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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Spring

Waiting for Hydrangeas

Posted in Horticulture on May 30 2014, by Todd Forrest

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.

Cutting back hydrangeas
Frost-killed hydrangea stems should be pruned back to live wood.

On April 16 at 6 a.m., the Garden’s weather station reported a low temperature of 30.2°F. The freezing temperatures were accompanied by about a half inch of icy slush that coated the greening turf and accumulated in the chalices formed by the opening flowers of saucer magnolias, which had just emerged after a string of warm April days that, I hoped, signaled the end of our seemingly interminable winter. Needless to say, the Garden’s venerable saucer magnolias did not have their best spring.

For many, memories of that hard April frost will be erased by this week’s temperatures—approaching 90°F as I write—and the reappearance of seersucker suits in midtown. Those of us who love plants will be reminded of April 16 every time we see an old-fashioned Hydrangea macrophylla over the next few months. With the exception of remontant (re-blooming) varieties such as Endless Summer® (more on these later), Hydrangea macrophylla flower from buds formed during the previous growing season. Dormant through the long winter, these buds began to swell as temperatures finally rose in early April, only to be zapped by the hard mid-April frost.

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Morning Eye Candy: Last Firecrackers

Posted in Photography on May 24 2014, by Matt Newman

The daydreamy colors of the Azalea Garden’s spring bloom have peaked and are on their way back down. The last of the fireworks aren’t at all quiet, of course.

Rhododendron 'Hinomayo'

Rhododendron ‘Hinomayo’ – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen