March 2011
111 posts
Morning Eye Candy: A Bit of Blue →
Chionodoxa forbesii (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
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How Carrots Became the New Junk Food →
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From the Library: Play Ball!
It is Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, but did you know that The New York Botanical Garden once fielded its own baseball team? Here is a photo of the 1938 squad - David the bat boy included.
From The New York Botanical Garden’s archival photographs, in the collections of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
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The Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve Opens in... →
Congratulations to our friends in the Bahamas on the opening of this fabulous new nature preserve!
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Louisiana Iris – Bayou Beauty
It was in the late 1920s that Dr. John K. Small of The New York Botanical Garden, brought these swamp beauties to the attention of the horticultural world, proclaiming them the most important botanical discovery of the generation.
It’s beautiful, too. Click through for pictures and more of this pretty swamp iris’ fascinating history.
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Moss Point kids use "green thumbs" to prevent... →
Students in Mississippi recently helped build “rain gardens” that help clean rainwater before it makes its way into the water system. Could rain gardens be the next step in schoolyard gardens?
Aspiring Asparagus →
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education.
We eat different parts of plants. Some of the roots that we eat in vegetable gardens are carrots and radishes. Some of the leaves…
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Gardening With Chickens: Best Backyard Breeds →
Do you keep chickens in your garden?
Morning Eye Candy: Peggy Clarke →
March showers bring spring’s first blossoms: Prunus mume ‘Peggy Clarke’.
Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen
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PHOTO CALL: New York Botanical Gardens Celebrates... →
Playbill visits The Orchid Show: On Broadway.
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A Locavore’s Cruelest Season →
What’s the hardest season for eating locally? If you said winter, you’d be wrong.
Morning Eye Candy: Matsurabara Red →
March showers bring spring’s first blossoms: Prunus mume ‘Matsurabara Red’.
Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen
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“It is exciting to me to design this space in a theatrical way. The flowers are...”
– Scott Pask, Tony-award winning set designer and designer of The Orchid Show: On Broadway, explains his design to Luxist’s Susan Kime.
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"Mushroom Villages" Offer Employment to Women in... →
The at-home cultivation of mushrooms in Kashmir is helping to raise the financial status of women in this male dominated part of the world. Mushrooms: Delicious and empowering. Who knew?
Morning Eye Candy: Magnolia stellata →
March showers bring spring’s first blossoms: Magnolia stellata.
Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen.
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Old-Time Methods Yield Spring Greens All Winter →
Do you try to grow greens outside in your garden over the winter?
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Morning Eye Candy: Drizzle →
Everyone knows that April showers bring May flowers. But what do the drizzles of March bring? After a winter like the one we’ve had, March showers bring a gift that might be even more precious…
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Spring is finally here! (Or has it been for a week... →
Tracking the arrival of Spring at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.
Morning Eye Candy: The Rock Garden →
It’s a sure sign of spring’s return: The Rock Garden is open again for the year!
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
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From the Library: Mr. Williams's Lesson
Robert S. Williams, an early administrator at The New York Botanical Garden, instructs schoolchildren on mosses and ferns in the Garden’s Forest. We’re unsure about the exact date of this photograph but it was taken circa 1911. The children—almost all of them, anyway—seem interested in their lesson.
From The New York Botanical Garden’s archival photographs, in the collections...
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Heirloom Seeds or Flinty Hybrids? →
What do you guys think about this article? Do you agree that hybrids are better to grow because they’re more vigorous? Or do you prefer the challenge and historical perspective you get from growing heirloom varieties?
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Morning Eye Candy: Pompom →
Prunus mume ‘Matsurabara Red’ (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
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Starting Seeds? Do your homework, then sow. →
A great reminder before setting your seedlings in a row.
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“You’ll see cars pulled over on the side of the road, their occupants standing a...”
– A reporter’s perspective on covering the arrival of spring wildflower season in the desert. It sounds so fleeting and romantic on this gray, sodden, icy New York City day.
Follow along virtually by visiting the Wildflower InfoSite that our colleagues at the Desert Botanical Garden maintain.
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Things Get Dirty at a Salvation Army Thrift Store →
There’s so much to love about this initiative, we don’t even know where to start in our gushing!
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“I remember my niece, when she was first born, and the great irony of her...”
– Jake Gyllenhaal, Edible Schoolyard spokesman and school garden evangelist
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Mud Season
Mud season—that crazy time of year here in the Northeast when gardeners must sit on their hands and not rush into planting things outdoors lest they compact the soil or freeze a batch of seedling—is upon us. The great guys over at Hudson Valley Seed Library have a wonderful poem that just might help you pass the days until it’s finally safe to place that first pea into the...
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A Warm Welcome to Spring: Blossoming Beauty at the... →
Need a dose of color? Then head over to The Gardener’s Eden for Michaela’s brilliant (and brilliantly hued) wrap-up featuring so many of the gorgeous flowers we’ll be seeing around in the Northeast in a couple of weeks.
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Where does your NYC garden grow? →
Free and cheap events help at-home gardeners grow.
Morning Eye Candy: The Forest & the City →
Oh the breadth of those limbs—
after the taut geometry of elevator, fire escape, lobby,
to see through branches to the sun—I believed
the world was mine, there was sap in my veins,
the tree was…
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Morning Eye Candy: The Many More Colors of... →
Witch-Hazel isn’t just cheery in the winter, it’s also a welcome addition to the chorus of colors early spring brings.
Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Birgit’
…
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Sunny Day Blooms →
The forecast calls for it to touch 70°F today (but sadly to drop back down to around 50°F for the weekend). This beautiful stretch of weather has brought out some of spring’s most beautiful…
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An Early-Spring Pesto →
A great recipe for one of spring’s first-to-return greens: Dandelions! From the ever imaginative and oh so tres bon David Lebovitz.
