Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (picture heavy)

13 years ago

My DH and I recently visited Brooklyn, NY. Part of our visit included the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. I really loved it and took some photos to share with all of you. The weather was perfect and the day was wonderful. There are many types of individual themed gardens. The first we visited was the Japanese Garden. Much work is placed on sculpturing the trees. It was truly serene and beautiful. The birds were singing, and there were turtles and other wildlife in this area situated right in the middle of a busy urban area.

My next favorite was the Shakespeare garden. A cottage style garden with plants mentioned in the works of Shakespeare:

These bright red peonies were the largest I've ever seen!

The rose garden was coming into bloom. Some of the areas were spectacular, some will be in about two weeks. This is getting to the proximity. A bunch of knockouts around a water garden and arbors full of buds but no blooms yet:

Roses of all types everywhere.

Roses on a hillside, growing intermixed with companion plants:

The body of the formal rose garden from a hillside lookout point:

Another of my favorite gardens was the childrens' garden. Adults could peek in, but not go in. It is a veggie garden done completely by children and their adult helpers. Many of the areas had clover as a cover crop and other areas were planted with various veggies (their season is early yet).

In this area you could see the hill of compost they've made, and the newspaper that has covered the planting hills as their main form of weed control:

This is another childrens' garden called the discovery garden. It has plants that appeal to the senses. Arbors of honeysuckle, large allium blooms, etc.

formal waterlily ponds:

The cherry tree garden is past blooming but has beautiful lawns:

This conservatory is actually a gift shop and an area for planned events:

The many acres of the gardens have winding paths taking you on a garden to garden stroll:

I would be remiss if I didn't have a picture or two of the Brooklyn Bridge. An amazing suspension bridge with a rich history:

Finally, a photo of the Manhattan skyline (minus the twin towers) from the Brooklyn promenade. It was sickening to imagine how many people must have lined this wonderful vantage point watching the demise of their fellow beloved New Yorkers during 9/11. This is obviously still very fresh in New Yorkers' minds and it brought home the sadness to me again.

I never thought I'd like Brooklyn as much as I did. I'm so glad I was able to experience this very different sort of world.

Anna

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Comments (15)

annafl
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Sorry for the repeat picture. Here is the one of the Manhattan skyline.

I want to say I only showed a fraction of the gardens, and of course, each time of year a different garden is more spectacular than others. Hope you enjoy.

Anna
juneroses Z9a Cntrl Fl
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks for sharing the pictures, Anna. I love to visit botanical gardens - this one looks like it's one of the better ones. Hope you had a lot of time to leisurely tour each garden.

