Go Behind NYBG's 1-Acre GREENHOUSES

The New York Botanical Gardens in Bronx, New York is one of the best-known botanical gardens in the United States and the world, with a state-of-the-art plant lab, herbarium, and of course, eye-popping verdant exhibits. But many of those plant exhibits wouldn't happen without a tireless team of people and volunteers working at the Nolan Greenhouses. In this episode, I step behind the scenes with Kelly Ivanosky, manager of the Nolan Greenhouses, who plans, schedules, and oversees all the plant production for exhibitions, seasonal displays, and collections. She also helps facilitate teaching students who enroll in the School of Professional Horticulture and the Bronx Community College programs. When I asked her one of the most challenging aspects of her job, she said something which I think many of us plant lovers can relate to. Managing space. There's never enough space, exactly. My name is Kelly Ivanosky. I am the manager of the Nolan Greenhouses. I'm a horticulturist. I'm a grower, and I manage eight highly skilled, talented growers and gardeners here at the New York Botanical Garden. And give me a sense of how large this greenhouse is, because you can't really get a sense right now. Like, what's the square footage? How many greenhouses are there here? We are about an acre under glass, and then we have some additional outdoor areas that we grow. We are eight growing zones that are technical growing zones with control of heat, temperature, humidity, lighting. We also do a little bit of growing in our corridors many times. It kind of feels heated in here. Yes, even every corridor has its own temperatures, because we will use some areas as cooler internal areas and warmer internal areas. We don't really waste a lot of space. This is really clean because we just finished our Kiku exhibition, so we had a whole exhibition in here. What we do in these production zones, there's four in the front of the house at the north end. We grow for exhibitions. We grow for seasonal displays. So all of our exhibition plants come through here at some point. Right now we're growing for Wonderland. It's this next summer spring plant show. So it's always fun. We grow something different every year. A couple years ago we did Around the Table, so it was all edibles. Some years we're with Ebony Patterson. It was a completely different plant palette. So this year is wonderful, so it's fantastical and interesting. So we're growing everything for plants for a double border, like a traditional Victorian double border. We're also growing plants for what you'd call a naturalistic garden. We're going to bring in topiaries for our lawn, and then obviously we have some fantastical plants for Wonderland. Some of these look solanaceous. This looks solanaceous. What is this? So that would be our pepper plant, and that's actually an IPM plant. And I love that you pointed that out. IPM meaning Integrated Pest Management. Yeah, yeah. So that's a great plant. It's an indicator plant for thrip levels. We have them spread out through all the production zones. Much of what I do is plant health and the gardeners. There's a lot of pest pressure in a greenhouse environment. So in a greenhouse environment we are doing a lot of scouting, and as you can see the yellow tape, we had some leaf hoppers. Really? Not a typical green. This has never been a problem for us. Yeah. You know, as soon as you, you know, the spider mite would get down, and the thrip, and the aphids, and all of a sudden the leaf hopper comes. It's always something. But it, you know, keeps you on your toes. It does, yeah. So, but we've really integrated beneficials. Now I see some of these are actually flowering now. Yeah. Are you trying to force flowering in some of these, considering that these aren't necessarily going to be ready for exhibition right away? Right. So right now these are osteosporum, and we're going to move them to a cooler zone tomorrow. Okay. And we'll probably just take the flowers off. And you have some carix here. Is this also going to be for the display? Right. So these carix are going to be what we call in our naturalistic garden. So there's pieces that we're growing for. And I'm assuming that you really work hand in hand with the designer, about like the designer saying this is what we want, and then you're like that's not possible, or this is possible, or. Yeah, we try to make everything possible. So sometimes our designer is from the outside. Sometimes our designer internal. Sometimes we get requests from our curators, our managers internally. Sometimes we get them from external sources. So we do the best we can to grow the plants that they want for their design. But of course, we're always going to run into some problems. And sometimes what we do is we try to grow the plant they want, but also have a substitute ready. We're very much specialty growing. As you can see, we have tiny plants all growing that never would grow together anywhere else. So we try to find some plant that might be similar color or similar texture that could be substituted because that's really what we're growing for. So those exhibitions or special displays. Do you propagate all your plants or do you have to bring some in or? It's definitely a mix. So we try to grow as much from seed as we can or cuttings. So I always say we grow roots. So I pull these out all, you know, and these are well rooted. So I would pull out some of the other ones, but we just pot it, transplanted and potted