Everywhere you look it is beautiful as spring unfolds at Wave Hill, each direction meriting a visit. One that should not be missed is the Shade Border, located in the northeast corner of the property. Researching its history, former Wave Hill gardener Carolyn Hestand Kennedy―also a former Nally intern― discovered that back in the 1970’s Wave Hill founding Director of Horticulture Marco Polo Stufano and John Nally, former Curator of the Gardens, wanting to create a shade garden on the north side of the property, began by planting a few oaks there, leaving them to grow for decades as they focused on more central areas of the garden. Carolyn, then the Shade Border gardener, mentioned to me that “It’s still quite moving to read that they were so farsighted in thinking about this place.” Some of her favorite shade perennials are Paris polyphylla, Anemone sylvestris, Dicentra spectabilis and Corydalis. All are thriving there now.

Harnek Singh now gardens the Shade Border. Over the last few years, he has had to contend with some major changes. Working with Scott Canning, Director of Horticulture and Brian McGowan, Scott’s Assistant Director, they needed to correct a drainage problem caused by rain washing down the path, and rebound from one of the oaks coming down in a winter storm―as well as the death of the venerable Japanese maple at the back entrance.  What some see as simply a reason to lament, Harnek has accepted and is able to see it as an opportunity for something new. He has risen to these challenges and the Shade Border is now enchanting.

Plants are always being added as some are moved or taken away. Recently a tree was removed that had grown too large and was overshadowing a large section of the border and crowding the Norley beech tree. Three brilliant orange Rhododendron calendulaceum have been freed to shine in their flowering moment.

Along the path you can also see where one of the original oaks that came down remains as an overturned stump. Harnek planted an unusual variety of hellebores on its side and it appears to have become a home for some creature living here. With both Virginia and Spanish blue bells, columbines, trilliums, primulas, ferns and more abounding below the taller trees and shrubs, you will not be disappointed with a spring stroll through the Shade Border.

Happy spring!

Visitors of all ages experienced Wave Hill’s landscape through drawing at the Drawn to Nature Target Free weekend, April 6 and 7, 2013. Family Art Project guest artist Ander Mikalson created a line of drawings on the lower lawn. Exhibiting artists from Drawn to Nature, the exhibition on view in Glyndor Gallery, assisted visitors in a collaborative project. Participants were invited to share their creations through a flickr page set up for this purpose. Check them out!

Last Sunday, conceptual landscape artist Matthew Jensen gave an engaging artist talk in the Sunroom Project Space about his project East Coast, West Coast, The Bronx, The Bronx.  The audience was delighted to hear him discuss the themes and sources for his work.  

We were pleased to see Raymond E. Mingst and Arthur Bruso, the directors of Curious Matter, a contemporary art gallery in Jersey City, which showed Jensen’s work last year.  It was a treat to see that they had posted this wonderful write-up on their blog yesterday.

Since 2007, the Sunroom Project Space has provided an opportunity for New York City-area emerging artists to exhibit a site-specific solo show. Five to seven installations are mounted from April through November each year.

Last week, we were pleased to welcome the dedicated Sleepy Hollow Manor Garden Club, just up the Hudson from Wave Hill. In working out the details for their visit, I expected their time here to be positive―and the weather was certainly glorious! It was an added bonus to receive from the manager of The Shop at Wave Hill, Jenah Barry, this kind note from a member of the club, who posted to her blog about the trip.

“Dear Jenah Barry,
Our garden club had a lovely visit to Wave Hill yesterday and I am really looking forward to planting the seeds I purchased in your beautiful shop.
I did a write a post about our visit for my blog and I am attaching a link here.
Hope you enjoy!
Cordially,
Dorothy Handelman”

Yes, Dorothy, we certain did enjoy it. Visit again soon!

It was great to have Visiting Artist Ander Mikalson working with us on our installation for Drawn to Nature Weekend. Called Drawing a Line through Wave Hill, this project was a fantastic chance for collaborative artwork! We began in the Ecology Building, where families were greeted warmly by our storyteller extraordinaire, Rama Mandal, pictured here. Rama helped get families inspired to draw with these four stories: The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, Andrew Drew and Drew by Barney Saltzberg and Vincent’s Colors, a book produced by the Metropolitan Museum. Each story encompassed ideas of creativity and inspiration and each captured the adventure of drawing. And adventurous the project was!

The first stage was drawing. We created images by drawing on watercolor paper with white and yellow crayons, and then dipping the paper into watercolor paint.  Initially, there wasn’t much to see, but dipping into the paints was like magic: the watercolor paint adhered to the paper, but only around our crayon drawings. This technique, called resist, was something we learned from Ander. We also drew on transparency paper with oil pastels.

The drawings were brought out to the roof of the Ecology building and the Lower Lawn, where we created an installation. This was the best part. Drawings were tied to sticks collected from around Wave Hill, and then placed in the ground. As the weekend went on, our line grew and grew, just as Andrew drew and drew in our story!

With over 200 contributions, our line of drawing worked its way up the hill. Many visitors stopped to photograph it, kids made a game out of running along or hopping over it and we even taught some families who were photographing their drawings how to get down in front of them and capture the ground and the sky through their transparencies. With the colors of nature as our base, and the ability to see right through some of the drawings as they swayed in the breeze and became part of the landscape, families were certainly“drawn to nature.

New York City-based artist Ander Mikalson works with elements of performance, sound, sculpture, time and drawing. She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. Most recently, she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been shown in Sweden, Ecuador, Austria and throughout the United States.

