Plants in the Haupt Conservatory of the New York Botanical Garden

This week I went on my garden trip with Jane and Jane, Mike, Pam, Marge, and Sally. This year we went to New York City! and it rained and rained and rained but we still had fun, Jane brought everyone yo-yos, talked a lot, ate good food – lots of chocolate – and saw gardens! Pam had made arrangements for a hotel with a great location, (she gave us each a purple geranium to brighten our rooms), made reservations at a terrific restaurant, Artisanal, and suggested lots to see. The lots to see kept being switched about to accommodate the weather but on Tues we took the bus up Fifth Ave. to 105th street to see the NY Conservatory.

It was pretty misty but the plants were happy. The gardeners working there were so helpful and friendly – stopping what they were doing to answer our constant stream of questions. In one of the more formal areas, surrounded by a hedge, a young mother was blowing bubbles for her child and they floated over the garden. With Central Park in the background it was out of a movie!

The next day we drove to The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. It poured—forget misty. So we made a beeline to The Haupt Conservatory, a wonderful Victorian glass building full of tropical plants; then the Mertz Library which had an amazing exhibit, Dutch Watercolors with paintings and other botanical drawings etc from the National Herbarium of the Netherlands at Leiden and their own collections. Many prints and drawings from the 16 and 1700’s. Don’t forget we were all art students once upon a time so we were excited—gardens and art! We grabbed lunch at their cafe and hit one of the best garden gift shops I’ve seen.

Then, due to the rain we all split up and headed our separate ways, some stayed on, Jane and I hit the Jersey Turnpike back to Philly.

The sun has been shining ever since!