New York Botanical Gardens for Halloween

In October 2022, we visited FALL-O-WEEN in the gardens. It’s a combination of both Halloween-type events as well as it is a wonderful idea of featuring the garden itself in its autumn beauty.

Fall Color in the Garden

Two elements made the 2022 visit stand out for us. The first, of course, is the fact that the gardens are in full autumn splendor. It depends on which trees, but when we were there, for example, the maple trees were perfectly colored. Each section of the garden has different plans and if you time it right, you can see your favorite plants and trees in their own bloom.

Halloween Events and Giant Pumpkins

The second element during our 2022 visit was the Halloween programming. The children’s section had some unique events obviously for the kids, but the highlight was the pumpkin carving. You’ll see here in the photo that we met Adam Bierton, a professional pumpkin carver from Rochester, New York. Restaurateur by day, pumpkin carver at night.

But anyway, these are some of the largest competitive pumpkins out there, so seeing them carved is rather unique. You can see him standing in front of one which really gives a nice size of the scale.

Conservatory and Chrysanthemum Display

Just behind where the pumpkin carvers stood is the conservatory where they had an exhibit of various chrysanthemums called Kusama. These are not your average chrysanthemums but a display of trained flowers in a wonderful pattern like bonsai.

During our 2022 visit, the conservatory was a treat.  If it’s not for the exhibit, it’s still great to just walk around and see the rest of the conservatory too.

Overall, we liked seeing the giant pumpkins. And even though it wasn’t part of the Halloween event, we loved seeing the Japanese chrysanthemum event (Kusama). We also loved seeing just the overall gardens in general. Just walking around the New York Botanical Gardens during the season and seeing the plants changing for the fall was a unique experience. Next time, we need to come to the gardens and just go for a jog through the trails or something unique to really get the full feel of the gardens.