News
A rare flower blooms in all its stinky glory
Buffalo NewsBy Mark Sommer | News Staff Reporter on August 8, 2014 - 9:39 AM, updated August 8, 2014 at 10:25 AM Morty, the rare corpse flower that looks both beautiful and ominous, is now in bloom at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, and it smells like rotting roadkill. Think of the prehistoric plant as one that only a botanist could love. “To me, this is one of the seven wonders of the plant kingdom,” said a beaming Jeff Thompson, the horticulture director. But he conceded: “It’s got a dark side.” The 7-foot-8-inch tall plant weighing more than...
Healing Garden Construction Starts
The Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens Society, Inc. in collaboration with D’Youville College School of Pharmacy and Mercy Hospital of Buffalo, part of Catholic Health and the 2014 Leaf a Legacy project is creating an outdoor Healing Garden at the Botanical Gardens after two years of planning. On the heels of the National Garden Festival 2014, this garden is becoming a reality. The LEAF a Legacy project represents the evolution of the National Garden Festival’s Front Yard Contest, allowing local landscapers to join together annually in a non-competitive environment to give a facelift to a public space within Frederick...
Corpse flower ready to bloom at Botanical Gardens
The Buffalo NewsBy Mark Sommer | News Staff Reporteron July 28, 2014 - 5:50 PMVisitors to the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens are about to find out just how stinky Morty – the corpse flower – can get.The flower, one of the largest in the world and extremely rare in a public setting, is expected to bloom over the next 10 days, emitting an odor compared to rotting flesh.“We are all cautiously optimistic about what is going to happen,” said Erin Grajek, marketing director for the Botanical Gardens.Additional hours are planned for the increased attendance that would typically show...
Morty the Corpse Flower
In early July 2014, the Botanical Gardens acquired three Amorphophallus titanum tubers and one is set to bloom. Corpse Flowers (its common name), are native to the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia and are famous for their horrible smell, like rotting flesh, while in bloom. Corpse Flowers can bloom every 6-10 years, making it a rare sight to see and smell!Like many Corpse Flowers living at botanical gardens, ours has a name, Morty. Corpse Flowers can be quite challenging to grow so Morty’s “Undertaker”, Jeff Thompson, Director of Horticulture and our horticulture team are making sure it has the right conditions...
Ransomville couple still married after all these (60) years
Buffalo News By Shawn Campbell | News Staff Reporter on July 14, 2014 - 7:47 PMSee more photos here!Shirley Metzler could only smile. She had wondered why a white limousine pulled up to her home in Ransomville earlier in the day. The drive to the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens puzzled her, too. But by around 3 o’clock Monday afternoon, it all added up.“We are here for a reason,” Metzler’s husband, Melvin, told her as they sat at a table for two inside a greenhouse.Before Shirley knew it, Melvin, dressed in a black suit, was down on one knee,...