Things to do / Travel Guide
As something is always in bloom in New York City, no matter in which season you visit, some of the more pleasant attractions to visit are its beautiful gardens and botany centers.
Central Park in New York City
Central Park's 850 acres feature several distinct gardens. For instance, the Conservatory Garden is a six-acre formal garden in the park's northeast corner. Its classic Italian style features immaculately-trimmed lawns and yew hedges with waves of flowers around the large Conservatory Fountain. The French-inspired North Garden displays elaborate floral patterns. In the Untermeyer Fountain, three bronze sculptures of girls dance at the heart of a circular bed where 20,000 tulips bloom in the spring and 2,000 chrysanthemums in the autumn are tended.
Worth the trouble to find it is the Shakespeare Garden, which is somewhat hidden between Belvedere Castle and the Swedish Cottage. Finally, Strawberry Fields is a memorial to John Lennon, writer of the classic 1967 song “Strawberry Fields Forever.” This garden is also sometimes called the (rather Lennonesque) “International Garden of Peace.” Along curving paths, shrubs, trees, and flowerbeds donated by many countries around the world create a deliberately informal landscape reminiscent of quaint English parks.
New York Botanical Garden
Founded around the dramatic valley of the Bronx River in 1891, the New York Botanical Garden is one of the leading botanical gardens in the world. Located at Bronx River Parkway and Fordham Road, the 250-acre complex is a landscaper's dream and a highlight of any visit to the Bronx. A path along the Bronx River leads to the garden's 50-acre forest, the only surviving remnant of the greenery that once covered the area of New York City. Outdoor plant collections include the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, with 2,700 bushes of more than 250 varieties, the spectacular Rock Garden, which displays alpine flowers, and the Everett Children's Adventure Garden, eight acres of plants and botanical exhibits for children. Inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a Victorian-era glass house with 17,000 individual panes, you will find year-round recreations of misty tropical rainforests and arid African and North American deserts. There are a total of 50 gardens and botanical exhibits, well more than can be enjoyed in one day.
Brooklyn Botanical Garden
Near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden features a rose garden, a cherry tree esplanade, a water lily pond and esplanade, and children's gardens and exhibits. Also to be found there are the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden and a bonsai collection. A particular favorite of good taste and surrealism is the Cranford Rose Garden, with more than 1,000 varieties of roses, including miniature roses, many wild species, and climbers and ramblers. In another section of the Garden, which was founded in 1910, are more than 200 varieties of cherry trees.
Queens Botanical Garden
The Queens Botanical Garden was founded as a part of the 1939 World's Fair, which took place in Queens. It sprawls over 39 acres of land and contains excellent bee and herb gardens, as well as seasonal displays of tulips, roses, and chrysanthemums. Its mission is to teach of the importance of plants to people in an urban environment.
Manhattan and New York City
Botanical-Gardens
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