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November 28, 2005
28th Street Flower District
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Looking for amaryllis or paperwhites for the holidays? Tired of the same-old selection of cut flowers at the grocery store? Or you want to send a gift of potted orchids but they're too expensive at your neighborhood florist? There's one perfect place to go in Manhattan--28th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Tropical plants and trees, cut flowers of every imaginable variety, pots of paperwhites and tulips and hyacinths, rows of orchids (not just the classic phalanopsis, but unusual dendrobium, oncidium, etc.) all line the street and pack the stores. If you are looking for cut flowers, get an early start, meaning 5am, and do your shopping before noon, when most of the flower traders will close up; other stores remain open until late afternoon. Also on the block is Jamali (www.jamali.com), which prides itself in carrying everything anyone working with plants or flowers could possibly need or want--ribbons, planters, containers of every size and shape, fertilizer, bulbs, etc.
As recently as twenty years ago, the Flower District extended from 24th Street to 30th Street, from Broadway to Seventh Avenue, but in 1995 the local zoning was changed to residential, which upped everyone's rent and encouraged a huge surge in new apartment towers. Now the district is reduced to just one block--28th Street, between Sixth and Seventh--and even that's future is threatened. It seems that every season more stores are closing down and moving out to the suburbs. Although there has been talk for years about moving the market en masse to another location, the businesses, used to being independent, don't seem interested in banding together to save the market. The trade organization continues to try to find new locations where the business could thrive, and it is not clear to anyone how long the street will survive. In the meantime, treat yourself to a visit.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2005
Leventritt Garden
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We found this story about the Leventritt Garden at Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum at Land+Living (2005-11-10)), and we thought we would pass it along. The firm Reed Hilderbrand has made a refreshing effort to present shrubs and vines for the home gardener in a contemporary manner. It reminded us of another excellent marriage of the contemporary and the traditional at the Bordeaux Botanical Garden that we saw in the exhibition Groundswell (see Citygardenguide 2005-03-08) at MoMA.
These musings lead us consider NYBG and its recently revamped Home Gardening Center (see Citygardenguide 2005-11-04). Even refurbished it looks just as it might have if designed ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Whether we like it or not, we are living in the 21st century and cultural institutions, even those with a great tradition, need to look forward if they want to remain vital.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005
NYPL's New Look
Ever since we complained about the neglected state of the flower beds in front of the New York Public Library last summer (Citygardenguide- 7.3.05) we've been wondering when the Library, or the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, which runs the public spaces around the library, was going to do something about it. Well, now we know. The two beds flanking the steps to the library were completely reinstalled last week. According to the MidCity News, issued by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, the new gardens are an "eye-pleasing combination of flowers, shrubbery and grass that beautifully accents the library's facade." The new design was apparently inspired by the Luxembourg Gardens and the Carnevalet Museum in Paris.
The former scheme was designed by Lynden B. Miller at the time of the reopening of Bryant Park over ten years ago. Maybe there is a shelf life for planting designs in the city, but Citygardenguide wonders whether pompom chrysanthemums in rows are a net improvement on the previous installation. One thing we are sure of--the Luxembourg Gardens it ain't.
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Posted by gardenguidenyc at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2005
Let's Hear it for Natives!
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Just when the cold gray of November threatens to overwhelm even the most optimistic nature lover, the spirit is lifted by the delicate yellow haze of the native witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) blooming throughout Central Park. The elusive and sweetly astringent scent of the witch hazel is a pleasant counterpoint to the dusty smell of decaying leaves. You have to hand it to nature; this is the perfect time for these discrete charmers to bloom. Their virtues would be entirely overlooked in the spring or summer, or even in the blazing autumn. Could there really be intelligent design? (Just joking).
A small multistem tree (to about 20 feet) or large shrub, the witch hazel has wide, toothed, ovate leaves and smooth gray bark. The nut-like fruits are frequently found with the flower. They are particularly plentiful in the woods outside the city as they can live under a forest canopy but seem to be unattractive to deer. The name witch hazel conjures up images of Victorian liniments and home remedies for good reason. It was used by Native Americans to treat inflammation and soreness and continues to be extensively used in herbal remedies, as well as mainstream products.
