NYBG: Kiku Japanese Garden Show

On Saturday, my uncle was in town and we decided to go to the New York Botanical Garden for Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden show. The last time he visited me in the city we also ended up at the NYBG (the first time for both of us) for the spectacular Orchid Show, so we had high expectations for Kiku. While the Chrysanthemums aren't quite as interesting (or diverse) as the orchids, it was still an amazingly beautiful show.

I had no idea that chrysanthemums could be so large and so intricate. The centerpieces of the show were these crazy pyramids of flowers (called Ozukuri, or "thousand bloom") that are trained (by some sort of gardening sorcery) to grow from a single stem. One display had almost 500 flowers, and another had more than 200 all impossibly growing outward from one tiny, precariously thin stem.

There were other varieties that looked like fireworks, some like fancy wigs, others that swirled like whipped cream and large displays of fall-colored mums, which I stupidly had never realized were actually chrysanthemums. I was able to intently study (and photograph) some really chilled-out bees that were hanging out on a huge wall of flowers, and any time I can get a great, close-up shot of a bee (or comparable insect) is a fun time for me.

In the courtyard of the Conservatory, I finally got to see the Four Seasons sculptures up close, and they were totally worth the wait. I wanted to see them when I went to the garden in the summer, but because I hadn't paid for an all-inclusive ticket, I wasn't able to get near them. I had even tried to peek through the surrounding fence, but couldn't catch more than a fleeting, heavily-obscured glance.

There are four sculptures, each representing one of the seasons, and sculpted out of seasonal produce and flora. Winter was hands down my favorite, and at one point there was an old man standing right in front of it who was basically the human equivalent of the craggy, rooty sculpture. Autumn was a bit of a disappointment, only because it's my favorite season (if I must pick one), so I had high expectations. They are all really spectacular, and make a striking set.

Also outdoors are two huge lily ponds, a majority of which were in bloom. I became totally enamored with the lotus flowers at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this summer, but there are even more and especially beautiful ones right now at the NYBG.

We walked through the permanent desert collection again, which seemed to be doing a bit better than when we last saw it in March. The succulents were adorable and I had to use all of my willpower not to squeeze every last one of them, because that's a totally normal reaction to succulents, right?

I'm thinking that I should probably just bite the bullet and become a member of the NYBG, because they have so many great exhibits throughout the year that it's definitely worth the price. I'll definitely be back for the Orchid Show this spring, but I'm also excited for the Holiday Train show in a few weeks, which I've never seen. A description of the train show mentions that the trains move through "more than 140 scaled iconic buildings and structures under thousands of twinkling lights," which is all I need to know to add it to my must-do list this Christmas.