A visit to the New York Botanical Garden

I spent my Easter vacation in NYC and of course had to visit the New York Botanical Garden while in the neighborhood. The Easter weather was extremely cold with temperatures just above freezing – the cacti in the outdoor bed were all dormant so they seemed better prepared for the cold spell than we were ;-)

The NYBG outdoor cactus bed seems to be established or rearranged recently as very few of the plants are large and well established, one of the exceptions being a sprawling Opuntia pusilla.


Opuntia pusilla


View of cactus bed

Some of the dormant plants displayed beautiful winter colors, especially the O. basilaris and O. polyacantha cultivars were dazzling in their different shades of purple.


Opuntia basilaris 'Art Combe'


Opuntia polyacantha 'Candy Cane'

The Escobaria vivipara plants are growing just next to the footpath. Fortunately they weren’t trampled – in their withered state they could easily be overlooked if one swerved from the path.


Escobaria vivipara

The bed contains several species of Echinocereus, all looking fine after the winter. Inspired by this I might try to grow both Escobaria and Echinocereus in my unprotected bed (after investigating the differences in temperature and precipitation between Denmark and New York more thoroughly).


Echinocereus fendleri


Echinocereus dasyacanthus

A post on the NYBG cactus house (part of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory) can be found here.