many of them up. So some soil would be falling all over the place. But yeah, so we do. But then there's also timing. So if they want a big plant in a short amount of time, I have to buy in it as a plug or there's just hybrids that don't, you can't get from seed. So there's a mix of plants and obviously tropical plants. We usually bring in from areas because we can't get them to size What are some of the hardest ones that you've had to propagate? Usually things are easy to germinate and get to a small size. It's growing them on. So right now our challenge, our fun is Echium. So I can show you that a little later. We're excited to grow that. So that's where, you know, we have a good size plant now, but you know, that's when we need to be careful of the soil medium to make sure they get the right cultural requirements. They need to be, you know, monitored to make sure that their pH and EC in the soils is healthy for them. Probably the most challenging is though, is Kiku, our chrysanthemums, especially our big osacories and cascades. It's just constantly watching the roots. We try to grow plants also from our collections. You know, we'll take cuttings or use seeds. So this is an example of a Urelyphaeryx. Was this like an aquatic plant? Yeah, so this is an aquatic plant, and these are those basal andriosperms. These seeds came from our plants from the conservatory pool. They're so adorable. Yeah, they dug them out. So they just started germinating. So you can see on the bottom, we've potted some of them up. Is this an Eraceae? Is this an aeroid? No, it's from a lineage that broke off before the dicots and eudicots. So it's related to the Victoria. Oh, really? Yeah, it's just so interesting because it has an arrowhead-shaped leaf. Yeah, it's a sagittate leaf. And it will change. That's their first leaves, but they'll change. So those can live underwater. And what will happen now is, you can see these pink roots too. I don't know. Yeah, the next leaves will come to the top for sun and air and oxygen, but they're really mean. So I'm sure you've seen the Victorias where they have the spiky back. So these have spikes on the top and the bottom. They're so cute when they're small. When do you actually see them starting to develop their spikes? Well, that's a good question. I think the first leaves are a little nicer, and then they start getting bigger. And these can get 15 feet long and tall. So these are also big. They're a little more cold tolerant. Not that they want to be cold, but they can grow in a cooler environment. But they still want the full sun and be happy. And then I did pull out some of our Cruziana Victoria seeds that will come next, and we'll start propagating those in January. Yeah, so you propagate those every year. Right, exactly. Yeah, start that over again and again. Yeah, I always like just to show that from that, how big that will get in one season. It's amazing. So one thing, we do have cutting chambers. I'll show the other one. Oh, these here are all, they're small, but what we're doing here is they're annuals for, mostly you'll find in California, are annuals from South Africa. And we grow them so that, you know, in a couple months we'll have some winter color in some of our arid zones. So like, again, it's just small display plants, but that's an example of some of the things we do. Oh, and these, just because it's an again, you're growing South African plants, and you're growing, you know, all these different plants. And these are our mums. These are our osacory. We took root cuttings. So this is going to be our huge plant next fall. Right, yeah, it's amazing how you have to be a production manager. So it's all these little details, exactly. So those are our chrysanthemum stalk. We actually try to keep them as cool as possible over the winter. Some of them are still in bloom. They're still in bloom. They're cutting them back, yeah. We do try to slow down our growing right now because there's no sun. We do have the opportunity to put in lights in some of our zones, like in our zone three. But really, you know, this is sort of, we really want to focus on keeping the plants healthy and keeping them, growing the roots, because it is very, it's just not a lot of light. There's not a light intensity or a period, light period. So some of these zones of plants that we're growing also for wonderland, like the delphinium. Here's an example of some of your IPM. Yes, some pelargoniums. Yes, these are some pelargoniums, and some of these will go in more sort of representative of the Victorian bedding and very Victorian plants that they would show off. Just goes to show you how much you could cut them back. Yeah, exactly. We're ruthless. Yeah, yeah. Some of these are what we call our stock plants, and so what we'll do is we'll warm them up. We'll give them a little more, we'll feed them, give them some nutrients, and then take cuttings. So we have echinops, but these are the Echium wildfredii from the Canary Islands. We just, you know, started them in June and just potted them up. We wanted to give them a lot of space for roots. So these are all these mini decisions you make all the time. Most of the time, we really only want to pot up just to the next size so that we don't overwater them or they don't get lost in there. But with this plant, it's going to get so big, we over potted it, so because we want to give the roots room to grow. So you have to come back and see these. These are incredible. What's their, do they send out a big flower spike? Yeah, so they, I think they're going to be like, it could be eight feet tall. They're huge. These ones are pink. We have other, we have simplex, Echium simplex, and we have Festonum. I'm saying that wrong, I'm sure. But both of them, again, they're all from that area from the Canary Islands or close there by, and they just get huge, and they're incredible, and they're wild looking. So it'll be fun. They almost seem like, similar to kind of like a biennial, where they put this like basil rosette out. Yes, that is, it is a biennial. Yeah, so that's what we'll, right now, we just put them here. We'll actually even cool them down a little more, and they can tolerate temperatures down under 30. Which is impressive, because you think of the Canary Islands, you think it's a bit more tropical. I could be wrong, I've never been to the Canary Islands. Right, but it seems like that, exactly. Yeah, so these are some of our, again, for our Wonderland exhibition. I mean, the fact that they have this kind of verdigris kind of color, and that they're fuzzy, it makes me think that they are used to being out in like harsh sun, and a harsh environment. Exactly, it's their, they want a rocky volcanic kind of soil, so we really have a very light, well-draining soil. That's what we really have to be careful of watering. Oh, and this is just a little, now this is on the other side. These are our violas. I was going to say, this kind of looks like anything, something I would eat. Yes, yeah, this, you could definitely eat the flowers, right? And the violas, so those are for some of the outdoor garden displays for the early spring. So it's funny, because many of these will end up going out to our hoop houses, and then the ones you see in zone two, the propagation zones, will come out here. These are verbascum, and these are all ones. Also a biennial, usually. Right, exactly, so we've had them. So these will go out and get even cooler, and we'll keep shifting them to a cooler, and some will go to the warmer environment if we're trying to push them a little bit. So I can show you our cutting chamber, which is interesting. You know, it's a finer mist, but what I, you know, my favorite thing here is our, is the leaf. So many times the cutting areas or cutting chambers or any of those are on a timer, and they just go off based on an estimated amount of time. This works really well, because as soon as you can set what humidity you want, and as soon as it doesn't feel the weight of the humidity of the water, it'll move up, and then it'll basically tell the mist to go off. So it's more precise on what the environment is, but it's very simple technology. So this is our, what we call our arid zone. It feels like warmer than, but this really does get cool at night. Is this for like the water to just get the heat off at night, release the heat at night? No, so this is where we'll pee. So we just, we just cleaned and sanitized everything. That's what we do a lot through the winter, but so we just emptied everything. We just filled this today, and this is getting ready to put our water lilies that will come in. Okay, that was my second guess, but then you said this is the arid house, and I was like, I know it seems it's a little bit but yeah, so we, so we'll initially, I think when they built this zone, it was going to be for orchids. I think that, okay, so it's not perfect, but yeah, so the the water lilies will come in here. We'll start the Amazonica, I mean the Victorias in here, Amazonica, and then we're also in Wonderland. There's a, will be a big water lily display. So also in all the collection zones, we have our mini propagation areas. Obviously with succulents and anything like that, you definitely need a drier environment. It's just a little bit of a different propagation So these are Austrobaleo scandens. They are vines, and I know they don't maybe look so interesting right now, but they are, and also a basal angiosperm. They're from Australia. They're the only, only species in its class, and it's, they're really interesting because I think it was probably 10 years ago, they, we did get them to flower in these zones. They actually are from the wet tropics, and this is more of a drier zone. We do, we wet it every day, but I think it might have needed the cooler temperatures in this zone to flower. The exciting thing is this is the, these two are from different parentages, which is important. This one actually produced seed. It was huge for us. It was a big deal. They came in clusters. They were very interesting. Obviously, these are dried out, but this is what they look like when we open them. So these were something that you don't see very often, but that was a fun, exciting thing. Right. These are dried. Are you trying to actually propagate them? Yeah, so we took different groups of them. We got enough seeds that we, we did everything from scarifying some and cooling some down, putting them in a different environment so we can see what they need to germinate. But from our understanding, it may take a year for them to germinate. So that's. Yeah, it's one of those things where you don't have a guide for all the plants. Right. How they. Yeah. Well, I was just talking to one of the gardeners about, you know, some of the sources and she was saying, oh, some of them have, you know, when you pinch it, but they never have what you, when you need it, like what plant you need, they don't have. So. This is a cool looking plant. What is this? So these are in our