The NYBG Holiday Train Show has begun. And what a magnificent, vibrant show it is.

Now in its 32nd year the show reflects its beginnings.

In 1992, landscape architect and model train enthusiast Paul Busse of Applied Imagination came to the Garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory to express his unique vision for a special exhibition during the winter holidays.

He created The Holiday Garden Railway Exhibit. The following year the “Railway Exhibit” blossomed outdoors in the Garden landscape featuring bridges and a viaduct situated near the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

This year’s 2023 Holiday Train Show returns to Busse’s outdoor landscape design. However, it is more expansive with a clever theme for it’s outdoor exhibit. The addition is an all-new enchanted woodland train display, replete with forest animals, winter-interest plants and fantastical fungi set on the Haupt Conservatory Lawn.

Don’t underestimate the outdoor display or move too quickly to appreciate that all the elements are plant/botanically based.

The large mushrooms that look like they are out of a Disney cartoon, that kids will appreciate, are recreations, not of ceramics, but they are made of wood, intricately shaped and detailed.

Applied Imagination’s creativity and attention to detail is bar none.

The imagination of the craftspeople at Applied Imagination to recreate their counterparts in nature is astounding. It inspires us in so many directions, conservation, environmental use and protection and appreciation of nature’s wonders. All of these values conjoin with the Garden’s efforts toward the natural world and conservation of plants especially exotic species globally.

Likewise, the woodland animals are botanical creations. For example, the owl which you might miss if you don’t look overhead (it had to be pointed out to me) is predominately made of artichokes.

The lovely flowers that adorn the top arches are made of gourds. And the shelf mushrooms attached to the bridges and fences are themselves.

Look at the vines, coated in plant based resins to give them the glossy finishing touches that look like they are metal or iron. The butterfly creation that looks like it might be featured in any high-end store for home decorations is totally plant based.

That glossy look on the wings is achieved by the same resin that is used on the windows of the miniature of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory inside, in the rotunda with other structures of the Garden like the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

The Conservatory miniature is a gloriously detailed structure that took over 1000 people hours to put together. Of course, the visible structure is made of reeds. Interestingly, the cupola rests on “a ring of large pine cone scales.” For the piece de resistance at the very top, artists used seedpods: one mahogany and one lotus. If you didn’t know what these seed pods looked like in their natural habitat, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish their botanical ancestry from plastic. However, the last thing that Applied Imagination would ever employ in its presentations is plastic. Busse and the entire staff support the environment and the wonders of how nature is reflected in design structures.

The outdoor expansion combines with the the New York City and upstate New York miniatures that sprawl indoors throughout the conservatory’s galleries that have been enjoyed in previous years. However, the Garden staff and staff at Applied Imagination make sure that the displays are differently arranged.

Walking through as I have done each year, I try to remember which sections of the city appear in the Palms of the World Gallery or the Centerpiece Rotunda, and I am often at a loss. The show is botanical theater and as such changes from moment to moment, from year to year. Each year, it seems more spectacular than the next. And neither still photographs nor videos do justice to reveal the wonder of exuberant plant life whether in the daytime or the magical and mysterious nighttime of the conservatory.

Like live theater which is akin to an interactive spiritual experience, the NYBG’s botanical theater feels different through the run of the show. To keep the exhibit shining, plants are swapped out. Others are added and the effect is continually one of shifting, lush tropical splendor. This year’s exhibit is a pantheon of color. Wherever you turn there are dazzling orchids, poinsettias, cyclamen and variegated plants, begonias, ferns and the permanent plantings some of which are flowering trees. It is too beautiful to miss.

PROGRAMMING

On 17 Select Nights, Holiday Train Show Visitors of all ages can enjoy NYBG GLOW, the OUTDOOR LIGHT EXPERIENCE. It is returning for its fourth year. NYBG GLOW will take place from 5 to 10 p.m. on the following dates: friday, December 8; Saturday, December 9; Friday, December 15; Saturday, December 16; Sunday, December 17, Friday, December 22, Saturday, December 23; Tuesday December 26; Wednesday, December 27; Thursday, December 28; Friday, December 29; Saturday, December 30, 2023; Saturday, January 6; and Saturday, January 13, 2024.

FAN-FAVORITE BAR CAR NIGHTS, FOR ADULTS AGE 21 AND OVER, WILL ALSO MAKE A COMEBACK THIS SEASON ON THREE SELECT DATES. These are Thursdays, December 7 and December 14, 2023, and Friday, January 5,202 4. Bar Car Nights feature adults-only nighttime viewing of the Holiday Train Show and NYBG GLOW, with light bites and curated beverages available for purchase as visitors journey through the exhibition with friends and loved ones.

For more information, go to the NYBG website. https://www.nybg.org/event/holiday-train-show/