New York Botanical Gardens for Halloween

The New York Botanical Gardens has come out with 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.

There are two elements to this event that make it a stand-out fall event. 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.

The second element here to see is, of course, the Halloween events. 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.

Just behind where the pumpkin carvers stand 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.

The conservatory is so unique it’s always such 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 love 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 really is 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.