Visiting Artist Moses Ros, a Bronx-based visual artist working in painting, mural, printmaking, sculpture and video, joined us in welcoming the new season with Up Pops Spring, a project inspired by his current printmaking. He creates stamps by making wood carvings, and then uses block-printing ink and an ink roller to ink the stamp and create a printed image on recycled materials, such as cereal or pizza boxes. He prints on the decorated side of the box, then cuts out the image and re-positions it on another area of the recycled material to create layers. He also uses the prints to create mobiles with fishing wire and straws for his structure.

Family Art Project families were able to create their own nature-inspired designs, with a little tweaking: instead of wood blocks we used recycled styrofoam trays, and instead of wood-block carving tools we used pencils to carve into the styrofoam trays. For the mobiles, we used string and twigs to replace plastic straws and wire. (Thanks to all the wonderful families who visit regularly and to our own staff, we had a collection of recycled boxes with all kinds of designs the families could choose from.)

One family sat together, but each seemed focused on his or her own design. But in the end they combined their efforts to create one great family mobile they planned to hang in their yard at home.

A father/daughter duo created a 3-dimensional castle from the recycled boxes, decorated with prints and styrofoam reliefs. The project started with heart-shape prints on a heart-shaped box; as they worked, they took inspiration from Moses’ materials and examples and spread their creative wings. There were nature prints in shapes of flowers, hand prints and creatures of all sorts, even a dinosaur!

Families were inspired to work together and really collaborate on their creations in this project—even small siblings like this industrious duo!

Up Pops Spring with Moses Ros was a great way to welcome the season!

Moses’ work has been exhibited at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Hostos Center of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, Yeshiva University Museum, Paterson Museum and Museo de Arte Moderno.

Wonderfully suited to the glorious magnolia blossoms in the gardens now, The Shop is offering a new collection  of beautifully packaged magnolia-scented bath and body products—and home décor with a magnolia theme—by Michel Design Works. These include luxurious bubble bath, soaps, lotions, guest towels, soy wax candles and pretty boxes of matches. All beauty products include moisturizing shea butter, jojoba oils and extracts from nature. Think green tea, lavender essential oils, seaweed extracts.

Keep them in mind for Mother’s Day May 12, but don’t wait to make your selection.  You know she deserves something perfectly practical and charming for pampering after the long winter season.

The magnolia pictured above offers glorious pops of color up beyond the Perkins Visitor Center—also, of course, the home of The Shop. With Arbor Week starting this weekend, April 20, I plan to make time for a walk through the flowering gardens myself.

It’s the first week of April and spring is finally settling over Wave after a cold and blustery March. The gardeners are busy pruning, mulching, planting and generally sprucing up the grounds, happy to be out in the garden putting their seasonal plans into motion.

This week, the gardeners also welcomed our new Nally Interns. Here, gardener Syretha Brooks and intern Guilherme Goncalves are mulching the beds in front of Glyndor Gallery.

Gardener Will Wallace working in the Flower Garden. The blue flower is Chionodoxa sardensis, or glory-of-the-snow, which blankets Wave Hill every April.

At right, Director of Horticulture Scott Canning is out in the garden, pruning shrubs at the Perkins Visitor Center.

Some big jobs require big equipment. Arborists from Almstead Tree and Shrub Care pruned the large evergreens in front of Glyndor Gallery this week.

Above, gardener Susannah Strazzera sowing seeds in the Potting Shed. Once germinated, the seedlings are transplanted into flats, and spend some time beefing up in the “Three House”, one of our behind-the-scenes growing areas, pictured below.

An unwelcome guest in the Three House—this sneaky mockingbird has a penchant for flinging fragile seedlings from their pots.

Who’s this on the Great Lawn?

Turns out this pesky critter was a fleeting April Fool’s “installation” by one of our cheeky gardeners!

My first word as a baby was “flower” and I spent many happy days as a child working with my mother in her beautiful garden. As an artist, nature has always been an inspiration and I’m delighted to work in this beautiful corner of New York City.

I am enchanted by the seasons, most of all by the emergence of fresh green leaves and buds in the spring, evidence of growth and renewal! Every day there is something at Wave Hill that surprises and delights me. Today I found these beautiful narcissus blooming in the Marco Polo Stufano Conservatory. The hellebores are out and the tulips are beginning to wake from their long winter sleep in the Paisley Bed just beyond the doors to The Shop.

In The Shop, our seeds have arrived! Look out for the shipment from Hudson Valley Seed Library, a small, independent, local farm that produces resilient, heirloom seeds, organically grown and beautifully packaged in unique packets designed by contemporary artists.  

As Lois Elhert writes in her beautiful children’s book Planting a Rainbow:  We wait “for spring to warm the soil and sprout the bulbs… We sow the seeds and set out the plants in the soil and watch the rainbow grow, and grow and grow.”

While waiting for longer, warmer days and April’s showers I have been enjoying our Kobo seed candles, pure soy, fragranced candles made by hand in New York State. They are packaged in a seed-paper box; when planted in the soil and watered, the box will grow the plant that fragrances the candle. Choose among tomato, sunflower, poppy or thyme. I also love Under The Nile’s wonderful, organic cotton fruit and veggie toys, child’s play that is perfect until it’s warm enough for the kids to enjoy the gardens outside.

We are busy preparing for a busy season with the official opening of spring on March 20. I look forward to meeting you in The Shop!