I enjoy seeing pictures of your personal garden (in other posts) because it seems so attractively put together. Did you pick up any ideas or inspiration from the BBG for your own piece of paradise? - June
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There are a lot of wonderful old garden roses currently in bloom, which are grown along the peripherals of the rectangle-shaped garden along with various climbers. At the south end of the rose garden, there are a number of mainly English roses growing on a small hill, where visitors are not allowed to go in. I did not get into roses until last year, so this was my first trip to a rose garden. It is really educational/enjoyable to smell all the rogusas, moss roses and bourbons and observe their color, shape and growth habits. They grow mostly floribundas in the middle of the garden. Ester is right about lack of labels. They mass planted knockout roses at the entrance (northeast?) of the botanic garden, which is fine. Then it is a bit weird that they planted TONS of more double knockouts at the entrance of the rose garden! Nothing against knockouts, but the sheer number planted seems a bit excessive since I assume there are many, many varieties competing for the limited real estate. Maybe they are going after the mass planting effectÃ¯Â¿Â½. IMHO, my local mall have better looking knockouts than the garden. But again, with or without the knockouts, the garden is beautiful.
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Dr. Larry: Hi,this is Bob,and I feel that I know you from your 'Consultation''s in the CSJ. Thanks for the ID confirmation on the 'fosterianus'. As one of the'northern'collectors you refered to,it was good news to read that you and Michael K. are going to be able to expand the cryptanthus offerings. We on GW think highly of Michael and his operation,and order from him often. Additionally,as mentioned in earlier postings,I assist the Staff at the Buffalo Botanical Gardens with the bromeliad collection procurement and maintenance,and currently are preparing an order for him that will be quite extensive.These new broms will be used to establish an all new display in a soon to be completed 'Epiphyte House'remodeling.I will post a few photos,to give all my friends here an idea of the building size,an also some pics of the damage that occured around the property during the surprise early October snowstorm this week. The report is that 80% of our areas trees were badly damaged by the wet 18" snowfall and winds,as the leaves were still on them,and the weight was just too much. This freak storm was caused by a 40deg.difference in the Lake Erie water temp. and the freezing air temp.,resulting in just the perfect conditions to give us so much snow in just 12 hours.Ironically,after it passed,the temperatures were in the high 60's,and all the snow melted away. Good to see you on GW,and hope to hear from you and enjoy any photo posts you may have for us. Some BBG pics; Front view of the Main Dome and the Fern house and right Dome building,housing the bromeliad collection .The left Dome [not in picture] is the one being remodled for the bromeliad and epiphyte collections. View from the South side,showing the Dome bldg.for the epiphytes nearing the completion of the new glass installation. Back side view of the 3 Domes...and a few snow piles. Typical tree damage in the last three photos
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davidrt28, you're welcome! I hope someday you can visit the Botanical Gardens personally. It's really beautiful country and driving through Rt 128 where you see the old stumps of redwood logging is delightful (if a trifle hair-raising on some of those hairpin curves!). Your comment about their having some commercially extinct cultivars is interesting. I know that when we toured Filoli in Woodside, CA, we were told that they had some very rare specimens that had been brought to the US for planting in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Apparently the head gardener at Filoli was great friends with the head gardener at GGPark and **wink wink** some trees and shrubs "fell off the trucks" and rolled the 32 miles into the Filoli gardens! I believe at least one of the tree species is extinct in the wild now, but I don't recall which one it was (it's been a long time since that first tour).
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Awesome pics of beautiful plants. Thanks for sharing! I've always known pothos as Scindapsus in the rare occasions a latin name is mentioned for this plant. Seems to be like coleus, there's rarely any confusion with these common names. But you had been told "Epipremnum" so I googled to see if this was one of the plants recently renamed or if there are actually 2 kinds of pothos from different genuses? My research was inconclusive although I didn't go too long, figuring someone more knowledgeable than me will let us know. L_in_FL there are several different passion vines, but I think most are hardy to zone 8. Just wanted to warn you the caterpillars of the gulf fritillary butterflies will likely eat every shred of leaf and even the buds/flowers off of this vine if a mama lays her eggs on it. You mentioned this is on the front of your house, so this may not be the look you're after on a front wall even if you are in full favor of feeding some butterfly caterpillars. If it's new this year, without nectar-source plants nearby, that's probably why you haven't had this happen this year.
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olyagrove
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Anna, thank you for sharing these spectacular pictures.
katkin_gw
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Wonderful photos, thanks so much. :o)
izharhaq
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
...a very nice virtual tour... thanks for sharing the pics...

Izhar
whgille
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Hi Anna

Thank you for posting the pictures, they went down to memory lane. I had my business and live in NY for a very long time and visited the Botanical gardens often. One time I took a class on Native wild food there. The Japanese gardens were always my favorite.

And I still have many pictures of me, friends and family in the past World Trade Center, that was the place to go when I had visitors, there was a restaurant on top "the windows of the world" went there at night and saw spectacular NY city at night. Miss the plays on Broadway too.

I enjoyed Central Park on Sundays, there was always a free show going on, the Flushing Meadow park where they had the world fair one time and the Cloisters.

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: the Cloisters
imagardener2
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Oh the roses! Love the gardens but the roses have me at hello.

I went to grad school in Brooklyn in the 70's but never had the time to visit the Bot. Garden.

Denise
annafl
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
June, thanks so much for your kind words. Because the cold winter still has much of my garden recovering, I kinda went away from my largely foliage theme in my garden this year and started planting color here and there and intensely in some areas. I'm finding it's a little too busy for me, as I prefer a more subtle garden. The BBG confirmed this for me. My favorite areas were the serene, sculpted areas with more foliage, less blooms. I did love the roses and flowers, of course, but was more fascinated and felt more at peace with plainer areas. Sometimes it's nice to have a change, though, and as my foliage recovers, the flowers distract the eye from them!

Silvia, I'm glad the photos spurred some good memories for you. It is overwhelming, all the things there are to do and see in New York. However, I would not trade my bit of land for it all!

Denise, I know when I was young the gardens would probably not have been on my short list of things to see. Yes, the roses were spectacular. So many types, so much color!

Glad you enjoyed the pictures, everyone!

Anna
goldenpond
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Wow what a Treaure they have. I could never live in NYC but I loved visiting Manhatten at Christmas time and peeking at all the animated decorated windows.I went once in summer but it was during a garbage strike and the smell was so disgusting I got ill.
Thank you for posting those,I loved the SHAKESPEAR garden best!!!!!
tanya
tomncath
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Beautiful Anna, I've never been to N.Y., state or the city, maybe when I retire ;-) Interesting you're moving away from the blooms and my new interest in flowers is the cottage garden style....

Silvia, is there anyplace you have not lived? ;-)

Tom
whgille
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Tom, I forgot to tell you that I am a gypsy, lol. And one of my favorite places on earth? Kathmandu, but that is another story...

Silvia
garyfla_gw
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Anna
They don't grow tropical plants in the conservatory??
I remember seeing pix of "Asian rainforest" but maybe I have that confused with the Bronx zoo.??
I once visited the Missouri Bo gardens and was blown away by the variety they kept in a relatively small area.
They have a geodesic dome where they have a tropical understory garden . Something like 3000 species under glass!! Anyway fabulous pix . I'm sure that's about as close to NY as I'll ever get lol gary
annafl
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Tanya, the Shakespeare garden was one of my favorites too. The photo doesn't show all the smaller, less showy flowers that were so pretty. There were lots of interesting, diverse plantings I had never seen in this garden, but the foxgloves and peonies steal the show for most.

Tom, I've always preferred foliage plants, but this year with all the brown in my yard I planted more flowering annuals- very unusual for me. I am enjoying the wild colors, but they look tired more easily than my foliage plants. Also need more water. I've always had lots of butterfly plants, but lots of green inbetween!

Gary, this must've been an old conservatory. It is no longer used for this. They do have several other glass conservatories- tropical, warm temperate and desert, but I don't have photos of these. Interestingly they are mostly underground with glass only on the top portions. I would guess for temperature control. Lots of the specimens were things we grow in FL.

Anna
irma_stpete_10a
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Anna, thank you for sharing. After all the gorgeous flower and tree pictures, I was surprised to be "blown away" by the skyline and Brooklyn Bridge pictures. Brooklyn is on my "must see" list now!
Irma
cait1
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thank you, Anna, so very much for posting those wonderful photos.

I'm mostly on the Garden Junk forum but happened on the title of this post and had to have a peek.

I had lived in NY all my life until about 10 years ago when I married an Australian so moved 'down-under'. What a joy to see how improved the Bklyn Bot Gardens have become!

In April my brother was married at the Japanese garden.

The pic that really pulled at me was the one at the Promenades - the pic viewing the downtown skyline. I had interned at Brooklyn City Planning and every day would lunch there. The skyline looks almost naked with the Twin Towers rising above. It brought tears to my eyes, really. But it's still a beautiful photograph. Hope you don't mind, but I had to save that one because I want to use it for a screen saver.

Thanks again for so many wonderful pics and for the memories they've evoked.

Cait

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (picture heavy)

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annafl
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juneroses Z9a Cntrl Fl

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