Planting Fields Arboretum

Planting Fields Arboretum
Oyster Bay, New York


Yesterday I drove out to Long Island and visited Planting Fields Arboretum. My main goal was to see the Camellia Collection but I was, however, a little early as most of the plants were just in bud. There were a few blooming but the real show looked like it would be coming in a couple of weeks. Hardly a disappointment I decided to go to the Main Greenhouse and have a look around. They still had the Poinsettia display up and that was colorful with some interesting types and colors. My camera fogged up and I wasn’t able to get a clear picture in that part of the greenhouse. The other parts of the greenhouse have Orchids, Succulents and Cactus and Begonias in separate rooms with some other tropical plants displayed along the way.

Morning Glory seed pods

Normally when I have gone to this Arboretum I have just stopped in along the way from buying plants out on the North Fork, which kind of makes for a rushed visit. Yesterday I decided to make it my primary destination. I could have stayed all day, oops, that’s what I ended up doing only leaving because of the dusk. I wasn’t really prepared for the riot of bark, berries, flowers and other botanical delights. The large collection of Witch Hazels was amazing and I kept coming across them here and there in the garden. I am not sure they were all marked correctly but they made for a fragrant and colorful distraction for a winters afternoon. Seeing the arboretum ‘bones’ was good, as I found several new (new to me) plants that I want to go back and photograph during the spring and summer.

Main Greenhouse, I got both pictures of the Greenhouse before the 8400 died

Since I only used the 60mm/2.8 Micro-Nikkor and the 50mm/1.8 I didn’t really take any landscape shots. I wish I had but maybe next time. I had my Coolpix 8400 and that has a 24mm equivalent lens but the battery died shortly after I got there. I really need a spare battery for that camera as it only lasts about 25% of the D70s battery. It is going to take awhile to sort through all the pictures I took. I was doing some depth of field and exposure experiments to get ready for the upcoming season. I also tried a few menu adjustments and wanted to see the results of that. With my newly stocked up Ipod on and the pretty nice weather (not super, windy and cloudy but fairly warm) I was really ‘out there’.

Bark from a large specimen of Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)

Their website gives some of the rich history and explains the collections better than I could:
Planting Fields.org