Squash Blossom

Squash Blossom

While archiving the photos of my trip to the Queens Botanical garden this fall I came across a few photos that I am posting today. I was at the garden on September 8th, which I guess you could call late summer. It will be fun to see if the construction is done when I return this year. It is an great garden and if you are interested you can read my previous post on the trip and my impressions.


This sign was out in front of the Senior Garden and when I saw it I couldn’t help but think that is a way a lot of gardeners feel about their garden.

Since it has come to my attention, through the web statistics, that a lot of people are visiting because I mentioned that there was a wedding at the garden the day that I went. Here is a picture for those people. The wedding area is closed off from the rest of the garden and looked beautiful from over the fence. I guess this was a little voyeuristic of me to shoot a couple of pictures but the bride was beautiful, radiant really, and the violin player and crowd was something that that begged a few snaps.


Here is a link to the wedding page of the Queens Botanical Garden for those interested:
click here
You can easily navigate to the garden’s home page from there.

I am posting late since I had to take Molly to the doctor. She is coming back well from the surgery but the diagnosis of her tumor was bad. We are investigating some treatment options for her now but it doesn’t look good.

Spider Flower (Cleome hassleriana)

Spider Flower
Cleome hassleriana
(klee-OH-me) (hass-ler-ee-AH-na)
Synonyms: Spider Legs, Grandfather's Whiskers

This first picture is an abstract of a Cleome flower. Since it is an abstract it did go through some modification in Photoshop. This isn’t my favorite flower. I guess I am kind of neutral about this plant. At one time after mulching a large planting several sprouted and for years continued to self seed (which this plant does very well). Finally about two years ago no more came back and I was a little disappointed. I might have to break down and buy some next year to start the patch again. Since it is a tall annual with not much on the bottom it is best suited for the back of the border or in mass plantings. Beware of the smell for it is not pleasant. Kind of a weak skunk smell to my nose so you won’t want to plant them by the front door. There are several cultivars and colors available, these do not come true from seed however. I would like to try the Dwarf Spider Flower sometime (Cleome serrulata 'Solo'), I have only read about it.

Buds of the white flowered form


These were taken at the Queens Botanical Garden. The fence outside the Senior Garden had a mixture of some interesting and odd stuff (something that would be appealing to me). It reminded so much of something you would see along side a farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere. So kudos to the gardeners for planting a border like that in the middle of Queens.

Flower Buds

Zinnia elegans 'Zowie Yellow Flame'

Since my friend in Germany turned me on to bud photography I have been enjoying trying to capture emerging flowers. Sometimes they are as pretty as the flowers themselves. This is a little collection of flower buds I got on Saturday at the Queens Botanical Garden. Since I have had a little more time to reflect on my visit I have to admit how much I enjoyed it.

Rose Mallow Bud

Weird Clerodendron Bud Abstract

Karen and I went to the Irish Festival yesterday and it was a fun afternoon. We saw some dancing and a couple of bands. One thing that was not happy, we both agreed it made it long to return to Ireland. Lucky I didn’t drink too much, I only had a pint of Guinness so there are no after effects today. It takes awhile these days to bounce back from drinking too much. I have a big week at work planned and I have to start to think about my winterizing plans. There still is a good bit left to the season but I have found in the large garden it pays to think ahead.

Squash Bud from the Senior Garden

I bought Karen a Money Tree (Pachira aquatica) the other day when I was at the nursery. I have been urging it to grow, if you know what I mean. It actually has grown several inches already. I am going to have to research how to grow it as a houseplant. I really hope it flowers as I would love to take a picture of the beautiful blooms. Whenever I have seen them blooming in the tropics the flowers are way off the ground making it impossible to get a good photo of them. Here is a link if you haven’t seen a money tree before.
Pachira aquatica

Queens Botanical Garden

Queens Botanical Garden
Flushing, New York

Yesterday I left early and visited the Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing, New York. I wanted to kind of make a clean sweep of the NYC Botanical gardens having already visited the New York Botanical Garden and Wave Hill in the Bronx, Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Staten Island Botanical Gardens this summer. It wasn’t as much as an adventure as getting to the Staten Island Garden. I drove to the Metro-North Railroad Station in Katonah, New York and got the train to Manhattan. I then bought a Metrocard and took the #7 Subway train to its terminus at Main Street in Flushing, Queens. It is about a 40-minute ride on the Subway and then I walked the eight blocks south on Main Street to the garden. I took the bus back to the station and you may want to consider taking it to the garden.

The new Visitor and Administration Building at the Queens Botanical Garden

The garden was nice, smallish compared to the others but it really had a country atmosphere, which was kind of amazing to me. If it weren’t for the skyscrapers and the jets taking off from La Guardia you might not know you were in NYC. There is a lot of construction going on at the garden. It looked like a pretty big area was closed off and totally ripped up. The Visitor and Administration Building was brand new and they are so planning a new maintenance building and area.


Some of the highlights of my visit were the Rose Garden, Pinetum, and while I didn’t get to actually go inside the area reserved for Weddings. There was a Wedding later in the day with; I’m guessing 50 guests. I got to see the bride walking down the aisle and I liked the air of anticipation before she arrived. The Rose Garden had a lot of roses and seemed well cared for and my only knock (and it is a small one) was the roses for the most part weren’t labeled and they were kind of scatter planted (mixed up). As I said there were a lot of flowers and a good selection of cultivars. The Pinetum was interesting, I didn’t see anything really rare but there was an interesting selection with some very old specimens. It looked like they are going to need to do some transplanting soon and I would have liked to see a few more dwarf types of trees. If you are not familiar with what a Pinetum is here is the definition: “An area planted with pine trees or related conifers, especially for botanical study.”

One of the Circular Annual Plantings

The rest of the display gardens were nicely presented and tended. There were a couple of very nice annual/tropical plant circles that I found interesting. There was also a large circular perennial and annual border that was impressive. I have tried to make a comprehensive review here since it was hard to find any reviews on the Internet about the QBG. A review would not be complete without mentioning the experience I had in the Senior Garden section. The Senior Garden was located in one of the far corners of the garden, and is made of a lot of small vegetable plots, each tended by a senior. Apparently they just started opening on the weekends for visiting. They were calling over to me to come visit as I walked by. Of course I went in and looked around after a few minutes one of the gardeners approached me and started to talk about the garden. I don’t think I have ever met a group that was more friendly and proud of their garden. They had to show me everything and I found them to be quite knowledgeable. When they heard I was professional that seemed to trigger some questions. It was a very personal and enjoyable visit for me. The kind of experience you wouldn’t get at the other Botanical Gardens in NYC.

Overall it was a very enjoyable visit. I can’t remember the last time I rode one of the Subway lines to the end in the Outer Boroughs. The #7 line drops you in the middle of Chinatown and that is an experience in itself. When I was in Grand Central I had a bolt of fear as the US Open Tennis Tournament and a Mets home game was scheduled on Saturday. It turned out to be baseless as I dodged both with happy accidental timing. You probably wouldn’t want to make this your top destination for Botanical Gardens in NYC but if you are interested or have the time it is certainly worth the visit.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy'

A quick word about the pictures here. When I go shooting I often give myself a little challenge to try and complete on my journey. Yesterday it was to get a few full frame flower and plant pictures. As usual I took a lot of close ups but tried to complete my personal challenge. I had quite a few failed attempts (which we won’t be seeing) and the three that came out the best.