Chinese witch hazel, (Hamamelis mollis) and its various cultivars and crosses (Arnold's Promise, Diane, Jezebel etc.) bloom in February and early March. Their flowers, while not huge, are more prominent and they come in a range of colors, from burnt orange to sulphur yellow, which explains why they are more widely grown than the native. But to walk though the woods and come upon a grove of native witch hazel with the sunlight filtering through bare branches onto the threadlike petals, is to experience the best November has to offer-it would be churlish to ask for more.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2005
Help for Aching Backs
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As we have mentioned several times lately, it's bulb-planting time, and for many of us that means sore backs and aching knees. This Ultimate Strap On Gardening Stool might be just the remedy for those ills. It's a seat that straps on and allows you to sit comfortably and work low to the ground for an extended period. Originally developed in Europe for milking cows (does anyone milk cows by hand any more?) it is light weight - 4lbs.- and has proven surprisingly helpful to those working on vegetable farms or in plant nurseries where much of the work is done kneeling or crouching. As kneeling and crouching are exactly the problems most of us encounter planting bulbs we thought this might help!
From Cleanairgardening via Treehugger
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2005
No Organic Gardening at the New NYBG Home Gardening Center
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This fall NYBG unveiled its revamped Home Gardening Center- its purpose is to inspire home gardeners with new ideas and techniques, and we recently went up to the Bronx to check it out. We weren't that keen on the old family gardening center, which was a little dusty and featured gardens that compared unfavorably with our own, and we can think of no worse insult. So we were looking forward to the new exhibit.
We were put off--very put off--to find that the entire new garden is sponsored by Scott's and MiracleGro. Now Citygardenguide has nothing against keeping houseplants on life support with chemicals, but we have been brought up to beleive that a real gardener would never stoop to pouring MiracleGro into the ground in an outdoor garden (outdoor pots are a gray area). Not only did we think that run-off from fertilizers was bad for groundwater systems, but that with good gardening practices and plenty of compost you shouldn't need to goose your garden with non-organic fertilizers...and if you felt you really needed a little boost--say you're trying to grow championship dahlias or something--you could find an organic product to do the trick. We were also under the impression that the use of chemicals on lawns is verbotten in the green world. We were stunned that so important a scientific institution as NYBG would accept sponsorship money from Scott's and MiracleGro, and plaster their logos all over the gardens and the handouts. We do understand how hard it is for nonprofit institutions to find funding for this kind of effort, but we wonder if there was any debate at the Garden about accepting this sponsorship.
With that rant out of the way, we have to admit that we really loved one of the new exhibits, the trial garden. Trial gardens allow you to "compare and evaluate" the performance of different plants. This is how professionals judge and compare new introductions, and it's great that home gardeners now have a place to judge for themselves the relative merits of the latest in plant fashions. Each of the 16 beds in the garden is dedicated to a different species. This year's group includes, among others, geraniums, sages, buddleias, hydrangeas and roses.
Citygardenguide was particularly interested in the geranium bed. They trialled a number of blues (always a good color in the garden) including "Brookside" the standard blue, and Rozanne, the new blue introduction which has caused quite a stir in the geranium world. For the record, Rozanne did seem to live up to its billing as a non-stop flowerer. If you find it on sale at a nursery or in a catalog, go for it.
We found ourselves drawn to the rose display, and we were busily writing down names of some of the better-looking cultivars when an awful thought occurred to us. Are these blemish-free roses the result of lavish applications of pesticides and fertilizers? The vibrant, perfectly-formed roses began to take on a sinister air.
Another display we really liked was the bamboo and grass garden set around the Ken Roman Gazebo. There are 50 varieties of grass and bamboo in the exhibit, and it's an excellent way to learn about the
ever more popular world of monocots.
NYBG, like the Conservatory Garden (see below) always features a display of single petal chrysanthemums at this time of year. Usually they are in a long border, but this year the display is part of the Home Gardening Center. It's not as big as it usually is, which is a shame, but these chrysanthemums are so gorgeous it's a pleasure to admire them anywhere.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2005
CHRYSANTHEMUMS!
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For the next week, and the next week only, it is worth a detour or, in fact, an immediate teletransportation up to the Conservatory Garden (105th Street and Fifth Avenue) to see the most glorious display of chrysanthemums that you could ever hope to see. The four sloping beds of the north garden are stuffed with two thousand single-petal Korean chrysanthemums of varying hues. These were planted in early June and are only now coming in to their full peak of color. Sadly, they will be pulled out on Wednesday, November 9th (and given away to community gardeners who will replant them in their own gardens for a fall display next year) by the garden volunteers, who will then plant 21,000 spring-blooming tulips for the May display, starting the cycle all over again. But, in the meantime, race up to the garden and enjoy the show!
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 03:43 PM | Comments (0)