Feeling stressed from her college workload, Jersey City resident Sharlen Yuan, 23, and one of her school pals decided to take a much-deserved homework break to stop and smell the flowers — literally. The pair headed to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to snap pics under some cherry blossoms before the wind blew away the trees’ lingering pink petals.
“We saw a friend posting pictures on Facebook, so we wanted to come and see the cherry blossoms [for ourselves],” Yuan says as she rests against a tree, “and we’re not disappointed.”
And although cherry-blossom season is pretty much over, thanks to unseasonably warm temps, the balmy weather also means plenty of other blooming buds are springing up ahead of schedule.
Along the Cherry Esplanade at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (900 Washington Ave.; 718-623-7200, bbg.org; $10, adults) you can find other Japanese plants in bloom — just in time for this weekend’s annual Sakura Matsuri festival, a Japanese tradition to celebrate cherry-blossom season (see Kid Stuff on page 28 for more info).
Pale purple Japanese wisteria hang from wooden archways alongside the Osborne Garden, where you’ll also notice shocking pink, royal purple and magenta azaleas and rhododendrons.
Just south of the Cherry Esplanade, 45,000 dazzling bluebells are beginning to bud. Elsewhere, hundreds of colorful tree peonies the size of dinner plates are blooming along the periphery of the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden.
“They were a gift from the Yatsuka prefecture in Japan after 9/11,” says communications manager Kate Blumm, referring to the area famous for cultivating the blooms.
Crowds are typically smaller on weekday mornings (that’s also when students on field trips are there), making it best time to visit — and to stop and sniff the garden’s tulips — 6,000 of them in white, dark purples and eye-popping magentas, sprouting along the Lily Pool Terrace.
For a more serene scene, check out a little-known Narrows Botanical Gardens (Shore Road between Bay Ridge Avenue and 72nd Street; narrowsbg.org; free) — the city’s largest community garden — tucked away in Bay Ridge. Its hillside is currently dotted with hundreds of Spanish bluebells, offering a picture-perfect spot to relax. “Blue flowers are incredibly soothing,” says Narrows landscape designer Jimmy Johnson.
Wisteria vines snaking up pillars in the White Garden by the water fountain are “in full regalia,” Johnson adds. And trillium, a tiny white flower, at one time extinct in NYC, is budding in the native-plant garden.
But if you’re feeling a bit wild, hop on the 7 train to the Queens Botanical Garden (43-50 Main St., Flushing; 718-886-3800, queensbotanical.org; $4, adults), where native wildflowers — mostly found in the woodland area and near the visitor administration building — are among the garden highlights. “One of the themes of the garden is sustainability — how to be in harmony with the environment, so we do that by planting native [seeds],” says Fred Gerber, director emeritus of Queens Botanical Garden’s education program. These NYC natives include the white shooting star, a bud with bent-back petals; and the Solomon’s Seal, which has long, arching stems and hanging green-white bells. “There’s a lot of subtlety in wildflowers,” Gerber adds. “You have to take time to slow down and notice them.”
Meanwhile, along the Fragrance Walk, 20 lilac bushes in various pink and purple hues are blooming a few weeks ahead of schedule.
Finally, the fragrant florals over at the New York Botanical Garden (2900 Southern Blvd., The Bronx; 718-817-8700, nybg.org; $20, adults) are blooming early, too: A visit to the garden will reveal dozens of blue irises and white peonies in the perennial garden in front of the conservatory, and maybe even a rose or two in the Rose Garden. “We’re projecting the peak for Rose Garden in the second week of May,” says horticulture vice president Todd Forrest. “All over, the garden is [blooming] three weeks ahead of [their] normal [schedule].”
But the main attraction is the 3,000 pink, purple, coral and white azaleas and rhododendrons that are peaking today and tomorrow in the azalea garden — a few weeks ahead of schedule, Forrest says. “You can spend hours there,” he says. “It’s just awash in color.”