The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has released another timelapse video; back in April the cherry blossoms took center stage, and now the roses are under the sped-up spotlight. The setting is the Cranford Rose Garden, and this month is Rose Month at the BBG -- the perfect time to stop and, you know, smell the blossoming petals.......

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is holding its annual benefit Plant Sale, starting today and running through tomorrow. The sale is the largest of its kind in the Northeast and takes place on Cherry Esplanade (currently covered with pink petals). The sale boasts over 20,000 plants, a bonsai workshopw, BBG horticulture experts on hand and little red wagons ("plantsportation") to help consumers tote around their finds. If you attend, try to seek out an orchid;......

Photograph taken last weekend at the BBG by mrgeneko on Flickr It's Sakura Matsuri time at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden--aka the annual cherry blossom festival--today and tomorrow. With over 100 cherry trees in full bloom, there are many events for visitors to enjoy, including taiko drumming, traditional tea ceremonies, origami folding workshops, instruction on drawing manga characters and many musical performances. Plus, the festivities are happening rain or shine. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is......

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has yet again set up their ever-changing map showing "the approximate positions of every Prunus specimen in the Cherry Esplanade, Cherry Walk, Cherry Cultivars Area and Japanese Garden and its current blossom status." Only five have bloomed so far, the others showing buds but no petals just yet (picture of pre-bloom). Last year the garden was bursting with color around the end of April. When we asked Anita Jacobs and......

This weekend marks the start of many pre-Lunar New Year Festivities in the city. The New Year begins on February 7 (more information here), and there will be the firecracker ceremony and cultural festival in Chatham Square on that day, plus the Lunar New Year Parade and Festival in Chinatown on February 10. There is also a Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing on February 9. Today through Monday, the Museum of Chinese in America......

Zagat's updated Best of Brooklyn 2008 guide was released yesterday, filled to the brim with all that the city's largest borough has to offer, including 216 restaurants, 141 nightspots, 355 shops, 25 tourist attractions and more. Like all Zagat guides, this one is a complilation of surveys from the public and each entry is rated on a scale of 1-30. The guide is broken up into five sections: Dining, Nightlife, Shopping, Gourmet Shopping & Entertaining,......

On the heels of the NY Times' Alex Williams calling Brooklyn "over" -- Park Slope has been named one of the 10 best neighborhoods in the country! Take that Gray Lady. In fact, "the historic area, just steps from Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is the only New York City neighborhood to make the first-ever list from the American Planning Association (APA)." Which would mean that a Brooklyn 'hood bested a Manhattan 'hood......

There's a new Bronx (Stink) Bomber! Lehman College's Teaching and Research Greenhouses have grown an amorphophallus titanium [sic] plant (more colloquially known as the corpse flower because it smells like rotting flesh) and it will bloom by Monday night. The flower usually takes 10-20 years to grow in nature, but with nutrients from greenhouse workers, the Bronx corpse flower has been growing three inches a day! Here's the webcam of the flower. The flower......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a two alarm fire at 80 Washington St in Lower Manhattan; an aircraft emergency at JFK this morning; two pedestrians struck on E. 53rd St.; and a "possible A.I. job" (whatever that is) in Woodhaven. The NYCLU objected yesterday to the number of cases the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated. The board, which investigates police misconduct, only substantiated 5% of the cases, but that's actually higher than that of......

Beautiful lawns, flowering bushes, and planters with lush greenery: This morning, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden announced the winners in its 13th annual Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest. The residential first place winner was MacDonough Street between Stuyvesant and Lewis Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant (pictured above) while first place for a business/commercial block was Hoyt Street between Atlantic Avenue & State Street in Boerum Hill (pictured below). MacDonagh Street's Greening Coordinator Wilma Atwell said, "Our hard......

SALE: Our recent interviewees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are having a plant sale today and tomorrow. With .50 cent plants for kids and "new and exclusive varieties [of plants] from Monrovia Growers" for adults. Tomorrow at 10am there's a "Houseplants for Sun or Shade: guided shopping trip," so that may be a good time to go! Today 9am to 7pm, Thursday 9am to Noon // Kids Free, Adults $8 FILM: "West 32nd" is one......

Earlier this week, when Gothamist was looking at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's CherryWatch Blossom Status Map, things didn't look too promising for the weekend. But with yesterday's update, we see that the buds on the Prunus 'Kanzan' (the trees in a row on the left) are starting to open. Just in time for this weekend's Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom festival). The schedule for the weekend includes over 60 events and performances in addition to......

Patrick Cullina is the VP of Horticulture and Facilities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and New York's go-to guy for cherry trees (there are over 200 trees and 42 species at BBG alone!). Anita Jacobs is responsible for all of the programs that go along with the garden, speaking of which... The two-day Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival (New York's Rite of Spring) enters its 26th year at the Garden this weekend. Just after the......

A look at some noteworthy television programs this week: Nature: Dogs That Changed The World: The Rise of the Dog (Sunday, 8:00 p.m. WNET 13; Wednesday, 9:00 p.m., WLIW 21) The first of a two part look at man's best friend, the dog. Part one looks at the origins of domesticated dogs and inquires about the theory that links domestication to human's trash. A behind the scenes podcast looking into the challenges of filming dogs......

Sigh. The fog has taken a bite out of what would have been a pleasant spring day. Instead of sunny and 65 it is foggy and 48. With any luck the fog and clouds should be gone soon. The sun should be out by mid-afternoon, which doesn't leave much time for warming. Highs today might reach 60. Tomorrow should be warmer –at least until the showers arrive in the late-afternoon. Enjoy the warm weather tomorrow......

