A Weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Part 3: The Rock Garden

Posted on 2008-04-08 by admin

The Rock Garden, viewed from just inside the southernmost entrance.

A year ago I “discovered” the Rock Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden:

I did get to see the Rock Garden as I had planned. I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t usually get to see this garden. It just seems off the beaten path during my usual visits. I want to visit it more often.
– A Visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, April 1, 2007

The Rock Garden lies between the main western path of the garden and Flatbush Avenue. I’ve been able to visit the Rock Garden each month so far this year. Spring seems to be a peak time of year for this garden.

This boulder-strewn slope provides some of the earliest signs of spring as well as brilliant color in the fall. Opened to the public in 1917, it was the first rock garden of considerable size in an American botanic garden.

BBG’s Rock Garden uses boulders to define beds and create pockets of microclimates where plants with a variety of special needs are able to thrive. Many of the plants showcased are compact and suited to growing in small spaces.

Many of the boulders that pepper the landscape were unearthed during construction of various parts of BBG, and were deposited on the site during the last ice age.

During a renovation in 1992, additional boulders, imported from Westchester County, were added to the original collection, pathways were widened, and steps were eliminated wherever possible. Today the Rock Garden is about two-thirds wheelchair and stroller accessible …

The heaths were buzzing with bees when I visited on Saturday.

Erica carnea ‘Springwood Pink’

Heaths and Spring Bulbs

Right now, the Rock Garden is also a great place to see a wide variety of Daffodils and other Spring bulbs in bloom.

Narcissus in the Rock Garden

Narcissus ‘Prologue’

Narcissus ‘Wee Bee’

The Hellebores were also happy.

Helleborus orientalis, Lenten-Rose

And just keep looking around. There’s something new and different everywhere you look.

Corydalis

Corylopsis pauciflora, Buttercup Winterhazel

Rhododendron P.J.M.

I also swung by the Rock Garden when I attended Making Brooklyn Bloom on Saturday, March 8. During breaks in the rains, it was lovely.

Crocuses in the Rock Garden

Crocuses and Snowdrops

Crocus tommasinianus

Pair a Ducks

Part 1: The Osborne Garden
Part 2: Magnolia Plaza
First Crocus, Rock Garden, BBG, February 16, 2008
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, January 21, 2008
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, April 14 and April 1, 2007
My Flickr photo sets of BBG’s Rock Garden

Links

Rock Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Friends of Cortelyou meets this Saturday

Posted on 2008-04-08 by admin

Via email, the first meeting of the season for Friends of Cortelyou will be this Saturday morning:

FRIENDS OF CORTELYOU will meet this Saturday, April 12, from 10am to 11:30 a.m. at Connecticut Muffin, 1106 Cortelyou Road. We’ll discuss the following issues:

Welcome and support new Flatbush Food Coop; celebrate the beautiful new store!

Farmers Market on Cortelyou Road opens in June; help publicize and market the market.

Welcome the Farmers Market (& Farmers!) to the 2008 Market; help publicize it!!!

Restart Conversation Partners!

Tree pits: Daffodil Project, adopt-a-tree

Hope to see you there.

The Flatbush CSA

Posted on 2008-04-08 by admin

Cortelyou Road Greenmarket, July of last year. This year’s CSA pickup will be at this corner, Argyle and Cortelyou, on Tuesdays.

From Shayna Lewis, coordinator of this year’s first-ever Community Support Agriculture (CSA) for Flatbush. Until further notice, they are still accepting new members for this year.

Welcome to all the people who have just been added to the member mailing list. Thank you all for joining, we have surpassed our goal of 40 members and are continuing to grow. Special thanks to all of you who spread the word. In this email I will include some information from previous emails, so bear with me if you’ve already gotten it. Just trying to prevent confusion (mainly for myself :)…)

The Options:
Half share vs. full share and pick up vs. delivery:

Many of you have expressed interest in half shares. We cannot deliver half shares, but can offer them for pick up.

The pick up site will be on Cortelyou and Argyle. Both pick up and delivery will take place on Tuesdays, between 4pm and 9pm (possibly starting earlier, see below).

If you have a full share and live pretty near to the pick up place, we can deliver to your house. It is your choice. If you do want delivery, you must send me your address and be sure to be home during delivery hours or arrange with a friend or neighbor to accept your share. If it’s possible, you can also let me know if you just want it dropped off in some inconspicuous corner of your property.

Pick up/delivery time:
Some of you have suggested that earlier in the day on Tuesday would work better for you. I wouldn’t mind getting an earlier start on the deliveries, so if you could be around during the day, and are opting for delivery, please let me know.

Payment:
The cost is as follows:

Full Share: $400

Full Share plus 1 dozen eggs weekly: $460

Full Share plus 1/2 dozen eggs weekly: $430

Half Share: $200

Half Share plus 1 dozen eggs weekly: $260

Half Share plus 1/2 dozen eggs weekly: $230

Please pay by check made out to Jorge Carmona. Mail the checks to:
Jorge Carmona
10039 Ziegels Church Rd.
Breinigsville, PA 18031

Send me your info:
If you have not already, when you send a check PLEASE write me an email and let me know the following info:

How much it was for.

If you want delivery or not.

If you do want delivery, your address, phone number, and any other pertinent information regarding the delivery.

First shares:
The first shares will arrive the first week of June. Start planning your menu…

Volunteering:
There is no work requirement for this CSA, but some people have generously offered to help out. If you are someone with some extra time on your hands, we could definitely use people for various things. Just let me know.

Membership:
We are still accepting new members (until further notice) if anyone asks you.

That’s about all for now. Definitely contact me if I’ve neglected to address an issue or question that you have. I look forward to meeting all of you! Thanks again, and be well, Shayna

A weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Part 2: Magnolia Plaza

Posted on 2008-04-07 by admin

Judith D. Zuk Magnolia Plaza, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Check out the photo above, and select the largest size your bandwidth and screen size can handle. Place yourself in that picture, take a deep breath, and imagine the fragrance that saturated the air: a mix of citrus and spice, light, not heavy or thick, that clears the sinuses and the mind.

The Magnolia Plaza doesn’t get much better than it was when I saw it this past Saturday. A textbook sky, a warm, Spring day, the majority of the species and varieties of Magnolias in the plaza just coming into peak, with barely a dropped petal to be seen anywhere.

From BBG’s Web site:

From March-blooming star magnolias (Magnolia stellata) to saucer magnolias (M. x soulangiana) in April, Magnolia Plaza is sweetly scented with 17 varieties.

Magnolia stellata, Star Magnolia

Magnolia kobus

Magnolia, unrecorded variety

Magnolia Plaza is an elegant formal garden of magnificent trees spread in front of the beaux arts Administration Building. The sweet scent and showy blossoms of magnolias are among the early signs of spring at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In March, the star magnolias (Magnolia stellata) bloom, covering the trees with millions of lacy white flowers. In April the Plaza is splashed with the ivory, yellow, pink, and rich purple of 17 varieties of magnolias. The last of the collection, the sweet-bay magnolia (M. virginiana), reveals its fragrant, creamy white flowers in June.

Magnolia Plaza, with the landmark BBG Lab & Admin Building

More of Magnolia Plaza

Part 1: The Osborne Garden
Magnolia Plaza, BBG, April 2008 (Flickr photo set)

Links

Judith D. Zuk Magnolia Plaza, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

A weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Part 1: The Osborne Garden

Posted on 2008-04-06 by admin

The Osborne Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

I spent most of yesterday and a couple of hours today at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There were several things that drew me to the gardens this weekend:

Yesterday morning I attended a meeting of the newly forming Brooklyn Community Gardens Coalition.
After that, I met up with OldRoses of A Gardening Year and her Straw Hatters on a field trip to BBG from New Jersey.
Today I went for Forsythia Day to pick up my Forsythia and Signature Plants.

I took hundreds of photos from every part of the gardens except the greenhouses. I’ve gotten most of them through my workflow, but there’s still more to sort through, cull, edit, label and so on. It will take me a few days, so I thought I would take the opportunity to organize a series of posts, grouped by the area of the garden, regardless of which day I took the photos.

I’m cheating a little with this first group; I took many of them Thursday evening, on my way to my Botany class. These are all from the Osborne Garden, the formal gardens that bridge the Eastern Parkway entrance to BBG with the main body of the garden. In past years, I’ve hardly ever seen this garden. It’s out of the way; unless you enter or exit from Eastern Parkway, between Mount Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum, it’s a detour, a cul-de-sac off the beaten path. But since the the Eastern Parkway stop on the 2/3 train is right there, this will be my commute to evening classes at BBG. I’ll be seeing, and photographing, a lot more of the Osborne Garden over the next year or two.

Here’s how BBG describes the Osborne Garden on their Web site:

This three-acre, Italian-style formal garden is a kaleidoscope of color in May with azaleas, rhododendrons, crabapples, and wisteria draped over wood and stone pergolas.

The art of formal Italian landscaping comes to life in the Osborne Garden, where wisteria-draped pergolas frame an emerald lawn. In spring, daffodils, pansies, and tulips bloom, followed by crab apples and cherries, which gradually give way to azaleas, rhododendrons, and wisterias. The 30,000-square-foot central green is surrounded by a fountain, water basin, stone seats, and soaring columns.

My botany class runs into May. I’m hoping that gives me a chance to see the Wisteria in bloom on the pergolas.

Wisteria Pergolas, Osborne Garden

Wisteria Pergola

Grappling Wisteria

On the east and west sides of the central lawn are walkways through 10 pergolas draped with wisteria. Evergreens and flowering fruit trees such as cherries and crab apples shade the walkways. Rhododendrons and azaleas line the paths, and on the west side is a boulder wall accented with shrubs, perennials, and annuals.

Birch, Daffodils and Forsythia

Pansies overlooking the Osborne Garden

I caught up with the Straw hatters about halfway through their visit. They had just finished visiting the Children’s Garden, and were coming up the Flatbush Avenue side of the garden to the Rock garden, where I met them. We looped around from there, including a pass through the Osborne Garden.

Straw Hatters in the Osborne Garden

They were admiring one of the Cornus mas, Cornelian Cherries, in bloom.

There’s lots of yellow happening right now.

The southwestern spur of the Osborne Garden has azaleas and rhododendrons. These will be also be something to watch over the coming weeks.

Gable Rhododendron ‘Conewago Imperial’

Rhododendron mucronulatum var. ciliatum

Part 2: Magnolia Plaza
Botany for Horticulturists, April 3, 2008

Links

Osborne Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Hanami at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Posted on 2008-04-04 by admin

Prunus ‘Okame’ in bloom yesterday afternoon, along the Cherry Walk and adjacent to the Cherry Esplanade at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 5, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden kicks off its annual Hanami, the cherry blossom season:

Hanami is the Japanese cultural tradition of viewing and cherishing each moment of the cherry blossom season. At Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Hanami is a New York City “rite of spring.”

Visitors can stroll under a canopy of cherry trees, view artwork inspired by cherry blossoms in the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery, savor special Japanese entrees at the Terrace Café, and browse a special Hanami Shop.

Hanami runs through May 11, culminating in a celebratory crescendo with Sakura Matsui on May 3 and 4.

Here’s a detail of Okame’s flower:

Here’s how the tree looks, peaking through the other cherries, still in bud. One of the entrances to the Japanese Garden is along the path sloping down on the left.

This is Prunus sargentii ‘Fudansakura’, blooming just northeast of the Cherry Esplanade, near the northern entrance to the Cherry Walk.

There’s another beautiful specimen in full bloom within the Japanese Garden, here viewed from the other side of the fence.

BBG updates its CherryWatch Blossom Status Map weekly. Only a handful are in peak bloom right now. Most are still in bud and haven’t yet started blooming. But a few warm days, especially sunny ones, will change that quickly.

Here’s the flower of Accolade, shown on the map above. I could have lightened this image up a bit, but it was a cold, overcast day, threatening rain. The dark tones reflect the feeling of the afternoon when I visited.

The rain will stop by Saturday afternoon. Sunday will be a good day for Hanami! It’s also BBG Members’ Forsythia Day on Sunday. I’ll be there to pick up my Forsythia and my signature plants.

Introducing the BBG Hanami Flickr Group, April 3, 2008

Links

Flowering Cherries at BBG
BBG’s new Hanami Flickr group

Introducing the BBG Hanami Flickr Group

Posted on 2008-04-03 by admin

Cherry Blossoms from the 2006 Hanami at BBG, one of my photos I’ve already added to BBG’s new Hanami Flickr Group

This Saturday is the official opening of Hanami, the Cherry Blossom Viewing Season, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Last week, inspired by the success of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitors group on Flickr, BBG launched a new Flickr group, Hanami: Cherry Blossom Viewing at Brooklyn Botanic Garden:

The blossoming of the cherry trees at Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a New York City rite of spring. Hanami is the Japanese cultural tradition of viewing and cherishing each moment of the cherry blossom season.

Join Brooklyn Botanic Garden in celebrating Hanami this year by adding your cherry blossom pictures to our group!

Any Flickr member can join and add their photos. No invitation is needed. At the moment of this writing, there are already 14 members and 20 photos in the pool. We can expect to see hundreds of photos by the end of Hanami.

Earlier this week, BBG contacted me to ask for some suggestions on how to get the group started. Based on those email conversations, and discussions in the group itself, they’ve come up with the following guidelines:

Any photos you have taken of flowering cherries at BBG are welcome for submission–from any time in the blooming cycle. Hanami is the official cherry blossom viewing season here at the Garden (this year it’s from April 5 to May 11), but if you’ve got shots of early- or late-bloomers, we’d love to see them, too!

Please tag your photos with “Hanami” and “BBG” or “Brooklyn Botanic Garden.”

Events and Resources: Hanami and more at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, April 3, 2007

Links

Flowering Cherries at BBG is the home page for all your Hanami needs

April is MillionTreesNYC Month

Posted on 2008-04-03 by admin

This is the street tree in front of our house. Update 2008.04.21: I recant. I think it’s a London Plane Tree after all, not a Sycamore.

All the Spring activities are coming fast and furious now. Hard to keep up.

On April 1, Mayor Bloomberg declared April 2008 MillionTreesNYC Month:

During MillionTreesNYC Month in April 2008, all New Yorkers are encouraged to “think globally and plant locally” by joining the City’s historic undertaking to expand New York City’s urban forest by 20 percent. Throughout the month, Parks, NYRP, and MillionTreesNYC partners will host free Citywide events for the public, including Earth Day (April 22) and Arbor Day (April 25) celebrations, tree education seminars, tree stewardship workshops, tree pruning instructional courses, and Urban Park Ranger tree identification hikes throughout the City. There will also be large-scale volunteer tree-planting events, including the planting of 20,000 trees in parks Citywide on Saturday, April 12 through New York Cares’ Hands on New York Day and Jet Blue and NYRP’s One Thing That’s Green Day.
– Press Release, April 1, 2008

News, NYC: 1M Trees in 10 Years, April 22, 2007
Carolina Silverbell: One of a Million, October 9, 2007

Links

Press Release, April 1, 2008
Events and Activities, MillionTreesNYC
New York Restoration Project

City Planning Commission Unanimously Approves Green Initiatives

Posted on 2008-04-02 by admin

Update: The City Council approved the Yards Text Amendment on April 30, 2008.

54 Stratford Road, Caton Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn. This is not a parking lot.

I learned yesterday that last week NYC’s City Planning Commission unanimously approved two initiatives proposed last fall by the Department of City Planning.

I wrote last year about the Yards Text Amendment, which will prevent paving over front yards for parking, among other things. The other proposal mandates street trees – one for each 25 feet of lot frontage, and a minimum of one per lot – for new development and significant renovation. I’ve written several posts about street trees, though none about this specific DCP proposal.

These now go to the City Council.

246 (left) and 240 (center) Westminster Road, Beverley Square West, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Preserving Livable Streets: DCP’s Yards Text Amendment, November 7, 2007
Basic Research: The State of the Forest in New York City, November 12, 2007
Factoids: NYC’s Street Trees and Stormwater Reduction, November 15, 2007
Barbara Corcoran Hates the Earth, November 18, 2007
The Luminous Streets, November 25, 2007
Factoid: Street Trees and Property Values, December 2, 2007

Links

Residents square off about new driveway limits, NY Daily News, April 1, 2008

GMail’s April Fools Feature: Custom Time

Posted on 2008-04-01 by admin

As of today (and likely only for today), GMail, Google’s email service, allows you to send messages into the past:

How do I use it?

Just click “Set custom time” from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient’s inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.
– Introducing GMail Custom Time: Be on time, every time

However, you can only send ten messages into the past, as they explain:

How come I only get ten?

Our researchers have concluded that allowing each person more than ten pre-dated emails per year would cause people to lose faith in the accuracy of time, thus rendering the feature useless.

Their findings:

N = Total emails sent
P = Probability that user believes the time stamp
φ = The Golden Ratio
L = Average life expectancy

That should clear things up.

What ten messages would you send into the past? Keep in mind that you can only send as far back as April 1, 2004.

Flatbush Gardener

Urban Habitat Gardening with Native Plants

Category Archives: 2008

A Weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Part 3: The Rock Garden

Related Posts

Links

Friends of Cortelyou meets this Saturday

The Flatbush CSA

A weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Part 2: Magnolia Plaza

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Links

A weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Part 1: The Osborne Garden

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Links

Hanami at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

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Links

Introducing the BBG Hanami Flickr Group

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Links

April is MillionTreesNYC Month

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Links

City Planning Commission Unanimously Approves Green Initiatives

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Links

GMail’s April Fools Feature: Custom Time