Benepe additionally padded previous a trio of spiky-looking monkey-puzzle bushes — extra about them later — and paid homage to an enormous hybrid oak that’s wider than it’s tall. It survived a strong summer time storm a number of years in the past due to cables and bolts that the arborists on the backyard rigged as much as bind it again collectively.
Now Benepe was speaking in regards to the significance of seeing the bushes within the forest.
“Many people come to a botanical garden for the roses, which are in full bloom now, or for the cherry trees or the flower shows, and they walk past the trees,” he mentioned. “We’re trying to highlight the fact that the trees may be the most impressive part of our collection.”
And not simply because the again tales are intriguing.
“One thing we know to help us combat climate change, not just address the impact of it, but to help reduce climate change, is preserving trees and preserving big old trees,” he mentioned, “because that’s what’s working the hardest for us in a place like New York City.” Old bushes, he mentioned, “are these amazing machines invented by nature that absorb our pollution and give us back oxygen” — and, alongside the way in which, assist to reverse local weather change. “It’s not some romantic fantasy,” he mentioned.
It is a part of the message of “The Power of Trees,” an exhibition that opens tomorrow and showcases 52 bushes, together with six new sculptures commissioned by the backyard and AnkhLave Arts Alliance, which works to advertise artists who’re Black, Indigenous or People of Color. The bushes, Benepe mentioned, “are all growing in the same Brooklyn soil, and their roots are touching and their needles or leaves are touching, so it’s kind of like an image for Brooklyn, but just with plants.”
“The Power of Trees” comes at a vivid second for the backyard. Attendance is up 30 % from final 12 months and better than in 2019, a residual good thing about the pandemic lockdown in 2020, “when the only thing we could do was go to parks,” Benepe mentioned. But whereas metropolis parks had been open via the pandemic, the backyard was closed for a number of months. Benepe mentioned there have been days when the cherry bushes had been in bloom throughout the lockdown when individuals stood on the opposite facet of the backyard’s fence, simply to get a glimpse.
Source: www.nytimes.com