Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Autumn at the New York Botanical Garden
While visiting from abroad my sister is spending a few days with us in New Jersey. I planned an outing to The New York Botanical Garden to see the kiku festival and enjoy the fall colors. Very different weather from the visit Paul and I made last Wednesday evening Kiku in the Japanese Autumn Garden when drizzle and overcast were the optional weather. Today we're gifted with sunshine and pleasantly autumnal temperatures.
Having found a convenient parking place, we leave the car
and stroll past the Four-Season Border, dishevelled but lots in bloom:
dahlias in rich pumpkin orange, glowing against the vivid red hedge,
another dahlia in the very palest of ivory yellow
and an aster with flowers colored like blue sky fallen to earth.
Tricyrtis hirta was also in bloom. The English common name is toad lily,
an unpleasant moniker. The Japanese common name is hoto to gisu which means
"the feathers on the breast of a cuckoo." Much more poetic, don't you agree?
Into the conservatory and out to the waterlily courtyars to view the Japanese chrysanthemums.
Next stop - the Garden Cafe, for lunch, followed by a pleasant walk through the perennial borders.
Wonderful flowers here, such as this magnificent pairing of rich orange chrysanthemums and purple salvia.
The Herb Garden is adjacent to the perennial borders. Pretty much cleared up for winter,
with the parterre hedges given an "end of season" trim. They have a maze-like appearance,
given a stately embellishment with tubs of bay laurel not yet brought under cover for the winter.
Onward to the Shop in the Garden where my sister found assorted gifts
for friends and family back home in Israel, small, easily packed, and non-fragile.
Trees in autumn dress: conifers dropping straw-colored needles
and a maple in pumpkin orange and bonfire red, vivid against the sky.