Margaritaville

I had a double dose of spring these past few days.  Three of those days were spent at the Boston Flower & Garden Show, which I think I covered adequately in ‘Flower Show Fever’ in the essay just below this one.  On Saturday, Betty and I took the day off and drove down to the New York Botanical Garden.

Mid-March in New York is an ‘iffy’ time of the season.  There are years when the lawn is already awash in daffodils and spring is officially in the air if not yet on the calendar.  This is not one of those years.  It has been a cold, wet winter across the mid-Atlantic and the Ides of March blew cold and damp.

The Orchid Show is an annual event, a means of attracting visitors to NYBG at a time when ‘fun outing’ and ‘botanical garden’ are not normally used in the same sentence.  And inside the majestic Enid Haupt Conservatory, it is the March of the tropics or, more specifically, Key West. 

Walls of orchids.  Double-click
for a slideshow.

You don’t try to count the number of orchids on display; they come by the wall-ful.  One ‘plaque’ contains 900 dendrobium orchids, each a unique plant in its own tiny pot, wired into place and made part of the whole by judicious use of moss.  There are orchids overhead and at ankle level; massive cascades of polychrome and spiky orchids that appear to have taken their inspiration from a coral reef.

The designer of all this is a gifted tropical landscaper named Raymond Jungles (and the biographical sources I searched all swear that this is his real name).  Jungles believes in modernism: cubes, thrusting angles and circles.  ‘Waterfalls’ are niches cut in lime-green stucco walls through which water flows in perfect measure to a ‘pool’ thirty feet long and a six inches wide.

Alone amid the scent
of vanilla

But the glory of this garden (inspired by one of Mr. Jungles’ real-life commissions for the Key West home of a prominent New York family) is the sheer abundance of color.  There is no muted backdrop to make these orchids pop; rather the multiple varieties of crotons and bromeliads compete for the eye.  And it all works.

We had the luxury of seeing all this on a Saturday morning when the Conservatory was nearly empty, but it takes planning to have such an experience.  By noon, the nearby subway and Metro North stations are disgorging thousands of visitors, all headed for the same building.  We left suburban Boston at 6 a.m. and arrived at the NYBG’s main parking lot just as it opened at 9:45 (when we left at noon the lot was full).  We were inside the entrance a few minutes later and made the short walk to the Conservatory.  The exhibit nominally opens at 10 a.m. but the sight of a dozen people huddling outside the door caused the staff to open the doors a little early.  I figure we were in the exhibit at 9:50.

It is all the difference in the world to see the exhibit without crowds.  You can appreciate the design better, stand in the middle of a room and slowly drink in the color.  You can also stand very still among dozens of vanilla orchids and smell their intoxicating aroma.

The Orchid Show runs through April 21.  Yes, by mid-April you’ll be able to enjoy far more of what NYBG has to offer.  But right now, it has something very special:  a building full of tropical color at a time when the world is still gray.

Going Native in the Bronx

The entrance to the new
Native Plant Garden 

It took two false starts but, this past weekend Betty and I finally made it to the new Native Plant Garden at the New York Botanical Garden.  The consensus opinion?  Two very solid thumbs up for a garden that is as intelligent as it is low key.

NYBG has had a ‘native plant garden’ for decades and it was always in the same place, adjoining the Rock Garden.  It was a product of a different era; one that displayed plants in the same way that zoological parks once displayed animals.  Here is a tiger, here is a bear, here is a stand of caryx grasses.  We last visited the ‘old’ native plant garden in probably 2003.  It left no impression despite the fact that Betty has a strong affinity toward using natives in our own garden.

This 230-foot-long pond is central
to the garden's ecosystem

The ‘old’ native plant garden closed in 2009 and a board fence went up around the site.  If memory serves correctly, the original opening date was spring 2012.  Somewhere along the line, that became 2013.  The garden formally opened in early May.

The first impression is that the place is huge.  It is three and a half acres, but it looks even larger by designing out to the full borders of the site and ‘borrowing views’ from adjacent gardens.  It is billed as a ‘cutting-edge’ installation.  That definition is almost an understatement.  To create the garden, its designers went back to a blank slate; reimagining the site as a shaded woodland; a dry, open meadow; and a wetland.

Yellow trillium - a mid-Spring-
blooming native - have been
planted in among grasses

The aspect of the garden that is – at least to me – most jaw-dropping is the underlying, invisible engineering.   A visitor sees a central water feature; a dramatic 230-foot-long pond surrounded by wetlands.  Rising from the pond is a meadow and the woodland.  What is invisible to the eye is a vast system of recirculating pumps that push 600 gallons of water through the garden every minute.  (You may want to re-read that last sentence and think about 600 gallons of water – almost all of it recirculated – flowing every minute). 

The water feature is, in reality, a man-made bit of ecology.  Water is pumped into the wetland where it is pushed up through layers of sand, gravel and plant roots to reach the upper basin, then over a weir to reach the lower basin.  Underground cisterns collect excess rainwater for release as needed.  Natural processes keep the water clean, filtering out excess organics and maintaining oxygen levels. 

Mature oaks provide a canopy for
the garden's shade plantings

There are nearly 100,000 plants in the garden, arranged with intelligence as well as an eye to inspire home gardeners.  There is harmony as groupings of cultivars give way to new groupings, and the groupings promise to change with the seasons.  In late May, we were treated to sweeps of yellow trilliums, rue-anemones and lady slipper orchids.  The meadows were rife with a carpet of Sisyrinchium – blue-eyed grass.  The flow is visually inventive; a delight, and NYBG promises that the plant color palette will change with the seasons.

The choice of plants is also designed to showcase that ‘nativars’ can be as attractive as any exotic import for a home garden.  The perennials we saw featured bright colors (and based on Betty’s acquaintance with them, long bloom periods).  The NYBG Shop in the Garden carried an excellent assortment of the plants we had just seen.

The garden is also about native trees.  Mature oaks were left in place to provide shade to stands of rhododendron and understory trees and shrubs.  We found a stand of amalanchier with an explanatory text to tell why they’re also called ‘shadbush’.  There was also a great specimen of a mature oxydendrum (sourwood) that should be glorious in late summer.

The carpet of sisyrinchium.  By
being at the garden at 10 a.m., we
had the place to ourselves for
much of our visit

What we did not encounter was a crowd.  NYBG opens at 10 a.m. and, when visiting, we make a point of being in line at the main parking area when it opens at 9:45.  As members, we’re waved into the entrance which means we’re in the garden proper at ten.  We made a bee-line for the Native Plant Garden and were its first visitors.  We saw the garden at our leisure, exploring each of the side trails with opportunities to linger over especially interesting vistas or plants. When we departed the garden an hour and a half later, there was a steady flow of visitors entering.

Five days after our visit, the Native Plant Garden is still vivid in memory.  What stands out the most is its tranquility (too-loud music coming from a birthday party at the adjacent ‘Children’s Adventure’ area notwithstanding).  In the rhododendron glade, the paths are very narrow and winding; you can’t walk it briskly.  Gazing out at the dry upland meadow, we saw an unbroken expanse five hundred feet wide and seemingly just as deep (the depth is something of an optical illusion).

In short, it’s a beautiful addition to the New York Botanical Garden.  In the parlance of the Michelin Guide, it’s worth a journey.

A Winter Respite IV

The rotunda, with its large pool, is
a great starting point for the show.  
Double-click on any photo to see
the display at full-screen size.

The Enid Haupt Conservatory, the huge, turn-of-the-20th-Century glass house that is the icon of the New York Botanical Garden, is a chameleon.  The trees and shrubs inside don't change, but their coloring is as malleable as a jar of Silly Putty.  One day, the interior space hosts a tribute to Emily Dickinson, the next, it has been transformed into Monet's Giverny.  Each year at Christmas, a train runs through it.  And, each March and April, it becomes a tropical paradise filled with orchids.

Panels of explanatory text make
it an educational experience.

We were at the eleventh annual edition of The Orchid Show yesterday.  It was snowing in New York but, in a cavernous Lord & Burnham structure in the Bronx, it was a balmy 70 degrees and the air was redolent of vanilla and spice.  We were the first visitors inside (see below) and we had the opportunity to linger over both the 7,000 orchids on display and the explanatory text that accompanied many exhibits.

The Three Graces amid
a display of rare orchids

The rotunda is filled with orchids; they reflect beautifully against the large pool.  Then, as you circle the conservatory clockwise, the exhibition begins to build, like a fireworks display.  Each hall provides a fresh burst of color, together with text panels to put everything in context.  By the time you get to the 'special exhibits' halls (the NYBG's equivalent of that fireworks show's grand finale), you have a good, if basic, understanding of where orchids come from and how they fit into the plant kingdom.  It is horticulture as entertainment, but you can't help but come away a bit wiser.

In the Special Exhibits Hall, the orchids
explode as at the finale of a fireworks display

It was also a reminder that New England is not alone in being still in the grip of winter.  Apart from some aconites, NYBG is still very much buttoned up for winter.  Somehow, we found that comforting.

While the Orchid Show stands as an independent attraction for NYBG and a welcome end-of-winter retreat, it is also a reminder of an important role the garden plays in the orchid world.  Each year, thousands of rare or endangered orchid plants are confiscated at various U.S. ports of entry.  Rather than being destroyed, many of them are shipped to New York and placed under NYBG's care.

The NYBG's publicity machine has worked overtime to make this year's show known to everyone on the planet and, as a result, the show is mobbed.  We left our suburban Boston home at 6:15 a.m. and pulled up to the visitor's entrance at 9:35.  The garden does not open until 10 a.m. but we were allowed to park in the valet area until the lot formally opened at 9:45.  Once we had our parking spot, we found we could go directly into the gardens.  We made a beeline for the Conservatory and found, because of the temperature and biting wind, that we were allowed to wait in the orchid-filled rotunda, even though it was still just 9:50.  As a result, we were into the Orchid Show with just a handful of people.  When we left at noon, the show was extremely crowded.

Giverny in the Bronx

There’s a truism in the art museum world that, when attendance starts to flag or publicity has been sparse, curators have a ready, foolproof solution:  mount an Impressionist exhibition.  Borrow some Renoirs and Monets, throw in a Cezanne or a Pizarro, and the public will be standing in line every morning.  Impressionism sells.

I’ve been lured to a couple of those exhibitions.  A few were outstanding but most simply recycled the same highly overexposed paintings.  So, I was understandably dubious when Betty and I went to the New York Botanical Garden Saturday morning to see “Monet’s Garden”.  Why did NYBG, an institution with no dearth of resources or lack of visitors, feel a need to put on a six-month-long tribute to Claude Monet? 

What you see when you enter
the exhibit.  Double-click on any
photo to see it at full size.

I had a right to be suspicious.  Two years ago, there was another attempt to recreate a much-beloved nineteenth-century figure’s garden.   That time, it was Emily Dickinson and, in my opinion, it fell flat (I wrote about it here).  This time, however, my doubts were misplaced.  I love being proved wrong and, even more, I appreciate leaving an exhibition with more knowledge than I had going in. 

Straight ahead, the Japanese
footbridge

“Monet’s Garden” has a simple premise:  In the latter half of his life, Claude Monet (1840-1926) worked in plants the same way he worked in paints.  Giverny, to which he moved in 1883 and remained until his death, became a canvas imbued with as much care, imagination and skill as the paintings that lined collectors’ walls; and bellflowers, hollyhocks, wisteria, water lilies and snapdragons were a palette as endlessly versatile as the one he carried when he painted.

The surprising part of the above paragraph is that it is written by someone who has made the trip to Giverny.  I have seen the Grande Allée, the pergolas, the Japanese bridge.  I thought it was very beautiful.  Somehow, though, it never connected in my tiny little brain that Monet’s garden was his passion and that he devoted as much time to it as he did to his painting.  Now, after a trip to the Bronx, I do.

Turn around, and there's a glimpse
of the main house at Giverny

“Monet’s Garden” unfolds in multiple parts.  As you enter NYBG and walk toward the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, you see placards bearing poetry that was written during Monet’s painting years.  Once in the Conservatory, you hear music; uniquely French and from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Ravel’s Bolero is a terrific accompaniment).  You go through a pair of glass doors and you are assaulted by colors.

