Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Escape from New York: A sizzlin’ winter tour of Brooklyn Botanic Garden

This #FlashbackFriday we’re taking you all the way back…to December. We were on the East Coast for the holidays. That day we’d gotten coffee at Little Zelda and bagels at Nagle’s Bagels before going to visit my funny and unfiltered grandmother in Flatbush/Ditmas Park—where she’s lived in the same apartment since the late 1970s! It was a mild and vaguely drizzly day. After seeing family, we headed over to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

(Years ago, Pre-Instagram Era, whenever I was feeling homesick I would pull up the garden’s Flickr page to see what was in bloom.) It was Ryan’s first time on the property, which spans 52 acres of Prospect Park’s northeast corner.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

The Washington Avenue entrance.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Just beyond the gate, the paper bush (Edgeworthia chrysantha) is budding!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

We felt right at home stumbling into a Farfugium japonicum ‘Giganteum’ which is surprisingly hardy down to temperatures of zero degrees F.  We hope to bring this plant into our garden this year.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon-grape holly).

So much color on a gray winter day! Plants were budding and blooming indoors and outdoors. Bronze bark gave lots of attitude and certain fiery ornamentals were still holding on in their beds. Inside, we saw bonsai in “clump,” “slant,” and “informal upright” styles. And then there were the water lilies, ferns, carnivorous plants and the massive tiger orchid overhead inside the Aquatic House. Things got sul-tree in the Steinhardt Conservatory, where tropicals were performing some amazing tricks.

Join us on our walkabout below. We only saw a small portion of the garden — the terrace and the conservatory — but it was action-packed. If you’re in the area, the garden is having a kokedama workshop this Saturday! That’s our kind of day-date.

December 2022 update: Speaking of wintertime, we were thrilled to be included in this new roundup on Redfin’s blog all about preserving YOUR outdoor space when it gets cold. 

—TH

Lily Pool Terrace

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

 

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Steinhardt Conservatory

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Epiphyllum.

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The Bonsai Museum

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

The museum rotates the specimens it displays in this light-filled bonsai gallery.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Juniperus chinensis (style: multi-trunk).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Pinus rigida (style: clump).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Pinus densiflora (style: slant).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Acer palmatum (informal upright style, over 120 years old).

Aquatic House

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Platycerium fern.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Solandra longiflora of the potato family.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Tongue orchid (Bulbophyllum fletcherianum).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Tongue orchid (Bulbophyllum fletcherianum).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Vanda orchid.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Vanda orchid.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Cyrtosperma johnstonii.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Tiger orchid (Grammatophyllum speciosum) is that enormous plant hanging over the pond.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Easy there, tiger orchid.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

We don’t know what this is. Can anyone help us out?

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Montrichardia arborescens or moco-moco.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Water lily in a nifty little terra cotta container.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Sarracenia purpurea and Sarrancenia flava. Both are American pitcher plant species.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Sarracenia purpurea and Dionaea muscipula.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Tillandsia.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Rhipsalis paradoxa or chain cactus.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Anthurium.

Conservatory Gallery

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Kokedama (the practice of using a ‘moss ball’ as a planting medium) is displayed overhead. Below is an array of bromeliads.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Neoregelia ‘Mendoza’ and ‘Full Moon.’

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Guzmania ‘Diane.’

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Desert Pavilion

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

To quote the sign, ‘This house features cacti and agaves from New World deserts, and aloes, euphorbias, and other succulent plants from xeric regions of the Old World.”

 

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Puya berteroniana of the Bromeliad family.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Cape Aloe (Aloe verox) and blue candle cactus (Myrtillocactus geometrizans).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Mexcal agave.

Tropical Pavilion

This section features plants from the rainforests of South America, Africa and Asia…

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Warm Temperate Pavilion

In this pavilion, we saw a lot of familiar flora. The species here “adapted to the dry summers and wet winters” of eastern Asia, South Africa, the Mediterranean, Australia and New Zealand. And California, of course!  We saw some gorgeous winter-blooming bulbs popping against evergreens…

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Martinez Pinyon (Pinus maximartinez) towers over a natal lily (Clivia nobilis).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Natal lily (Clivia nobilis).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Cycad.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Croton.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Variegated ginger.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Artist’s acanthus (Acanthus mollis).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden