The Edible Garden

Today I went on a mini-adventure to the NY Botanical Garden, which was as low-key and neat as usual. It's a huge space, with every kind of plant you could want to look at, and there's always a fun theme to the gardens. This year, jumping on with the organic, local food trend, was "The Edible Garden," which was really well done; a walking tour of the gardens was set up with food in mind, and many of the gardens were redone with edible options, like Martha Stewart's Herb Garden. Also there was a small Greenmarket, with a few vegetable sellers, a baker, and what looked like a butcher type outfit; people were swarming around and buying everything from Swiss Chard to dill to garlic.

I visited the Rock Garden, which, contrary to expectation, was not quite as zen as I thought it would be. It was much more chaotic and green, with rocks more as a landscape additive than main feature. I did, however, spot a few lizards, which was a pleasant surprise.

After the rock garden, we visited the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, which, if nothing else, educated me in the way pineapples grow. It also has a wonderful water lily section with koi that I always enjoy spending time in. The water lily center is really cool-- if you dry it out, the seed pod can be a rattle. Plants as musical instruments? Heck yes.

After the conservatory, I just wandered around and took far too many closeup flower pictures. It's easy to do that at the NYBG, which has beautiful specimens, and not just flowers-- conifers are lovely too, in their own understated way.

In any case, further inspiration to have a garden of my own again.