« May 2005 | Main | July 2005 »
June 22, 2005
Irish Hunger Memorial
 |
Landscape is context, devoid of context, it can be disconcerting. Which is why the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City is so confusing. It's an exquisite bit of Irish landscape constructed on a sloping plinth at Vesey and North End Avenue. The half acre site which includes rocks from each of Ireland's 32 counties, features a meadow planted with (Irish) native grasses and wild flowers. It is set above a carefully reconstructed cottage, every stone of which was brought from County Mayo. It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to appreciate this beautiful Irish landscape in the context of downtown New York, Battery Park City and Hoboken - which is pretty much the view from the Memorial. The site becomes more thought provoking than pleasing. This is probably the point of artist Brian Tolle's piece. It is after all a memorial to "The Great Hunger" when a million and a half Irish died of starvation after the failure of the potato harvest in 1845-52 and millions were forced to emigrate, many to the United States. It also serves as a reminder of the continuing problem of hunger in the world today.
 |
There are two entrances to the memorial landscape; a path from Vesey Street and a more formal approach through the cottage. Last week the rough stone walls of the cottage were covered with briar rose, the grass smelt sweet in the meadow and the tragedy of leaving this rural paradise for the tenements of New York City was very real.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2005
Fifth Avenue Planters
 |
 |
There's nothing more annoying than looking at a plant combination you admire, and not knowing the names of the plants, or the varieties used in the arrangement. The 42nd Street Partnership has very considerately mitigated that annoyance by placing discreeet plant labels in their plantings on Fifth Avenue between 42nd and 45th streets. Now, if only the plantings themselves were a bit more adventurous....
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2005
What's Blooming 6/14
 |
One of the prettiest flowering trees around and one of the last to bloom in the spring, is Syringa reticulata or Japanese tree lilac. It's a small tree of about 20 to 30 feet in height, and it has a 15 to 20 foot spread. The dark green leaves emerge early in the season, but the showy flower panicles wait until mid June to appear and then they smother the tree with fragrant creamy white blossoms.
There is a beautiful specimen in full glory right now in the South Garden of Central Park's Conservatory Garden. Although not as ubiquitous as the Bradford pear (What's blooming March), Japanese tree lilacs are being used more frequently in urban landscapes, as they make excellent street trees; not too big, and tolerant of polluted city conditions. This one on the right is in Washington Market Park in Tribeca.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2005
The Adventurous Gardener: Where to Buy the Best Plants in New York and New Jersey
|
If you have a car and feel like getting out of the city for the day or the weekend, there are many wonderful nurseries within easy reach of the city, and Ruah Donnelly has written up a fine selection that could easily occupy most of your summer weekends--from the tiny, homey Bumps & Co. (Anne Raver's a big fan) to the sprawling Matterhorn, which has evolved over the years into a destination garden center. Each one of the very well-written entries is full of information about plants and people and includes driving directions as well as listings of nearby attractions, which are a brilliant addition. Just think of it, you get to spend hours at Woodside Nursery in Bridgeton, New Jersey, admiring cutting-edge daylilies, while you send your family off to for river views and terrific crab cakes at the nearby Toadfish Bar and Grille. The possibilities are endless! Excellent maps and the index of plant resources at the back will help make your trip-planning easy. Although this would be a great book to add to your personal library, the good design and fine woodcuts makes it a great summer house present.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2005
Roses
 |  |
Roses everywhere you look this week. Of course there are the magnificent displays at the Botanical Gardens and the UN where huge collections of perfect specimens are tastefully displayed, but for us, the best rose are in neighborhoods, and especially in community gardens. We have seen some memorable roses in our travels around the city; a luminous buff colored climber against a slate grey wall at The Backyard Garden in Red Hook, the seventy two rosebushes blazing from the Holy Rosary Community Garden at 117th street and Pleasant Avenue in Manhattan, and the red roses that climb over the iron archway gates of many of the city's community gardens. These last are especially evident in the gardens of the Lower East Side, but you can see them all over in community gardens of a certain vintage.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2005
Petal Post
 |
Found at the Chelsea Flower Show - an ingenious system for sending single blossoms through the mail. Petal Post has developed a box about the size of a medium sized hard-back book. Inside it has a small pipette attached to a white card. A blossom, presumably from your garden, goes into the water filled pipette (similar to the ones used in a corsage) and you close up the box, which has a handy address label on the outside and presto..send the flower to a friend.
The boxes come in sets of 6.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
The Battery Bosque
 |
The second phase of Piet Oudolf's master garden plan for the gardens at The Battery opened to the public yesterday. The Battery Bosque is a complete transformation of the dispiriting grove of plane trees that used to form the gloomy heart of The Battery. The trees have been limbed up bringing light and air into the bosque, and the tall mottled trunks of the plane trees are one of the many pleasing elements in the design.
Gone is the Belgian block paving, replaced by wide gravel paths and gracefully curving island beds edged in very contemporary bands of corten steel. But the real excitement is the planting. A huge palette of unusual plants will create a rich weave of texture under the trees. Instead of the more common flat plane of groundcover, vinca or pachysandra, a complex matrix of different varied shapes and especially heights should provide a different visual effect. We can’t wait to see what it looks like when the plantin grows in.
An excellent feature of The Battery web site is the plant list they provide. Over a hundred and thirty varieties are listed, and many of them you won’t find in your local nursery, things like Seslaria, Sorghastrum nutans, and Zizia aurea. We are planning to take the plant list down to The Battery, for a little Plant ID 101.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2005
More Chelsea 2005
The variety of design styles, and the finish and complexity of the gardens at Chelsea was incredible.
The pictures below, a "Sussex Village" on the left, and TV personality Diarmuid Gavin's playful "Hanover Quay Garden" on the right, give an idea of the range.
 |  |
All the gardens emphasized ecological responsibility. Below left, Kate Frey's "Feltzer Wine" inspired by organic vineyards of Mendocino County California, and on the right, Chris Beardshaw's "Trailfinders Recycled Garden" where all the hardscape was created from recycled materials.
 |  |
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)