New York Botanical Gardens

Last Saturday we were in NYC and had the pleasure of visiting the NY Botanical Gardens in The Bronx.  

It was a beautiful day to spend a few hours in such a lovely oasis.  I had not been to the gardens before, but it has been a destination I have wanted to visit for quite a long time, so I was very glad that I finally got to go there.  

Here's Russ, Nora and Ari in front of the conservatory.

In the background you can see two of the large sculptures in the courtyard.  There were four of these sculptures, each representing one of the four seasons.  I'm sorry I can't recall the name of the artist, but the idea is that they are conglomerates of fruits and vegetables of the season positioned to form a rather organic head.

Here is summer:

I actually thought they were kind of creepy.

We took the tram ride that took us throughout the grounds and we got off and walked in several areas.  As the tram made it's circuit, the narration gave us information about the plantings in each area and we also got a bit of the history of the gardens.  There are some historic buildings on the property, and lots of the prominent natural rock formations that are similar to those in Central Park.  Though it was obvious that it was late summer and some of the plants were preparing for harsher fall and winter weather, we did find some lovely roses in the rose garden:

I had to include just a couple of pictures of the roses.  

We spent a lot of time in the vegetable and herb gardens which include an area where children can garden and there is also an outdoor demonstration kitchen and little hidden areas with tiny chairs or other things that children can sit on and explore.  I guess I didn't take many pictures there, but I did have my camera out when we went to the beautiful, glass conservatory building and the lily ponds behind it.  I don't know if the lily ponds are leftovers from the Money exhibit I heard so much about last year, but I thought they were particularly lovely.

 I thought these large tray-shaped lily pads were particularly interesting.  

And here is a picture of the conservatory dome:

And finally, a nice photo of Nora and Ari: