Brooklyn Botanic Garden

The Cranford Rose Garden in Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York City

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden located next to Prospect Park near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Founded in 1910, the 52 acre (210,000 m²) garden includes a cherry tree esplanade, a one acre (4,000 m²) rose garden, a Japanese hill and pond garden, a fragrance garden for the blind, a water lily pond esplanade, several conservatories, a rock garden, a native flora garden, a bonsai tree collection, and children’s gardens and discovery exhibits.

The Cranford Rose Garden

The Cranford Rose Garden was opened in June 1928. It was designed by Harold Caparn, a landscape architect for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Montague Free, the Garden’s horticulturist. With 650 cultivars then represented, many of the original plants from 1927 are still in the garden today. There are over 5,000 bushes of nearly 1,200 varieties of roses in the garden, including wild species, old garden roses, hybrid tea roses, grandiflora roses, floribunda roses, polyanthas, hybrid perpetuals, climbers, ramblers, and miniature roses.

Cherry Trees

The Garden has more than 200 cherry trees, of 42 species and varieties. The first cherries were planted at the garden after World War I, and were a gift from the Japanese government. Each spring, a weekend-long cherry festival called Sakura Matsuri is held when the trees are in bloom. Cherry trees are found on the Cherry Esplanade, the Cherry Walk, in the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, in the Osborne Garden and in many other locations in the Garden. Depending on weather conditions, the Asian flowering cherries bloom at the Garden starting in late March or early April ending through mid-May. Many of the different species bloom at slightly different times.

The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden

The tea house of the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden in 1915

The “Yuki-yoki” of the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden in 1922. This device, actually a yuki yoke (???) in Japanese, is a snow deflector for trees

The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden was designed by Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota (1881-1943). Shiota, who was born in a small Japanese village about 40 miles from Tokyo, spent his youth wandering Japan on foot to explore its natural landscape. In 1907 he came to America and designed this garden, which opened to the public in 1915. The Hill-and-Pond Garden includes a small Shinto temple, a carp-filled pond, hills, a waterfall, and an island, all of which were constructed to designer Shiota’s exacting specifications. Architectural elements found in the garden include wooden bridges, stone lanterns, a viewing pavilion, and the torii or gateway.

The Shakespeare Garden

An English cottage garden exhibits plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. More than eighty of the plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings grow there; the common or the Shakespearean names as well as the botanical name and references to relevant quotations are found on labels near each plant.

The Fragrance Garden

Next to the Shakespeare Garden is the fragrance garden, complete with braille information signs for visitors with sight disabilities. All are encouraged to rub the leaves of various odiferous plants between their fingers. There are four sections in the garden each with a theme: (1) plants to touch, (2) plants with scented leaves, (3) fragrant flowering plants, and (4) kitchen herbs. The garden is wheelchair-accessible and all the plantings are in beds at an appropriate height for people in wheelchairs. A fountain provides a calming sound and a place to wash one’s hands after experiencing the various plants.

Visitor and gardener information

BBG not only has a gift shop and visitor center, it provides reference information about gardening at its Gardener’s Resource Center to home gardeners and professional horticulturists. During the spring and summer, an outdoor cafe that provides a variety of refreshments and meals. A Beaux-Arts style conservatory hall known as Palm House has catering for up to three hundred guests. Less apparent to the casual visitor is BBG’s diverse programs in scientific research, youth education, and community environmental horticulture, all of which command a substantial share of the staff (BBG as a whole has 175 full-time staff and 100 part-time) and the annual operating budget