NY Botanical Garden

Mimi lives near the NY Botanical Garden. She brought Margery and me here one spring, but I have never visited in winter. Each year the NY Botanical Garden puts on a train show. I had never seen it, Mimi wasn't traveling abroad, and so this was the year...

We arrived in mid-morning, but in order for Mimi to use her member's pass and get me in as her guest, we had to wait until afternoon. We headed for the cafeteria only to discover that it was closed for renovations. The only place to eat was near the entrance where we had come from.

I thought it was pretty cool (no pun intended) to have a machine sweeping snow off the paths, but we soon found out that it was less icy to walk in the snow along the edges.

We ate by a window wall with a view of this tree (below). I couldn't get over the size of its pine cones.

We watched class after class of school children coming and going through these doors all morning.

I imagine they were more excited to watch the trains than to study the buildings that were created out of plant materials such as twigs, leaves, acorns, berries and such. 

The children were back in school by the time Mimi and I were able to get in which was nice...it wasn't crowded as we walked around the exhibit. 

The show was really less about trains and more about buildings both past and present within and around New York City.

I took dozens of pictures and I'd like to use most of them. Rather than trying to comment along the way, I think I'll let you take your own tour at your own pace.

Each building was labeled and, if demolished, it's dates of existence were given. You may be able to read some of the labels.

 

 

We are here...in the NY Botanical Garden greenhouse.

 

 

Yankee Stadium

Here is a closer view of the picture above. It's Rockefeller Center with the angel statues and Christmas tree.

If I'd known what I was going to see, I would probably have brought paper and pen and had Mimi write down the name of each building as we walked along. Of course that might have taken a couple of days...

I don't even remember the name of the artist who is creating all of this. Further on, in a side room, there was an exhibit of one building showing the stages of development. The amount of work that went into each of these structures boggles my mind!

Mimi ended up carrying one of my walking sticks so I would have a hand free for the camera!

 

 

This is the building described in the poster above.

Just collecting and organizing all of the materials seems like an over- whelming task.

It took several tries to catch this train "car" without a complete blur! Just sorry I couldn't get a side view...

 

I am torn between having smaller pictures and having them be clearer or making them larger to see more details but then having to put up with things being slightly out of focus.

So far I have opted for the latter...

 

 

 

I love the way the orchids almost seem to be a cloud of smoke from the train engine...

 

The train show was in the greenhouse so a lot of the plants were also phenomenal. I found the size of these leaves to be amazing.

I'm hoping the Empress Wu hostas that I planted last summer will grow this summer. They will have the largest leaves in my home garden, but they would be dwarfed by these.

Hope you have enjoyed the tour. I certainly did!