I’ve been cultivating a fresh appreciation for the winter garden this year, visiting regularly with the intention of noticing the details.

Just a few of the many roses in the neighborhood, in a collection of photos from over the years, to celebrate the season. All this beauty somehow clambering over fences and thriving in once-vacant lots.

It is such a joy to see our little collection of native spring ephemerals return each year, sprightlier and more established in their places than the year before. The habitat we've created here in the heart of New York City truly feels like a tiny sylvan paradise.

Perhaps you've been dreaming of the gardening season ahead, too? In the last week or so, I've been sorting through seeds left over from last year and seeds collected from our native plant collection at 6&B in the autumn…

Last week we went to Oko Farms in Brooklyn, where M. is doing an aquaponics apprenticeship, to set up our little copper still for a distillation in the outdoors.

It's a pleasure to visit the native plant garden at NYBG in any season, but I am especially fond of the garden in the late summer, when everything has reached a state of beautifully overgrown intensity that overwhelms the senses.

Even though it may reach 90 degrees here in the city today, I can feel autumn sneaking in. We spent two days last week at Early Girl Farm on Long Island checking our bees and getting our hands dirty, and the angle of the sun felt so different. The scent in the air, too.