April 2011
126 posts
Morning Eye Candy: Guess! →
Can you tell us what this plant is?
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
4 tags
Digging the benefits →
Yet another surprising place where gardens are popping up: Hospitals. Theraputic gardens help patients on their path to recovery in a variety of ways. Our Adult Education program offers a variety of classes in Horticultural Therapy.
5 tags
Leading gardeners back call to cut out use of peat →
There’s a movement afoot in the United Kingdom to place a tax upon peat used in gardening. Peat has been used in the U.K. traditionally as a soil amendment, in addition to it’s traditional role as a component in seed-starting soils. In it’s place gardening experts are pushing good old-fashioned compost.
Food Chain →
Incredible video clip from BBC One’s “Nature’s Great Events” Series. Watch it very carefully. Then watch it again, and think about the steely resolve and steadiness of the…
Snaps from the Antique Garden Furniture Show →
Ann Rafalko is Director of Online Content.
I just got back from a walk around the Antique Garden Furniture Show and Sale, and boy are my arms tired! No, no. I didn’t fly over to the…
3 tags
Brooklyn businesses rush to aid of robbed Bay... →
The depressing part of this story: Someone robbed the community-managed, volunteer-run Narrows Botanical Garden in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn of some of its most prized plants and supplies on, of all days, Earth Day.
Now, to the good part: Area businesses are doing everything they can to help the lovely little garden in the shadow of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge restock in time for their annual...
3 tags
5 tags
Free Seeds Available: School Gardens and... →
The good folks at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project and the Hudson Valley Seed Library are making 1,000 seed packets available to Hudson Valley schools and non-profits. Apply here.
6 tags
Rare Pennsylvania fungus is named for Philadelphia... →
NYBG Doctoral student James Lendemer names a newly discovered fungus after the don of rare plant research, Dr. Alfred “Ernie” Schuyler of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
For Mom! →
Mothers. Where would we be without them? They bring us into this world, they raise us, teach us, feed us, clothe us, and then hopefully, they send us off to be a good person, and perhaps (at least…
7 tags
“Scientists are calling the “neotropcial” blueberries extreme...”
– What’s healthier than blueberries? Say hello to “extreme” berries - NYBG Scientist Paola Pedraza-Penalosa on her area of research, the neotropical blueberry on CBS News.
4 tags
7 tags
Dutch dig big society →
Robin Lane Fox offers up Holland as a model for how urban, volunteer-based gardens can become successfully integrated into the patchwork of modern society.
8 tags
From The Library: Skeletal Beginnings
Conservatory building under construction. Spring 1900. Source: The New York Botanical Garden’s historical photographs, in the collections of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
Descontaminacíon, Rescate, Desarrollo →
As is shown in this wonderful mural in one of the neighborhoods of Esperanza, there are still several issues to deal with now that the US Navy has stopped bombing the island. In…
4 tags
The Great St. Louis Tree hunt is underway →
Our friends in St. Louis are celebrating the UN’s International Year of Forests with an amazing tree scavenger hunt! If you’re in the area and participating, you must let us know if this is as fun as we think it is. We’ll be celebrating the Year of Forests later this year, too, so stay tuned!
3 tags
5 tags
Inside the Olfactory Mind of Dr. Roman Kaiser →
A cool olfactory-themed interview with the author of Scent of the Vanishing Flora from the blog Glass Petal Smoke.
6 tags
A Rainbow for Your Garden
Dramm makes the best watering tools, hands down. They’re used by horticultural professionals everywhere, because they provide large amounts of water in the most gentle way. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that they’re so colorful and cheery! We think a sprayer and hose set would make an excellent Mother’s Day present for the gardening lady in your life.
Dramm Revolver Hose...
3 tags
Morning Eye Candy: Memories →
The Garden is open today, Monday, for the last day of The Orchid Show: On Broadway. So get here before all the beautiful flowers become just another memory until next year.
Photo…
4 tags
From the Library: Easter Day Crowds, 1939
Source: The New York Botanical Garden’s historical photographs, in the collections of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library.
4 tags
Vieques →
Have just returned from five days on Vieques, an island municipality of Puerto Rico in the northeastern Caribbean. Wonderful trip with the family. Beautiful beaches and coral reefs, the…
4 tags
Rare plant is a blooming miracle →
Ohio State University looks set to become the newest member of an elite club: Institutions that have managed to get a Titan Arum, aka Amorphophallus titanum, aka the corpse plant to bloom. The enormous, smelly plants are so hard to coax into flower that fewer than 100 have done so in cultivation since the first one bloomed right here at The New York Botanical Garden in 1937. Click the link above...
4 tags
5 tags
Rooftop ‘farm’ will soon be sprouting atop three... →
Plans are coming together for a new rooftop school garden that will grow on the roof of a building that houses three separate schools—P.S. 64, the Tompkins Square Middle School and the Earth School—in Manhattan’s East Village. The project has received city and state funds to help it reach fruition, and will hopefully begin to be built this summer.
Morning Eye Candy: Encore! →
Tonight is your final chance to attend Orchid Evenings! So grab your date or a group of your friends and hop on the train to Botanical Garden Station for this special evening of cocktails and…
8 tags
NYBG for the Wildlife Photographer: Part Two →
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Member and avid amateur wildlife photographer. She is especially fond of taking photographs at the Garden.
In part one, I encouraged shutterbugs who love…
5 tags
“Good nutrition starts with knowing where your food comes from, and the sooner...”
– Planting seeds of nutrition with Mario Batali
4 tags
Introducing Mario Batali’s Edible Garden →
Mario Batali was at the Garden on April 12. But he wasn’t here to see the cherry blossoms or to catch a glimpse of José and Justin. Nope, Mario was here for one very good reason: To promote…
5 tags
5 tags
The Rock Garden
Spring has really sprung in this beautiful, serene, quirky garden.
Teeny tiny daffodils
Rock Garden sun flare
A profusion of really unusual bulbs line the Rock Garden waterfall
Hands On NY Day at Roberto Clemente Community... →
Saturday was a busy day, as we had another group serving with New York Cares on Hands On New York Day. This group served at Roberto Clemente Community Garden in the Bronx. The group got a lot…
4 tags
“I snicker; this is my kind of spring. The kind of spring that takes the time to...”
– Sarah of Saipua on spring 2011 ~ in the garden of good and evil
5 tags
Sell-Outs and Underdogs →
A fun list of overlooked and under-appreciated seed varieties at the Hudson Valley Seed Library this year. We’re surprised that radishes and green tomatoes are on the list. What is your favorite misunderstood vegetable to grow?
5 tags
First Glance: ‘Green Currency: Plants in the... →
Green Currency: Plants in the Economy—an exhibition of botanical art at The New York Botanical Garden which opens to the public today—offers the rare chance to look through a wide array of beautifully hand-drawn or hand-painted illustrations of plants. Each plant has been chosen for its economic value and importance in our everyday lives.
Heirloom Tomato, Solanum lycopersicum ©...
4 tags
When Digging for Ramps Goes Too Deep →
The New York Times picks up on our theme from yesterday and takes a deeper dive on the problem of ramp fetishization leading towards the plant’s possible extinction.
3 tags
Did You Know the Botanical Garden Has a Lab? →
Amy Litt is Director of Plant Genomics and Cullman Curator
Four of the Garden’s six Science programs, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Program for Molecular Systematics, the Genomics…
3 tags
Gardening With Kids →
Some great, practical advice from Kerry Michaels over on the About Container Gardening page.