Oxalis family. Wow. So they're all different Oxalis genera. Like these little hoods. Yeah. Cobra hoods. Yeah. A lot of our collections are unique. So our collections are really connected with the biomes at the conservatory. You know, like I said, when we take them and we'll take cuttings to make sure we keep propagation of plants that we want to maintain. And then we also use our collections, especially in our tropical zones for research and science and education. So those are, that's mainly what our, you know, our collections do. We do have Cites plants as a safe space. Oh, this is a cool plant. This is Nesicodon. It's from an Island off of Africa, Mauritius. And it's the, the only one that they know of that has a red nectar. And so it's pollinated by geckos, but it's interesting because if you pull it down, they'll actually come out and now it's Yeah. So it'll wow. Yeah. It looks like hot sauce. Yes, exactly. It's a very interesting test. It tasted it. Um, I think it's sweet. Yeah. Yeah. It's very sweet. Yeah, exactly. Even the little crystals, the little sugar crystals that come off my Ripsolis. I'm like, so this is another one that wants to grow on like a Rocky cliff. Yeah. So again, it's just making sure we keep the right, you know, media in there and, you know, you don't want us to get too acidic or something, you know, we just always have to watch things like that. Such cute little flowers. Look at that. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The bellflower. Yeah. Wow. We have one, you know, I don't know so much about this plant, except that it's the Argon plant. And because it was in fruit, I figured the Argon oil. So that was a, we have them pulled out to do some pruning. So I said, we'll just leave them there and take a look at them. This is also our Pelargonium collection, but we'd great, you know, you probably could. It's pretty extensive, actually. I never realized that you had such an extensive Pelargonium collection. Right. Oh, this is Pseudoides, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is also a really great medicinal on South Africa. I try to grow this, but you always have to bring it indoors. It's not hard. Right. It's not going to stay. It can get pretty cool, but not, cannot freeze. Are there any collections that the New York Botanic Gardens is really particularly known for? So we do have Aracad collection, the Aracaceae. So Aracaceae, like blueberries and stuff like that. Right, right. The tropical blueberries. Yeah. I can, we can peek at them. I wouldn't speak so much to them. I'd have to have you come back and speak to someone that's more of an expert, but there's no reason you can't take a picture of that. So they're more like tropical blueberries. The tropical blueberries, right. Which are kind of cool. Very cool. They're so cool. You know, we have some of our propagation going in here and we're in our cutting chamber. Definitely feels more tropical. Yes, it's very much more tropical. So this house has a lot of ferns. It has a lot of bromeliads. It has the Aracad collection. Again, I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't speak so much to it. I would have you speak to someone that is more of the Aracad. Here we are. Yes, but you can see they're so interesting. Yeah. Cute. These ones, I've eaten these before. Yeah. They actually taste a little bit like rhubarb. And we've even started introducing some of the beneficials in these zones as well. So the, you know, the aphids finding the right predator. A field of ladies seems to be working here. So that's great. And lacewing is always a great backup for everything. I love lacewings. They're generalists. They're ferocious. Yeah. Well, we did find that when we, we've really reduced, especially in Kiku, we reduced our, we didn't spray any pesticide, really. A hard part is always part of mildew. But because of that, we had predators coming in. So we, you know, they volunteered themselves in here. So that's been really beneficial. Very cool. This one's like a double-headed one. It looks like, I'm sorry. It looks like it's like a double-headed one. Yeah. And there's different species within there. It's, they're not all the same petrocosmia, but I love when they flower though. Yeah. They're very cute. Yeah. Very adorable. I promised myself I wouldn't come in here, but it's too hard. It's too hard. Yeah, exactly. There's more of the arachids, but this huge, beautiful, like a podium here. It's just such a beautiful species. And it's just about, you know, specimen, I should say. We have people come in and say they want that. I'm like, it may take 20 years. Oh, full. Yeah. I mean, they look like dresses or something. I mean, even look at this, it's like little jewelry that's hanging. Right. Just walk by and it's great. I'd love you to come back and see Wonderland. And again, even these collections, I would love you to come back and see, come in when we have a little more time. Oh yeah. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for the tour. This is absolutely lovely. Oh, great. Stay tuned here for more awesome tours and tips here on Plant One On Me. Now, if you enjoy and gain value from this channel, I'd ask for you to subscribe, like, and even considering giving value back to the channel by tipping or becoming a sustaining member. It's folks like you that help make this channel go on. More information about that and our suite of houseplant courses can be found on our website at homesteadbrooklyn.com. See you in the next video.