We’re into 2016, now, and though winter’s been slow to wake since December, we’re finally starting to see a dip in the thermometer–I even saw some flurries on the way in this morning! With thoughts of snow on our minds, and the Holiday Train Showkeeping up the cheer through January 18, it’s a great time to visit the Garden and make your holidays last.
This month features more Bar Car Nights for adults, the start of All Aboard with Thomas & Friends mini-performances for kids, and plenty of tours—both indoor and out—to take advantage of during this interesting season of transition. Check out the video below for more info on what to expect during the final weeks of our holiday exhibition!
The summer season is at its height here at NYBG, with plenty of seasonal beauty appearing each week. In this latest video, our own Brian Sullivan, Vice President for Gardens, Landscape and Outdoor Collections, highlights some of the gorgeous flowers of summer that visitors can admire in the Native Plant Garden and the Perennial Garden.
Escape the heat with a pleasant walk beneath the shaded canopy of the Thain Family Forest, admire the dramatic waterlilies and lotus blossoms adorning the Conservatory Pools, and be sure to plan your visit on a day with activities and tours for the whole family!
With Bar Car Nights, adults enjoy access to the Holiday Train Show® alongside delicious cocktails, seasonal treats, and live entertainment, all beneath the glow of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory‘s colorful evening lights. Our latest Garden News video with Kevin Character takes viewers into the Haupt Conservatory after dark during one of these intimate events.
See what’s in store for our eight remaining Bar Car Nights and hear from visitors on what they love most about the Holiday Train Show® in the clip below. This year features more Bar Car Nights than ever, so reserve your tickets today! MasterCard cardholders also enjoy free access to a champagne pre-party in Shop in the Garden on select nights, but spots won’t stick around forever. Reserve now!
The New York Botanical Garden recently received a very special gift from none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson—a sapling, grown from a cutting of Sir Isaac Newton’s famous apple tree! The astrophysicist and host of the hit series Cosmos has his own roots here in the Bronx, so when Dr. Tyson came into possession of this very unique specimen (and found it impractical to keep an apple tree in his New York City apartment), he kindly thought of NYBG as a good home for this special little tree.
As the legend goes, Newton was first inspired to develop his law of universal gravitation when an apple from his ‘Flower of Kent’ apple tree fell on his head. Like so many legends, the truth is less dramatic. In this video below commemorating his visit to NYBG, Tyson explains that Newton was observing apples fall from the tree while noticing the moon in the sky. This image may be less comical, but it is nonetheless humbling to be brought so close to one of history’s greatest scientific advancements through a living plant—and a humble sapling no less!
Last weekend was our Pumpkin Carving Weekend with Ray Villafane, and the Master Carver himself executed a massive pumpkin sculpture, after his own design, with the help of his crack team. The fruits—or gourds—of his labor are on display through October 31 as part of The Haunted Pumpkin Garden.
In case you missed the opportunity to see Ray’s zombie carving come to life, we have a video with Ray himself taking you through the process of carving his pumpkin sculpture for NYBG. The end result is a bone-chilling zombie climbing out of a 1700-pound pumpkin! Check out the installation this weekend as part of our annual Award-Winning Giant Pumpkin Display, or for the full Halloween experience get tickets to one of our upcoming Spooky Nighttime Adventures and see Ray’s creation fully illuminated for the first time in his four years working with the Garden.
This Thursday is the opening of Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden, NYBG‘s stunning tribute to Japan’s most celebrated fall flower, the chrysanthemum—or kiku. For many months, NYBG’s specially trained experts have been painstakingly cultivating hundreds of Japanese chrysanthemum flowers along frames in a variety of traditional and contemporary styles. Masters of the art of kiku can coax hundreds of blossoms from a single stem. The end result will debut in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory on October 2, when these flowers blossom simultaneously to create showstopping displays.
NYBG will offer a variety of programs throughout the run of this special exhibit, from weekends dedicated to bonsai and ikebana to a special Japanese Pop-Up Restaurant in the Garden Café. Below, enjoy a behind-the-scenes, time-lapse video showing the progress of one of our kiku displays: the monumental ozukuri.
While we gear up for the first weekend of Halloween fun at the Haunted Pumpkin Garden, remember that Kiku arrives at NYBG in just two weeks! Our popular celebration of the rich tradition of chrysanthemum cultivation in Japan returns on October 2 with new, breathtaking displays in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
To offer a bit of background about the exhibit, and to provide a sneak peek at our exciting upcoming programs, please enjoy this latest trailer for Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden.
Visitors to the Garden will notice a number of small installations throughout the grounds as part of our new Curator’s Spotlight series. Behind the many gardens and collections that make up NYBG’s 250 acres is a legion of dedicated horticulturists and passionate curators, and for this new series we invited them to choose their own subject to focus on from the plant kingdom.
There is so much to see in the vast diversity of the Garden. Who better to guide our visitors and direct their attention to some of the individual beauty on display than the people who cultivate it? See the Garden through the eyes of its experts in this new video for Curator’s Spotlight, in which Kevin Character overviews some of the fun new installations our curators have dreamed up. Hear from our own Christian Primeau, Manager of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, on why he chose to highlight the whimsical colocasia, also known as elephant’s ear.
More videos are coming soon! In the meantime, keep an eye out for Curator’s Spotlight installations on your next visit. See the full lineup here.
At the heart of our Groundbreakersexhibition stand six women—three of them designers, three of them photographers—who, through combined efforts, effected a sea change in the style and popularity of the American garden. From Beatrix Farrand’s opus of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, to Marian Coffin’s timeless creations here at NYBG, formerly staid home gardens in the U.S. shrugged off western Europe’s stylistic dominance for new and exciting influences from other cultures—not to mention those found right here at home.
Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens and The Women Who Designed Them is an homage to that renaissance of the early 20th century, when these six women established themselves not only as successful designers, but as pioneers along a fresh course for the country’s green spaces.
The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is bustling with final preparations for the debut of The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary this Saturday, March 1. Right now, rows and rows of orchids are patiently awaiting their final installation into our carefully arranged island landscape, a theme inspired by the designs of Key West’s own Raymond Jungles. While we wait, you can enjoy a peek behind the scenes in the Nolen Greenhouses, our staging area for nearly every NYBG exhibition.
Karen Daubmann, our Associate Vice President for Exhibitions, gives an overview of the orchids, as well as the myriad companion species that together will help transform the Conservatory into a modernist, Florida-style garden. It should be the sunny vacation we all need right about now!
We’re into 2016, now, and though winter’s been slow to wake since December, we’re finally starting to see a dip in the thermometer–I even saw some flurries on the way in this morning! With thoughts of snow on our minds, and the Holiday Train Show keeping up the cheer through January 18, it’s a great time to visit the Garden and make your holidays last.
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