Monet was meticulous in his record-keeping.  He documented his purchases of plants and his instructions to his gardeners.  His garden was extensively photographed in his lifetime.  NYBG brought in Scott Pask, a Broadway scenic designer, to create, in a few thousand square feet, a set piece that is both accurate and representational.  The Grande Allée has been condensed to approximately 250 feet but is packed with thousands of annuals and perennials, each true to Monet’s time and vision.  Overhead, on metal arches painted the ‘Monet Green’ used in Giverny, roses are beginning to climb.

Is it Giverny or the Bronx?

What is stunning is that a) everything in the Grande Allée is in perfect bloom and that b) growing in NYBG’s greenhouses are replacement plants to parallel the march of the seasons between now and October.  This day, the snapdragons were eight feet high, the bellflowers were in full purple flower and the hollyhocks had not a single spent petal.  According to the NYBG literature, more than 150 varieties of annuals and perennials are on display.  By October, the count will exceed 600.

It is an exhibit that encourages you to keep looking around.  If you turn around to admire the garden behind you, you see a two-story fragment of the main house at Giverny, perfect in its pink and green accents, the carriage lamps beside the shuttered doors just as they are in Monet’s paintings.  Ahead of you, through a double gate (again, in Monet Green, is the iconic footbridge, swathed in wisteria, bamboo and willows.

An abundance of water lilies.  Alas,
it was a different Ray Davies.

The second part of “Monet’s Garden” is outdoors.  The two pools in the Conservatory’s courtyard have been given over to water lilies.  I learned that  Nymphaea odorata underwent an seismic change in the 1880s as colorful North American specimens were cross-bred with their hardy European cousins to produced new cultivars with colors never before seen on the Continent.  Monet collected these lilies and overwintered them.

I thought for a brief instant that I had discovered a previously unknown footnote to the genius of Kinks founder Ray Davies.  One of the water lilies in the pool has the cultivar name, ‘Ray Davies’.  Alas, some research showed that the cultivar in question is named for the founder of Stapeley Water Gardens of Great Britain and not for the lead singer on Sunny Afternoon.

Amazingly, there is more to see.  We walked over to the Mertz Library where photographs and a pair of Monet paintings were on display.  In another room, Monet’s gardening notes, lists and letters were laid out and translated, with small photos providing visual reference points. 

It was while perusing his extensive notes that everything fell into place: this man was a passionate gardener who created a private Eden far from Paris.  Here, he could garden and paint (his series on the Rouen cathedral, poplars, and haystacks were all products of Giverny, as well as the masterpiece ‘Les Nymphéas’ now in the Musée de l’Orangerie).  Here he entertained friends and dignitaries.  Here, he was at peace.

Maybe it’s one of those ‘duh’ moments – everyone on the face of the earth already knew these things.  But I didn’t, or at least I didn’t know I knew it.  Now, I do.  Thank you, NYBG, for a lovely education.

*  *  *  *  *

We also spent time at the Rockefeller Rose Garden at NYBG.  It is at its peak in June and, on this day (June 9), it is as though every single one of the 1700 varieties were in simultaneous sensual bloom.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect trip.

Among the Azaleas

The New York Botanical Garden does not do anything by half measures. It has a sufficient number of deep-pocketed supporters to fund simultaneous construction projects that most gardens would contemplate once in a decade.

Saturday morning, Betty and I had the pleasure to be among the first to see the culmination of the NYBG’s most recent undertaking: the creation of an 11-acre azalea garden. Four years in the making, its 3,000 azaleas and rhododendron are just the tip of a statistical iceberg that includes 70,000 new plants (40,000 bulbs, 28,000 woodland perennials, 3500 trees and shrubs) put together by a roster of horticultural ‘names’ working with a $5 million budget.

Seven years in the making, the garden is as thoughtful as it is gorgeous. While the azaleas are the stars, it’s the ground covers that are going to steal the show when the azalea blooms fade. There are dozens of cultivars of epimedium, hosta, grass, iris and other shade-tolerant plants that both frame the azaleas and provide a background palette of color and texture. A few were familiar names; many more were new specimens we’ve not previously encountered and will seek out for our own garden.

