2014 Annual Report © Robert Benson Photography Table of Contents
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2014 Annual Report © Robert Benson Photography Table of Contents Letter from Maureen K. Chilton and Gregory Long ................4 Horticulture and Exhibitions ....................................................5 Education and Public Outreach ............................................... 6 Science, Conservation, and the Humanities .............................7 Leadership and Finance ...........................................................8 Cover: The Garden welcomes approximately 900,000 visitors annually from the Tri- State region and around the world, who enjoy exhibition-related programs that offer home gardening and celebrity cooking demonstrations, music and dance performances, special classes and symposia, weekend festivals, hands- on activities for children, and spectacular evening events for adults. Opposite: Crabapples have always been an important part of the Garden’s living collections. In late April or early May, they burst into bloom and light up the spring sky with flowers ranging from pure white to deep burgundy. 2 3 Horticulture and Exhibitions Doug Gordon Dear Friends: The New York Botanical Garden is a unique cultural institution. It is a beautiful urban garden that serves as an oasis for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year; a producer of world-class exhibitions highlighting the intersection of horticulture, science, and the arts; a trend-setting educational institution; and an international leader in plant research and conservation. Fiscal year 2014 was a year of milestones for the Garden: attendance reached a record high of 900,000 visitors, the institutional budget was balanced for the 26th year in a row, and we had an Newly reimagined Seasonal Walk showcases Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf’s innovative approach to Mrs. Rockefeller’s Garden, the Conservatory component of Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens and The Women Who Designed Them, featured a set piece combining bulbs, grasses, and perennials to create bold and long-lasting flower borders that capture the that evoked the original Maine garden’s enclosing wall and iconic Moon Gate. opportunity to celebrate Gregory Long’s vitality of nature and the rhythm of the seasons. 25 years as President and Chief Executive Officer. The past two and a half decades NYBG’s living collections distinguish the professions. Gardens for a Beautiful activities within the 50-acre Thain Family represent a renaissance period for the Garden from other New York City cultural America: The Women Who Photographed Forest. Garden staff and volunteers spent Garden with a revamped exhibitions institutions. Home to more than one Them, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s thousands of hours removing invasive program, expanded reach in the sciences, million plants in 50 gardens, collections, component of the exhibition, drew nearly plants as well as planting native trees, a strengthened relationship with the and displays, the living collections 20,000 visitors and featured vintage shrubs, and wildflowers grown from seed community, and more comprehensive are one of the largest assemblages of photographs, photo equipment, and photo- collected from within the Forest. Staff, educational programs tailored for everyone cultivated plants in any public garden illustrated books. students, and collaborators from local from toddlers to Ph.D. candidates. The in North America. NYBG’s renowned We celebrated the opening of the universities continued an ongoing study of Garden’s 250-acre National Historic exhibition program merges horticulture restored and expanded Seasonal Walk, a the long-term effects of Hurricane Sandy Landmark landscape has also been and the visual arts to expand visitors’ dramatic double border adjacent to the to better understand how to adapt current dramatically improved, and the physical understanding of the social, cultural, and landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and future management activities and plant has been greatly enhanced, making historical importance of plants, nature, and designed by renowned Dutch plantsman preserve the health of the Forest. the visitor experience better than ever. It gardens, while also advancing scholarship Piet Oudolf. Seasonal Walk combines With support from the American is our privilege to thank all of the friends, in the sciences, arts, and humanities. thousands of native plants, perennials, Express Partners in Preservation Program, staff, and volunteers who have helped to Fiscal year 2014 marked an active grasses, and bulbs that provide a visual the Horticulture team also worked with make fiscal year 2014 a success. and productive period that featured feast of flowers and foliage from spring Capital Projects to complete the two- the exhibition Groundbreakers: Great through fall. A project of Horticulture year restoration of the historic cascade American Gardens and The Women Who Committee Chairman Marjorie Rosen and and stream in the Rock Garden with the Designed Them, which explored the her husband, Jeffrey A. Rosen, Seasonal goal of maintaining constant water flow important contributions women made Walk features the newest garden-worthy throughout the year while reducing the Maureen K. Chilton to landscape architecture and garden cultivars, unusual plant species, and use of potable water. Staff also refined Chairman photography in the early 20th century. selections not currently available in North plantings within the Native Plant Garden, The exhibition drew 250,000 visitors who America. Oudolf chose plants not only for Azalea Garden, and Peggy Rockefeller learned the pioneering role that Beatrix the beauty of their flowers, but also for Rose Garden while planning the Farrand, Marian Coffin, Ellen Shipman, their form to create a distinct architecture restorations of the historic Lilac Collection Gregory Long Jessie Tarbox Beals, Mattie Edwards for the borders in all seasons. and the Judy and Michael Steinhardt Chief Executive Officer The Rock Garden’s historic cascade was recently restored, making it more sustainable and supportive of its Hewitt, and Frances Benjamin Johnston Other major horticulture projects Maple Collection. The William C. Steere Sr. President surrounding ecosystem amid thousands of jewel-like alpine flowers and graceful woodland plants. played in establishing and defining these during the year included restoration 4 5 Education and Public Outreach Science, Conservation, and the Humanities The Garden’s ever-expanding Children’s Britton Curator of Botany in the Institute Education Program served more than of Systematic Botany, are participating 300,000 students, teachers, and families in a collaboration among NYBG, the throughout the New York City Tri-State American Museum of Natural History, region during fiscal year 2014, including and 15 Brazilian and U.S. institutions to more than 81,000 participants in the determine how the modern Amazonian Marian and Andrew Heiskell School biota and its environment assembled Programs. In the Everett Children’s across space and time. To answer this Adventure Garden, visiting school groups question, the Steere Herbarium is helping explored the facility’s diverse natural to detail Amazonian diversity more acutely landscape through educator-led, grade- than ever before by cataloging, barcoding, specific lessons. Workshops in the Ruth imaging, and georeferencing Amazonian Rea Howell Family Garden introduced specimens. 50,000 visitors to the joys of gardening The C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium and eating fresh produce, while planning has become one of the world’s largest continued for the suite of edible gardening Innovative programs in the field of informal science education as well as one-of-kind learning facilities allow Robert F.C. Naczi, Ph.D., focuses his research on the wild plants of eastern North America, specifically the and most frequently used online libraries and nutrition programs that will be offered children of all ages and abilities to increase their knowledge and understanding of the natural world. identification, geographic distribution, frequency, ecology, and conservation of the plants of the region. of plant data. During fiscal year 2014, year-round when the Edible Academy 411,243 specimens were newly cataloged opens in 2017. Garden featured “Focusing on Nature,” a Teenagers also benefit from NYBG’s The year also saw an increased footprint in Dorothy Cullman Program for Molecular into the Starr Virtual Herbarium, and In the GreenSchool, workshops class that complemented Groundbreakers: educational offerings—145 local youth terms of scientific influence. In the North Systematics, is developing an open 208,443 specimens were newly imaged. encouraged students to explore the Great American Gardens and The Women participated in the Explainers Program, American Plants Program, Dr. Robert source Web application that will automate The database now holds more than relationship between plants and animals, Who Designed Them. Children acted as an innovative internship opportunity. F.C. Naczi, Arthur J. Cronquist Curator descriptive systematic studies. This 2,335,000 specimen records, almost all of observe and analyze natural events, and garden photographers and learned how Explainers serve as informal science of North American Botany, discovered application will be used to collect, view, which are fully searchable, and more than record findings in field notebooks. NYBG observations in science and nature have educators to visitors to the Children’s that more than half of the Hudson River and curate specimen data; link specimen 1,189,380 images and other multimedia