12 Feb 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.
The Washington Avenue entrance.
Just beyond the gate, the paper bush (Edgeworthia chrysantha) is budding!
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.
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
Steinhardt Conservatory
Epiphyllum.
The Bonsai Museum
The museum rotates the specimens it displays in this light-filled bonsai gallery.
Juniperus chinensis (style: multi-trunk).
Pinus rigida (style: clump).
Pinus densiflora (style: slant).
Acer palmatum (informal upright style, over 120 years old).
Aquatic House
Platycerium fern.
Solandra longiflora of the potato family.
Tongue orchid (Bulbophyllum fletcherianum).
Tongue orchid (Bulbophyllum fletcherianum).
Vanda orchid.
Vanda orchid.
Cyrtosperma johnstonii.
Tiger orchid (Grammatophyllum speciosum) is that enormous plant hanging over the pond.
Easy there, tiger orchid.
We don’t know what this is. Can anyone help us out?
Montrichardia arborescens or moco-moco.
Water lily in a nifty little terra cotta container.
Sarracenia purpurea and Sarrancenia flava. Both are American pitcher plant species.
Sarracenia purpurea and Dionaea muscipula.
Tillandsia.
Rhipsalis paradoxa or chain cactus.
Anthurium.
Conservatory Gallery
Kokedama (the practice of using a ‘moss ball’ as a planting medium) is displayed overhead. Below is an array of bromeliads.
Neoregelia ‘Mendoza’ and ‘Full Moon.’
Guzmania ‘Diane.’
Desert Pavilion
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.”
Puya berteroniana of the Bromeliad family.
Cape Aloe (Aloe verox) and blue candle cactus (Myrtillocactus geometrizans).
Mexcal agave.
Tropical Pavilion
This section features plants from the rainforests of South America, Africa and Asia…
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…
Martinez Pinyon (Pinus maximartinez) towers over a natal lily (Clivia nobilis).
Natal lily (Clivia nobilis).
Cycad.
Croton.
Variegated ginger.
Artist’s acanthus (Acanthus mollis).