The garden comprises six distinct areas: a low-lying woodland dell; a rocky knoll that evokes a North Carolina bald; a summit meadow featuring bulbs, grasses and perennials; an elevated overlook that allows visitors to see the sweep of the azaleas below; an azalea bank with bands of different color azalea; and a wooded old-growth grove into which deciduous native azalea have been incorporated. There is nearly 50 feet of elevation in the garden; the change is steep enough that one area incorporates stairs.

Traversing these sites and encircling the garden are a mile of paths and overlooks; many of the pathways with low stone walls as borders. The gravel paths bend and circle in such a way that, when we retraced our way along the inner trails, we felt we were walking a different garden.

When you have access to the breadth of financial and horticultural resources that the NYBG can tap, the fear is always that ‘the money has to show’ and, as a corollary, fealty must be paid to those who supplied the funding. There are a few areas of NYBG where naming rights trump visual sensibilities. The new azalea garden is not one of them. It is glorious place.

Granted, we saw it at its most tranquil. We were in the azalea garden before 10 a.m. and, for a few minutes, had it entirely to ourselves. By noon (when we left), the character of the garden had changed significantly as crowds descended on it. When you go, make it early. For whatever reason, New Yorkers aren’t early garden goers.

Emily Dickinson, Gimmick

What does it take to draw a crowd? What does it take to draw a crowd when you have a hundred thousand members and a gazillion dollar endowment? What does it take to draw a crowd when you have all those things plus it’s the first weekend in May and the most beautiful day of the year?

Apparently, Emily Dickinson.

The New York Botanical Garden is without question one of the finest facilities of its type in the world and I’ve been to no finer one in the United States. I’m pleased to be a member despite living 209 miles from its front gate.

We were there yesterday as part of “members’ weekend”, perhaps a kind of “old home” event on the part of the NYBG marketing staff. Parking was free, use of the tram was free, admission to the rock garden was free. Of course, except for the tram, these things are always free for members anyway. But we also got free admission to “Emily Dickinson’s Garden – the Poetry of Flowers”, except that is also free any other time for members (for non-members, it’s $20). Oh, and everything in the gift shop was 20% off.

It was a glorious day to be at the garden. We arrived at 9:30 and were one of the first dozen cars into the parking lot. We walked the Ladies’ Border and perennial beds in front of the Conservatory in utter seclusion. At 10 a.m. the Conservatory opened its doors and we decided to go see what the fuss was about as regards Ms. Dickinson.

We usually skip the Conservatory during the warm months because there’s so much to see outdoors. That’s a mistake. The Enid Haupt Conservatory is divided into climates representing different regions of the world and, on May 1, it seemed as though the whole world had exploded into bloom. Turquoise pods fell in chains on vines in the rain forest. A cactus in the desert room was covered in vividly yellow flowers. Bougainvillea in hues of red, orange and purple cascaded from the ceiling.

And then we were in the Special Exhibitions area of the Conservatory and in Emily Dickinson’s garden.

It was a nice garden, though why it was mounted indoors is a bit mystifying. It featured the flowers, trees and shrubs that the Belle of Amherst wrote about in her poetry. But it was a tiny, densely packed New England garden with a lot of explanatory text. The plants were of the sort found at any decent nursery. It had a ten-foot-long woodland path; not exactly conducive to the kind of contemplative walks that inspired Ms. Dickinson.

There is no question, though, that Emily Dickinson and flowers are inextricably linked, or that her family’s garden (at The Homestead, an estate in Amherst) stimulated her. Bringing it indoors and compressing it into less than two thousand square feet seems extremely short-sighted.

We spent the balance of our time walking the lilac garden (in full, fragrant bloom) and paying homage to NYBG’s spectacular rock garden, a continuing source of inspiration.

At half past noon we were ready to journey into Manhattan. That’s when we got to observe what happens when you dawdle on members’ weekend. The lines to get in stretched out of the visitor’s center and out into the parking lot. The NYBG parking lot was long since filled to capacity and closed, with a massive traffic jam stretching into the garage at Fordham University across the street.

