So I am the Met Flowers Matt, and I have been very missing in action. I work mainly for one department here and we have been extremely busy. No time to stop and smell any roses...
This past weekend I visited the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx. If anyone is thinking of adding plants to their environment, this is a very inspiring and educational place to visit. Their main garden shop is free to visit and includes indoor and outdor plants, a very good bookstore, and many beautiful planters and vases. Beyond this, it is part of a beautiful complex that is perfect for enjoying a picnic. walking through the gardens, and visiting the indoor greenhouses and library.
The best part about the shop is that everyone is very friendly and jam-packed with know-how. Even a novice like me was not overwhelmed.
The greenhouse manager, Erik, even offered to look at a sketch of my apartment and suggest what might grow best in my environment.
Their bookshop may be dedicated to plants, but I was surprisd at the variety. There were interior design books geared towards plantenvironments, recipe books, flower arranging, travel, growing and care, art - you name it. It was a whole world centered on plants.
Buying for the indoors can be intimidating - and frustrating when you make the wrong choices.
Apartment-dwellers need to understand their apartment's yearly cycle and buy plants that can thrive in that environment. The indoor section of the shop had wonderful selections of low-light plants that would look beautiful in any apartment. The real stars were the different ferns (like the stag horn fern in the pictures) and the palms. They all can survive in diffused light. The gorgeous outdoor trees and plants that many people want to have most likely will not thrive indoors because they need to feel the seasonal changes in environment - this is why tropical varieties do better indoors: they LOVE constant heat and cannot stand temperature drops.
Another lesson to be learned was that these beautiful plants can dress up even the shabbiest of tables or cabinets. The plants displayed indoors were in and on so many varieties of planters and furniture. Plants have a magical ability to make any environment invigorating and welcome. A plant can add a little humanity to your interior. It can improve your air quality. It can also make a beautiful aesthetic statement.
A trip to the Botanical gardens is a great start to inspire and motivate. You may prefer to shop elsewhere, but the Botanical Garden is a wonderful research facility - not to mention a great day trip for those looking to escape the city!
Matt's back, and he's bigger, better, and more botanical than ever!! Worth the wait!
God, I love staghorns. I've killed three of them (small ones) over the past 10 years, purchased at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's annual plant sale.
[sigh]
Anybody know the name of the pale green leafy plant in the second photo on this page, next to what looks like a spider plant (but probably isn't)
It's very common to see it as a sort of cut foliage air cleanser in people's kitchen's in Mexico City.
"people's kitchens."
i got grammar.
also I wonder if anyone could offer a compare/contrast between the 2 NYC botanic/botanical gardens . . . like, if you live near one, what would make you ride the train for an hour to get to the other one?
Is that Maidenhair fern? And were it not for the black stem, its foliage looks a bit like Cilantro...
I think maidenhair is that one you saw as a houseplant ALOT in the '70's, the archtypical Fern Bar fern, with lots of a sort of a sawtooth leaf off a central spine on each longer leaf stem
(if THAT makes any sense)
The Botanical Garden is one of our favorite escapes-- if you've got kids, the Children's Adventure Garden is great year round and the Family Garden is terrific in summer. We really love to head up in the winter, when there are few people and the kids can run off some steam on all the garden paths-- not just in grubby, icy E.Village playgrounds. The paths through the woods are incredibly lovely, the rock garden knocks me out and just the wide open spaces with vistas created by master gardeners are awe-inspiring. Oh-so glad to be a member.
Yes, maidenhair. It sounds like I may have some homework to do. One difference between the two is location. I know this sounds obvious, but it does make a difference when visiting for a day. I love the botanical gardens but need to take them in doses. NY Botanical is near the Bronx Zoo and Arthur Avenue (Bronx's Little Italy). You could easily spend a day at all three. Brooklyn is near the Brooklyn Museum, BAM (right?) and not far from a lot of great food. A few stops up to Borough Hall and you can have great food choices on Smith Street or a great walk along the water and beautiful brownstones of Cobble Hill/Brooklyn Heights. Probably even better food that I don't know about (suggestions, Guido?) since I don't live in Brooklyn.
As for differences inside the parks...maybe I need to take a little field trip. I have not been to BBG in a long time. They both are comprehensive. If you look at the websites they both have maps and descriptions -
nybg.org/gardens/index_garden.php
and
bbg.org/exp/stroll/index.html
Sorry to hear about your stag horn ferns. The people at the NYBG were so thorough, especially in wanting to know every detail of my apartment environment. The next time I am there I will see if they have suggestions on making the ferns happy...
Also, as Ann suggested, nothing is better than the conservatories in winter. They have gorgeous light from the all glass structures and tropical temperatures even as the snow is falling outside. Sometimes we bring picnic lunches and recharge our batteries in the rainforest when we feel especially weary of the cold.
location, location, location
Since I can walk to the BBG, I never have gone to the Bronx gardens. And of course you're right about the food possibilities. If you head east there's West Indian fabulosity galore . . . if you go to Park Slope, you can go to the only Italian restaurant I love, Al Di La (check out the mad Venetian glass chandelier) and enjoy Matter across the street (noted on this site as Brooklyn's 'Moss') Wow, all that on little 5th Ave, Park Slope. There's at least a hundred other places to swoon over in a one mile radius of the BBG!
I go to the steamy room of the BBG in the winter - a water garden with orchids, papyrus, and magnificent enormous staghorns.
The image Matt shows is Maidenhair Fern
http://www.biosurvey.ou.edu/okwild/misc/maiden.html
The "bar fern" you refer to is most likely Boston Fern:
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/bostonfern.htm
Conservatories in winter?!
I was too traumatized by *that scene* in Frosty the Snowman as a kid to even consider it.
Try it once...you'll forget aaaaaaaall about that unhappy accident.
Somewhat on the cold outside/hot inside vein...
As a kid in Florida, in the brutal all-out heat of the Summer, we used to head to the Museum of Science, not purely for educational reasons... it was air-conditioned.
I remember a Polar Bear diorama that would hold my interest not only because of the fact that I love dioramas, but because the scene looked so wonderfully COLD. The planetarium there was an extra treat, too... whizzing through space from the comfort of our chairs, with the purr of central air whispering sweet cool nothings in our little ears.
Good times. Thanks mom!
o patrick(otro), your google works better than my google
thx for the info. bon weekend.