Comfort me in a vast surround of rose blossoms – with Christin, June 2016 in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden
Here’s a rhetorical question for you. Does everyone need to find a place where they feel like a gleeful little kid?
If you’re like me, you like to look outside the door for the reassurances of the power and beauty of nature. My assurances come in the abundant show of flowers that occurs every year at certain junctures in time. I await with bated breath, the gifts of nature, well, assisted well by the gardeners of love out there – those who carry their trowels, rakes, shovels and clippers along with them everywhere they go.
Is it possible, you ask, to get excited over every single bloom that comes into being? The answer my friends, is blowin in the wind, the answer is blowin in the wind…….. (thank you to Bob Dylan for letting me borrow his lyrics and apply them to my little place in the universe). I am reassured yearly, by the power of nature to thrive and adapt, bolstered along by the hand of man who senses the stream and need, a bit here and there.
I confess to having only formally joined “the garden” early last year. I guess it is fortuitous that there is a place and time for everything in one’s lifetime. For here I found a place that I can probably only now enjoy so thoroughly and ascribe proper value to, at this time when I’m not being distracted by the other preoccupations in which I have been immersed during times along the way. This was by far our best investment of 2016. I have trundled over the GWB well over 10 times since then, a trek I can honestly call a happy one – a comment I bet most people don’t ascribe to this particular venture.
Over the year, and each and every time I’ve gone, I’ve had a full-blown uplift in spirit, as I anticipate my arrival into that oasis in the Bronx that is so singularly inspiring in its foresight, endurance, commitment and design that I find myself thanking the powers above and inside for their thorough dedication and devotion. This is one of New York City’s gems. And so, I say, any time you are feeling like you are in need of a vacation and you can’t actually go on vacation, here is a place to try.
I love Central Park, too, but somehow, Central Park feels different. Here, I instantly get that ahhh feeling and I can feel the angst of the day wash away. I’ll tell you, anyplace you can go in New York and find flowers blooming outside in January is a-ok with me! (I can now add it to central London where they grow cyclamen in window boxes and around trees in the frigid temps!) I’ve been to the garden twice already since the beginning of 2017. I am never disappointed!
Camellias in bloom January 15, 2017
Last year, we trundled on over for our very first season of the Daffodil Festival. If you are in need of a magical experience in early Spring, this is the place for you. It’s kind of my idea of going to a carnival, only it’s nature’s carnival. This is impressive beyond impressive. As you stroll around each and every extending curve, you are presented with wonders in full swaths of color . It’s impossible not to be in awe and, for me, I instantly get that kid in the candy store giddiness as I roam around and feel myself instinctively pulled toward all the blossoms surrounding me.
Here, for all of those who like me, feel literally starved for life during the months of Winter, is a little synopsis of my adventures from April of last year. Come with me for a small peak into my adventures in what has become known to me, familiarly and lovingly, as just, “the garden”. If you have any doubts at all about the enchantment of this place, I hope this will inspire you to go. Begin in Spring, as I did. Whet your appetite here! Mark it on your calendars – this year it will begin on April 29.
The “Opening” Weekend of NYBG 2016 – The Daffodil Festival
April 22, 2016
just a small glimpse of my amazing shots from Daffodil Hill – save it for the real deal:
April 29, 2016
A peak from just this past weekend:
All I can say is thank goodness for places such as this. This is inspiration! This is one of the places that, each time I visit I say to myself, I wish I could work here – I’d be a happy camper working here each and every day!
If this doesn’t do it for you, well, I indeed hope you have your own little version of this place.
I can feel that the preparations for this year’s Daffodil Weekend are well underway. There are little signs of popping up everywhere. Even the peony hoops are out! And so, until then, bientot!