A Double-Header in the Bronx

New York City is 210 miles from my home and, on a Saturday morning, it’s a leisurely three-hour-and-change drive. This past Saturday, my wife and I spent a beautiful day visiting two old friends – Wave Hill and the New York Botanical Garden. Both are in the Bronx, which causes people’s eyes to bulge (you went where?!). These two gardens are must-sees for anyone who is serious about horticulture.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Wave Hill is that it is there. You walk from a modest parking area around a bend in a hedge and there, before you, is a vista that ought not to exist. A vast lawn stretching hundreds of feet sprinkled with specimen trees, a magnificent pergola studded with plants, and a vista across the Hudson River to the 500-foot-high Palisades that is unchanged from two centuries ago.

But then Wave Hill has an extraordinary history and enjoys unusual support. Located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, it began, in 1843, as the ‘country estate’ of a grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Theodore Roosevelt lived there for two summers as a boy and Samuel Clemens was a resident for two years while the property was owned by a wealthy publisher. In 1903, a financier purchased Wave Hill and began acquiring adjacent properties, ultimately assembling 28 riverfront acres. The property passed to the City of New York in 1960 and is run today as a city-owned ‘cultural institution’. But it is hardly an impoverished institution: as of their last annual report, Wave Hill held cash and marketable securities valued at $21 million.

The Great Lawn, with its flights of eminently movable, tall-backed wooden chairs, is the dominant feature when you first see Wave Hill. This is Riverdale’s ‘front porch’, so to speak. Dozens of people read books and newspapers or chat with friends, oblivious to the stunning backdrop. If there were no gardens, Wave Hill would be worth the visit, just for that glorious view of the river and the high-rise-free cliffs beyond.

But there are gardens. Imaginative ones large and small. The pergola is a study in the use of containers. It is a riot of colors and textures and much of it is provided by dozens of containers holding everything from full-grown fruit trees to cascading, flowering vines. In another part of the park is a monocot garden – one comprised entirely of plants such as grasses, grains, banana plants and taro that produce a single leaf from each seed instead of the more prevalent two – which in turn surrounds an aquatic garden. It is intelligent in its design and intriguing in its execution. There is a flower garden – tiny for so large a park but packed with hundreds of annals and perennials. The layout is a formal grid but plants spill over into walkways producing a glorious jumble. There is an herb garden and an elliptical garden, each a fascinating space. Perhaps best of all, there is a container garden filled with Alpine plants. The containers – concrete cubes mostly – would be plug-ugly except for the riot of tiny plants they hold and the imaginative arrangement of those cubes. They stack upon one another and spread out line an Alpine meadow. It is a wonderful space.

I have been to Wave Hill perhaps half a dozen times and each visit brings something new to explore. On this visit, for the first time, I explored a woodland trail that tacks down the hillside toward the Hudson. It brought me by an unmarked, half-acre-sized swatch of land that appears to have been given over to seed-eating birds. It is a mass of Rudbeckia, Vernonia noveboracensis (New York State ironweed), Solidago, and Echinacea. Every garden should offer something new with each visit. Wave Hill never disappoints.

The New York Botanical Garden may be the most exquisite public garden in the U.S. It is lavishly endowed and continually being renewed. Its horticultural staff has the funds to Do Things Right and its marketers continually dream up events to pull in the crowds. Every public garden that has ever bemoaned poor attendance needs to send someone to the Bronx to see how it’s done.

Seeing NYBG properly takes days. We had a limited itinerary: to see the Rockefeller Rose Garden in its summer glory and take a walk through the Rock Garden looking for ideas of how to improve our own.

During the interminable rains of June, multiple rose specimens were hit by fungal disease and the NYBG staff belongs to the when-in-doubt-rip-it-out school of floriculture. Seeing several linear feet of mulched, empty beds is startling in such a garden but a wise move on the part of those who tend the garden. The signs promise a return of new specimens. But the color of everything else made those empty beds almost unnoticeable. If there is a scheme to the arrangement of rose varieties in the garden it escapes me. It’s just a wonderful, formal space that no home gardener could or should ever try to replicate. It’s the reason why there are public gardens. It’s the reason why you have to see the New York Botanical Garden.