Brooklyn Orchids

My Visit to The Orchid Show: Patrick Blanc’s Vertical Gardens

April 4, 2012 7 Comments

Conservatory Main Entrance — Centerpiece in the Haupt Conservatory atrium

I finally made the trek up to the NYBG yesterday for my fourth annual visit to the Orchid Show. This year marks the show’s 10th anniversary, with the theme being vertical gardens. Botanist, provacateur, and vertical gardening artist Patrick Blanc, aka “The Green Man,” created this year’s stunning displays. Orchids really are the perfect plant for constructing breathtaking vertical gardens, with their long, arching flower spikes and their ability to produce massive sprays of blooms. These plants sometimes grow on vertical surfaces in nature—tree trunks, branches, rocks, etc—so a vertical garden is a very logical way to show them off!

My mom was in town and we made the trip together. We both took about a million photos, and of course I want to share some of my favorites with you. Get ready for a hefty dose of orchid porn, starting…NOW.

New York Botanical Garden, Orchid Shows

“The Orchid Show: Patrick Blanc’s Vertical Gardens” is Now Open!

March 8, 2012 6 Comments

The New York Botanical Garden‘s tenth annual Orchid Show opened this past Saturday! I haven’t had a chance to go yet, but my friend and her mom went the day before the show opened to the public, on “member day.” My friend texted me from there and said that I was going to freak out over how amazing it is!! She sent me a few photos from her visit…and the displays certainly do look stunning:

Vertical Garden – Photo by Monique Hartl

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Events

LUSH at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

February 16, 2012 6 Comments

The folks at Brooklyn Botanic Garden were so super kind to comp me a ticket to their “LUSH” party this past Friday, February 10. I was thrilled to be able to go, especially considering I can’t really afford to drop $65 for a night out. My boyfriend (who did purchase his ticket) and I had a great time!

I’d never been to an event at BBG before. This party was held in their event room, called the Palm House, and it’s really gorgeous when all lit up at night:

My Orchid Garden

“Winter” 2012 Bloom Update!

February 9, 2012 10 Comments

Winter is the season in which many Phals display their full potential. While it actually doesn’t feel so wintery in NYC these days, my Phals are responding to the season as they should. I have a few orchids in bloom that I want to share with you! One of them is the Phal that opened up in mid January; a few more buds have opened and there are still more to come:

The second is a beautiful, colorful bloom on a side shoot of the Phal that my parents sent me for my 33rd birthday last summer:

And possibly the most exciting of the three, my Tolumnia from Lowe’s is finally beginning to bloom again!

Another one of my Phals and two of my Phal keikis (one potted on its own, one still attached to its mother) are in spike too, so there will be blooms aplenty in the house soon. 🙂

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Events

Lush on February 10 at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

January 27, 2012 2 Comments

Dave Horak Orchid Curator - Photo by Elizabeth Peters — Dave Horak, BBG Orchid Curator with a lovely orchid. Photo by Elizabeth Peters

Attention all Brooklyn orchid lovers-slash-party people! On Friday, February 10, Brooklyn Botanic Garden is throwing what sounds like an incredibly fun bash called Lush. The party is being held in the BBG Palm House and will include the following:

Live music from boogaloo band Spanglish Fly (I actually have no idea what “boogaloo” style music is, but I imagine it’s festive)
Tunes spun by WFMU’s Mr. Fine Wine and DJ Turmix
Open bar with fragrant fruit juices and cocktails
Mexican fruit ice pops from La Newyorkina
Empanaditas from Purple Yam
Latin-inspired confections from Tumbador Chocolate
Mexican munchies from Chavela’s (I’ve eaten there and the food is delish!)
Tropical fruit bites from Peeled Snacks
Custom cut leaf silhouettes by artist Aaron Birk (this in particular sounds really cool and I’m curious to see the end result!)

But the most exciting part? I’ll let the event’s press release speak for itself:

“BBG curator Dave Horak will bring guests behind the scenes of BBG’s orchid collection, introducing some of the world’s most remarkable tropical specimens in BBG’s care. Guests will also have a special chance to see the orchid nursery, usually unavailable for public viewing, and learn about the critical conservation of tropical orchids.”

The events runs from 8pm to midnight and tickets are $65 a pop. I’m going to try to swing it, though being mostly unemployed makes it a hard for me to spend $65 for an evening out. The party does sound like it will be well worth it, though. Anyone out there planning to go?

Correction: I originally stated that tickets are $75, but they are in fact $65 apiece.

Off Topic

Link Change Announcement: Bklynorchids.com Is Here!

January 19, 2012 1 Comment

Lady Slipper Orchid — Lady Slipper at BBG

I have some exciting news! Exciting to me, anyway. You may or may not have noticed that my blog has begun redirecting to a different URL. That’s because I now have my very own site: http://bklynorchids.com/.

My blog looks basically the same as before, only now I have my own URL minus the “wordpress” part. I have my wonderful boyfriend to thank for helping me get this site set up properly, because if I tried to do it myself it would probably look like a website created in the 1990s.

What does this mean for you, Constant Reader*? Not much, as the site will redirect to bklynorchids.com if you point your browser toward my old URL, brooklynorchids.wordpress.com. But if you happen to have my site bookmarked or you subscribe to it in an RSS reader, you’ll want to make sure to use http://bklynorchids.com instead.

Why “bklyn” instead of the full-on “brooklyn”? Well, brooklynorchids.com was already taken—though no real website exists for that domain (booo, hiss!). Some folks use “BKLYN” to abbreviate the borough’s name, so I decided to go with that. It’s not hard to remember; just think “Brooklyn” without the “roo.” 🙂

So that’s my big announcement! If you see anything funky, please don’t hesitate to let me know by commenting here or emailing me at brooklynorchids [at] gmail [dot] com…though it should theoretically be smooth sailing from here on out. As always, thanks so much for reading my little ol’ blog!!

*Yeah, I just used a Stephen King reference. I’m 4 and a quarter books into the Dark Tower series, so King is in my brain right now…just call it ka.