A Day at the Botanical Garden

By Julissa Quinones

The New York Botanical Garden has so much to offer that you can completely forget you’re in the Bronx.  Exhibits change with the seasons. This fall there are  magnificent fall-flowering plants from Japan and the garden is alive with Japanese culture, enchanting traditional dance, music, and intricate kiku.

As you enter the Fall Flowers of Japan exhibition through the conservatory’s palm dome, you are greeted with sculptures created from salvaged branches, vines, and stumps. On display are Japanese maples, ornamental grasses, camellias and anemones.  The culmination comes with an extraordinary display of kiku — also known as a “Japanese chrysanthemums” — which are trained to grow in a remarkable variety of shapes and styles.

“Whoa, this is nothing like what people describe the Bronx to be, this feels like heaven,” said Sarah Miller 23, a tourist and student at Florida International University. “It’s definitely a great place to come for relaxation and maybe to have a picnic.”

The New York Botanical Garden is a huge attraction in the Bronx, drawing 750,000 visitors each year. The garden also has events such as the giant pumpkin carving weekends. These feature pumpkin sculptures of spooky scarecrows, spiders, snakes and more. Children get to play inside a pumpkin house and to participate in a spooky nighttime adventure when everyone will explore the cultures of the garden after dark.

“It’s so amazing the things you see here,” said Ashley Moscat 21, a student at Fashion Institute of Technology.  “It’s so cool that you actually decorate your own pumpkin and get to take it home. I absolutely love this place. I can’t believe I live five minutes away, and it took me this long to come here.”