For the Beauty of the Earth: A Visit to the New York Botanical Garden

"We have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.

We tend our little garden
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faded leaf
Or blighted blossom there." Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter

Seeds in the gift shop at the New York Botanical Garden. If only we tended to our planet, starting in our own communities, with such care.

If people began to care about flowers, they'd begin to care about the planet, Lady Bird Johnson believed, according to Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Director of Horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. DeLong was interviewed for an NBC News story on the spell bluebonnets cast each spring in Texas. Lady Bird, DeLong-Amaya says, was a woman ahead of her time. "She was very sensitive to the importance that nature plays and wanted to share that with people and the joy of the wildflowers and the joy of nature." Lady Bird Johnson would say, "Where flowers bloom, so does hope."

Lady Bird cultivated beauty in this world. I want to spread beauty in this life too: of flowers, of words, of heart.

A cheery yellow pansy on my front steps adding beauty.

Botanical gardens are so many things to me, including a place of immense beauty where you cannot help but be in awe not just of flowers and trees but of life itself. It is so striking when you walk the grounds at these types of gardens how there isn't any litter to be found. I contrast that to the multiple discarded water bottles and other trash found on our quiet suburban street I live on in New Jersey. I keep finding "Nirvana" water bottles when walking my dogs and add them to our recycling bin. Littering doesn't seem very zen at all. So much litter is also by the drains that say, "Dump No Waste. Drains to Waterways."

No litter thankfully near these snow drops at the botanical garden.

Poems celebrating spring line the walkway to the conservatory where the orchid show we were there to see was held, including O Sweet Spontaneous by E.E. Cummings, Come Slowly -Eden! by Emily Dickenson and Let There Be New Flowering by Lucille Clifton. I think of Elizabeth von Arnim writing in Elizabeth in Her German Garden,

"while admiring my neighbour, I don't think I shall ever try to follow in her steps, my talents not being of the energetic and organising variety, but rather that of that order which makes their owner almost lamentably prone to take up a volume of poetry and wander out to where the kingcups grow, and, sitting on a willow trunk beside a little stream, forget the very existence of everything but green pastures and still waters, and the glad blowing of the wind across the joyous fields."

 

 

 

Glen Miller and other classic big band and jazz music piped in as I walked through the serene setting. The music and the beauty all felt so timeless.

 

 

 

 

I cannot see water lilies and not think of the painter Claude Monet. I love the new water lilies stamps being offered by the U.S. Post Office.

I adore the travel you can do at botanical gardens. From deserts to rainforests in one day.

Steve was carrying Grace around and holding her to the flowers, I wondered what imprints might be made in her ever forming young mind.

All this strolling through the gardens whetted my appetite for a late lunch from the garden's bounty.

In their Pine Tree Café, the Asian Garden salad: baby kale with carrot slaw, broccoli, cucumbers, edamame, toasted sesame and wasabi peas with a soy ginger dressing, with an organic mint tea and a clementine.

In a "Cheater's Guide to Living to 100" in the April 5th issue of Parade Magazine, it noted "The world's most robust 100-year-olds stick with diets that are 95 percent plant-based, says journalist Dan Buettner, who spent more than a decade examining the healthiest, longest-living people around the globe. "They eat a little meat, but mostly fish." 

 



Browsing in the gift shop, I think of how much environmental awareness and stewardship needs to be taught at an early age.

 

 

East Coast seed bombs in the gift shop. Here's to spreading seeds about caring for our planet. I believe in the power of smalls steps like recycling, buying secondhand and hang drying laundry as often as possible, shutting off lights, and using reusable bags as a few examples to reduce our impact. Happy Earth Day!

 

Day Trip Diary: The New York Botanical Garden

"Lindy fell into step beside him. "I love your umbrella," she said admiringly.
"I bought it because it's cheery and it makes people look up. Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up?...Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn't notice."  - The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.

The Last of the Great Whangdoodles is a richly imaginative tale by Julie Andrews Edwards of The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins fame about a professor's adventures with three children, and I'll be remembering some favorite passages here. It was published in 1974, the year before I was born, but that passage seems even more relevant today with everyone is glued to a device and looking down, not up or around at their surroundings.

There is a Little House on the Prairie episode where Charles, beloved "Pa," is attempting to install a "picture window" in the little house by Plum Creek, but it keeps breaking during a series of marital spats between Laura and Almanzo, via doors slamming, getting crushed in the buggy and so on. I keep thinking of that term, "picture window," about the images we see through our windows, and how it stirs our imaginations. There is a commercial for a car that provides Wi-Fi, with two young children ready for their car trip each with their own handheld devices ready to look down. I think gazing out of a window is a lost simple pleasure in today's distracted world. When we were riding to the park, I loved observing the cheery autumn displays people put out: the scarecrows, the mums, haystacks and such. One porch (how I love front porches!) had a comforting red-checked table cloth that made my heart happy. Sitting next to our baby Grace in the car, my mom observed how much she likes to look around and can entertain herself. That's exactly what we want. No screen in front of her to mentally pacify her. We want to stimulate her senses, observing the glorious world around her. Have you taken time today to witness the beautiful world around you?

Steve, Grace and I viewed the stunning scenery at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, one of my favorite places in New York. Here is a frame made of branches in their Children's Garden, the picture it captures: the woods.

Before we started our visit, we stopped in their Pine Tree Café for nourishment. I had a hearty sandwich of portabella mushrooms, roasted red peppers, pesto, arugula and goat cheese, with an organic Earl Grey tea. I adore the earthiness of mushrooms, and the fragrance of bergamot from the tea. I always love eating and drinking the flavors of the garden, and it seemed even more fitting to do so here.

 

Taking the professor's advice, I looked up at this towering tree as we ate, as did Grace. I love outdoor dining.

  

This sign at the children's adventure garden nudges visitors to observe, explore, discover and connect, but adults (myself included) can use the reminder too. Let's vow to do these things just as often if not more in our daily lives as we do checking email or Facebook pages.

There's a scene where the Professor is outdoors with the children asking them what they see. The children hadn't noticed the tree trunks aren't just brown.

"The trunk of that one is copper and smooth, and that one is grey and rough. Those dead leaves are a russet color, aren't they?" He told them to look under a hedge, "Can't you see the cluster of red berries hanging under the tree? The children looked closer. Suddenly, as if the focus were being changed on a camera, the red berries came into view."
 
"There aren't many people in this world who know how to actually look. Usually one glance is enough to register that the grass is green and the sky is blue and so on. They can tell you if the sun is shining or if it looks like rain, but that's about all. It's such a pity, for there is texture to everything we see, and everything we do and hear.

"As each day passed, the children's ability to look, listen, feel, taste and smell improved immeasurably."

Looking around, I too found whimsy is everywhere here, a sense of play and fun that children and animals instinctually know the importance of, but we get too jaded or forget to make time for in our adult lives. Maybe that's why I was drawn to children's stories even before having a child, which serve as a portal to that magical world.

 

 

 

This pumpkin carving was so fitting for my alien-obsessed husband who had us visiting Roswell, New Mexico, and Area 51 on our American Southwest road trip.

 

 

"The professor taught them the wonders of music; not only instrumental music, but the music of running water and the sighing of the winds, the hum of a city and the song of the birds."

I think of how nature provides for so many species and its magical healing properties.

How did the first people unlock these wonders? This fascinates me.

A sign marked this spicebush, which it says turns a bright yellow in autumn, and "migratory birds gorge themselves on the red berries, which are rich in oils that provide concentrated stores of energy. Native Americans used spicebush to treat several illnesses, including coughs, arthritis, and measles. Early settlers called it feverbush and used a drink made from the bark to control fevers."

"Oma says, when we were put on earth a really long time ago, each person came with a plant to heal all the troubles that come later....We've got Indian balsam, sage, wild rose. We've got juniper berries and honeysuckle. All of them do something different inside, heal things." - Brindle 24, J.J. Brown

A sign here reminding us to be good caretakers for our Mother Earth and her forests, as she takes such good care of us through all nature provides.

In the gift shop, I spotted this enchanting seed collection. Every garden does have a story. I cannot wait to plant seeds with Grace and watch them grow. I think this makes a great gift idea too. Check out the seed collections from Renee's Garden.

 

A marker tells us of the allure of roses. I love that they both stimulate the eyes and senses, not just smell but taste too. I still recall a mint and rose water drink I had at The Girl and the Fig restaurant in the California wine country, and a rose tea I sampled in San Francisco's Chinatown. Smells, taste, sights - all tap into our memory banks, serving as time machines to bring us to another place and era.

 

I can almost smell the fragrant tea roses looking at this photograph.

 

 

Just beyond the garden you hear the busy hum of life outside the gates. I want to linger as long as possible in quiet places, even if they are just in my memories.

 

We were here for the Kiku or chrysanthemum exhibit that ran in October, which was exquisite.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artfully crafted bonsai trees. 

 

 

Looking at the water lilies always reminds me of my magical day here with my mother to see the Monet's Garden exhibit.  

 

Poetry lined the walkway to the exhibit space. Here is a haiku, a "traditional poetic form of three lines with a syllable count of five-seven-five in the original Japanese," a marker noted.

 

 

Here, a tanka which has five lines and syllable count five-seven-five-seven-seven in the original Japanese, reflects on recapturing youth. 

