near the newly reopened Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden–continue to perfume the air with amazing aroma, and in the Home Gardening Center you can tiptoe among the tulips until your heart’s content. The Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden is verdant and green with vegetables and flowers popping up all over. Feel free to lend a hand, dig around, plant a little, and play in the dirt here. Everyone’s encouraged to give gardening a try in this one-acre veggie wonderland!
This weekend brings a beautiful event to the Garden, the Garden Sculpture and Antiques Fair: 1750-2013! Vendors and artists from across the country and across the Atlantic are gathered together under the Conservatory Tent with a gorgeous range of functional and artistic decoration for your garden, patio, solarium, and home. In addition, enjoy complimentary wine tasting with the Naked Grape 12-5 p.m. each day as well as special tours and demonstrations.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Wares range from incredible contemporary kinetic sculpture, to tiny colonial lanterns, giant sprouting shallots, Majolica kittens, Grecian urns, mossy otters, and everything in between. The star of the show, however, seems to be a beautiful set of chairs featuring a peacock-motif that were once owned by the woman whose name graces our stately Conservatory, Enid A. Haupt. If your mother is a gardener with impeccable taste, the Garden Sculpture and Antiques Fair: 1750-2013 might just be the perfect place to pickup an unforgettable Mother’s Day present!
As if that weren’t enough, the Garden is just glorious right now. Cherry blossoms, daffodils, tulips, and a very special rhododendron are stopping people in their tracks across our 250-acres. There’s a palpable sense of happiness and ease wherever you go, with incredible scents wafting on the air, and smiles everywhere. And as if that weren’t enough, the lilacs seem set to pop at any moment! Just the thought of lilacs in this springtime sunshine makes me shoulders feel less tense.
Mother’s Day is this Sunday! That might be a rude awakening for some of you. But don’t panic your way to the nearest florist just yet–I doubt forgetfulness is a capital crime. There’s plenty of time to give your mom the day she deserves, and you don’t even have to worry yourself over the schedule.
Rather than tying everything down for Sunday, the NYBG thinks the Mother’s Day Garden Party should be drawn out to at least a good, solid weekend. So head up here to the Bronx for a day or two of proper family time in the warmth and color of the New York sunshine. There are, of course, more flowers growing at the Garden than there are vases in the city, so forget the table setting. Hit some of the city’s best food trucks, and take in Nature’s Showplace with a picnic on Daffodil Hill.
We’ll have family photos, live music, food tastings and fun activities for the kids, meaning one thing for mom: no nagging responsibilities. It’s the least you can give her for all these years of putting up with you, right?