THEATER: The esteemed Classical Theatre of Harlem is reviving Peter Weiss’s masterpiece Marat/Sade. The dizzying action takes place in an asylum in France, where the infamous Marquis de Sade is sequestered in 1808. To pass the time, he directs a play about the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat during the revolution. His asylum casting pool yields up some magnificent performances, though the production is almost squelched by the hospital administrator, a tool of Napoleon’s post-revolutionary regime.......

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. City offices, post offices and other government buildings are closed today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Public schools are closed, as well. Some offices are closed today, too, and there are a number of events to participate in. The Brooklyn Academy of Music has its 21st Annual Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which includes a musical celebration and special guests like Senator......

Holy crap it's warm out there! Today is, by far, New York's warmest January 6th since records began. The only question now is whether we will reach 73 degrees to become the city's warmest January day ever. With winds out of the southwest and slightly drier air arriving over the last couple of hours we may do it. The local media are having a field day with the wacky weather. Bicycle Habitat in SoHo......

Check out this picture in today's Times. A lone cherry tree at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has decided to jump-start spring. Winter doesn't even start until tomorrow! While many trees put out buds before going dormant for winter, we usually don't see one flowering before winter begins. This particular breed is an everblooming cherry, which occasionally puts out a few flowers during fall and winter warm spells, but rarely does the whole tree bloom like......

At the farmer’s market you’re entranced. The stalls swell with the season’s natural bounty—corn, tomatoes, peaches, peppers—all the foods that taste right only when eaten at this time of year. You buy pounds and lug the harvest home. But as the shortening days slip by, those special $2 bags of veggies risk going to rot in your fridge. It’s enough to make a gourmet’s heart sink. What do you do? Can it. That’s what......

That putrid smell coming from Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park? It might just be the Amorphophallus titanum blooming at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The titan arum, aka the "corpse flower," is one of the world's largest flowers, and the BBG has been carefully cultivating its own for the past ten years. The plant, named "Baby," is set to bloom sometime this week - it seems that the flowery part (the "spathe") will unfurl for......

Ask.MeFi has been assembling an eclectic guide to "the best alternative/weird/unusual/eye-opening places in Manhattan." Most of the suggestions are actually located in the outer boroughs, but nevermind that. We've pulled out the highlights and linked everything for your browsing pleasure: Places Vinegar Hill Red Hook Prospect Park Pelham Bay Park Coney Island Chinatown High Line Manhattan Greenway Venues 5 Pointz Galapagos Arlene's Grocery ABC No Rio Bluestockings Sugartown Books Museums and Gardens Cloisters Brooklyn......

Of all the profiles of a New York Met we never imagined to see, finding about the Pedro Martinez loves gardening was pretty high on the list. But, lo and behold, there's a front page NY Times feature on Pedro's green thumb and his verdant Connecticut estate. So we learned: - Pedro has a cockapoo; his golden retriever eats tulips - Pedro doesn't go to Manhattan that much - His wife comes to NYC to......

Today marks the first day of National Museum Month. This means, amongst other things, that it's the first day of Bank of America's Museums on Us! program. This program allows free access to 56 cultural institutions (19 in New York) - and to this day stands as the only nice thing that BOA has ever done for us cardholders. Here's the deal: if you are a Bank of America or MBNA cardholder, you will be......

Don't forget that the Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival is going on all weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden! Detail from "Pedi-Cab Riders Enjoy Cherry Blossoms and View in Central Park" by MDPNY.......

The cherry blossoms along the Cherry Walk and Cherry Esplanade at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are at peak and this weekend is the Garden's Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival. The weather should be perfect for blossom viewing. A big old high pressure system is sitting on top of us, blocking the low pressure system that may cause severe weather in Oklahoma and Texas from getting here. Not a cloud in the sky. High temperatures......

It's that time of year again: when everyone we know starts asking if the Cherry Trees in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden have bloomed. Yeah, we know, we need to get a more interesting group of friends. Still, until now we've had to rely on hearsay reported by people who visited during the past weekend. No more! From now on, we'll just check out this handy Cherry Tree Blossom Map prepared by the BBG. Looks......

So while we've established previously that Gothamist is a sucker for a street fair, but doesn't like to be disappointed by long lines and lack of food at such events, it's time to discuss the humble street fair's ritzier, glitzier cousin: the Food Festival. These come in all shapes and sizes, but certainly one of our new favorites has to be the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's annual fall Chile Pepper Fiesta. This year's two-day extravaganza took......

- Saturday is Taste of Chinatown, where plates at tea houses, restaurants and bakeries are $1. And while you're there, it could be a good time to check out Museum of China in the Americas, which has that cool exhibit of Chinese menus. - It's Falcon Day in Central Park on Saturday! The Parks Department says, "Falcons, hawks, eagles and raptors of all sizes will fly above Central Park’s East Meadow for this year’s annual......

Wouldn't it be nice to have a kitchen herb garden, so the next time you had a craving for a Mojito, or an insalata Caprese, you wouldn't have to trek over to the grocery store for a tiny bunch of overpriced herbs? Gothamist certainly thinks so. April is a good month for starting seeds, and, after a few anxious moments during these gray days, Gothamist's seeds are finally in effect! (Squint your eyes. They're at......