I saw a cartoon recently where the doctor tells his patient, an old man, that while he still has the same aches and pains, the good news is he is still around to complain about it. So very true.

Thinking of my time here, I reflect on the life cycles around us. Some just a brief season, others, like the trees, whose lifetimes will go on far beyond our own. I consider too our youth-obsessed culture which focuses not on the magic and wonderment of youth but simple vanity. I will never understand our fight against wrinkles and gray hair.

Natalie Merchant, a favorite singer/songwriter/activist, said so wisely in an article in The Buffalo News, "Aging in this culture is not dealt with very effectively. There is wisdom that can only come with experience. Instead of seeing aging as decrepitude and decay, we can see it as something beautiful and natural. You know, I dyed my hair forever, but recently, I stopped dying it altogether, and now I'm fully and completely gray. I had to learn to embrace that."

Having a child reminds me about the fragility and preciousness of life. We are so grateful when we come home with Grace that she is safe and sound and at night putting her to bed that we have been blessed with another day with her. Looking at my dogs I think of their shorter life spans compared to our own human ones and remind myself to make the most of my time with them too.

I'm reading aloud to Grace E.B. White's classic, Charlotte's Web, which speaks to me so much about friendship and the mystery of animal communications and the strong desire of all species to live, love and bond. Charlotte weaves words into her web and the minister declares "the spider's web proved that human beings must always be on the watch for coming of wonders."

Let us always be on the watch for the small wonders each day, and to be grateful for the seasons and time in the gardens of our lives.

Monet's Garden: A Piece of Giverny in New York

"scratching the packed earth
in the abandoned garden
I rake and dig and hope
urban creatures hear me
and they watch and wait
scoffing or aloof or shy
but then while I sleep
the scent of lavender roots
calls each of them to visit
and to imagine a garden
and in the early morning
songs emerge from memory." - Urban Garden from J.J. Brown's Natural Supernatural Love Poems.

My garden is getting ready for a winter slumber. Time spent in it is less and less, darkness and cold being my enemies. I have no power over these forces. Spring seems like light years away, but with the way time is traveling lately, will be here in a wink of an eye.

I think of the songs that emerge from memory from the smells - honeysuckle brings back carefree summer nights from childhood, or lily of the valley which still grows abundantly in the backyard of my childhood home. Sometimes it is just sights - marigolds the color of the sun reminds me of my mother's garden, or snow drops heralding soon-to-be spring. Red or pink geraniums will always bring me back to visits to my grandmother's home in Switzerland.

Gardens have been in my life a lot this past year or two - finding the artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe, reading Julie Andrews Edwards' magnificent Mandy about a young girl finding a secret garden, Tori Amos' poetic song Datura, our wedding reception on our patio next to our garden, the gardens I explored on my honeymoon in California. The more gardens are in my life, the better I am for it.

I had the great pleasure of attending the Monet's Garden exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden on its very last day with my mother, who has planted the seed in me, pun intended, to love flowers. It was a splendid October Sunday, as happy a way to pass the time that I can imagine. 

"In the garden suspended in time,
my mother sits in a redwood chair;
light fills the sky,
the folds of her dress,
the roses tangled beside her." - Mark Strand, as quoted in the book Rose Garden Memories

Charlotte in Giverny. Perhaps this book will plant a seed in its readers. I wish I had learned about art in my public education. I had a French teacher who took us to an Henri Matisse exhibit in New York City when I was a teenager, but I was never taught anything about art. Did you have a teacher, at school or at home, who taught you about art?

"Half the interest of a garden is in the constant exercise of the imagination" - Mrs. C.W. Earle, as quoted in the book Rose Garden Memories.

"although you must leave
stay with me a moment
in this rose garden
so the fragrance of your skin
may linger in my hair
as I slowly wash our teacups" - Visitor and the Teacup, J.J. Brown, Natural Supernatural Love Poems

The water lilies here are a new song that the heart remembers happily. I can understand why Monet became obsessed with them after seeing them at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889.

"I do what I can to express what I feel in the presence of nature." - Claude Monet.

"Dividing Canaan. Piece by piece." - Datura, Tori Amos

"By the first of July all of Mandy's plants were in full bloom. The garden was a mass of color and she was beside herself with delight. It was a small miracle. She was kept busy with a lot of weeding, for not only the flowers thrived, but everything else as well. But it was worth it. The roses were blooming around the door. The nasturtiums were bursting all over the front flower beds, seeming to have no sense of direction and growing in a wonderfully untidy way, the curling stems hiding and twisting beneath the big leaves. Their flowers were mostly a bright orange or yellow with an occasional mahogany red bloom. And they have a coarse, tangy fragrance - an unforgettable scent." -  Mandy, by Julie Andrews Edwards