Conservatory Garden

Layne and Kris (Brian's parents) came to visit us last week, and we've had so much fun having them here. They flew in late Tuesday (9/9) night. The next day, we three went and wandered around Central Park to pass the time while Brian was at work. 

We took the subway into Manhattan and got off on 68th St. We stopped for a quick hot dog and then walked the two or three blocks over to the park. I love this area of the park with the Mall, Bethesda Fountain, and its terrace -- it is all so beautiful.  Brian and I have been here before, and it was great to get to revisit it. 

We walked down around the fountain and took some pictures. The day was beautiful with bright, clear, blue skies, warm sunshine, and a cool breeze that carried with it a hint of fall.

We made our way over to the passage underneath the upper terrace. We stopped there for a little while to watch some performers set up. Even though they were dressed crazily (the guy wore a red tutu, bands of bells around his ankles, and sported a top knot, while his female partner was wearing a pink leotard with a skirt, and had a white-powdered face and pink hair) we stuck around because they were holding violins and we wanted to hear them play. We waited for quite awhile as they got all set up around the burning incense sticks they had placed in the center of their area. Unsurprisingly, their act started off really weird as they spent time spinning their stick-and-rubber-band-contraptions in the air that made buzzing sounds (it reminded me of the sound a bullroarer makes -- the thing that the character Mick Dundee spins around in the movie Crocodile Dundee II). After their synchronized buzzing, we watched for a few awkward minutes while they silently caressed each other's arms. By the time they picked up their violins, we decided to go. That was one of the weirder things I've witnessed in the city. 

I've been wanting to revisit the park's Conservatory Garden, which sits on the east side of Central Park, about twenty-ish blocks north of where we were, so we decided to walk up. We kind of meandered our way in and out of the park as we walked up its east side, enjoying the weather and area. We passed the MET, where we got to see the newly installed fountains and permanent red umbrellas along its 4-block-long plaza. The fountains are programmable so that the water jets' timing may be adjusted to create varyious spray patterns. In this same area, they have planted 160 more trees to offer more shade. It all looked very nice, and we stopped for a minute to sit at one of the little metal tables underneath the trees. 

Eventually we made it to the south end of the Conservatory Garden. Brian and I have been here only once before in the fall of 2011, and we only had time to explore the north half of the gardens, so it was nice to get to come again and see the whole area. 

The Conservatory Garden covers six acres and has been open to the public since 1937. Before it became Central Park's only formal garden, it was the site of the park's glasshouse conservatory where cuttings were started and grown to a suitable size before being planted in other areas of the park. The garden is divided into three sections: an English style garden in the south section (far left in the picture below), an Italian style garden in the center, and a French style garden in the north section.

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Gilmore David Clarke was the landscape architect who designed the Conservatory Garden. He also had a hand in the design of the Central Park Zoo, the Riverside Park expansion and the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fairs held in Flushing-Corona Park in Queens. M. Betty Sprout (love her name!) created the garden's planting plans (she also worked on the design for Bryant Park and other parts of Central Park). The garden fell into disrepair after WWII and was left in that condition until the 1980's, when it was renovated and partially replanted. It reopened in 1987. 

As I said before, we entered through the garden's south gate, where we were immediately in the English style garden. This is the section that I've never been to before. It was gorgeous. We wandered a bit around the curving planting bed rows. There are four or five rows in total that sit concentrically in the garden space. The outer rows contained trees and larger shrubs, while the inner rows contain shorter shrubs, perennials and annuals. We saw sheared boxwoods and yews, roses, oakleaf hydrangeas, coneflowers, ornamental grasses, Japanese anenome, dusty miller, and lavender among many others. It was late afternoon while we were there, and the sun slanting through the surrounding trees made everything that much more inviting.

We worked our way inward as we wandered around the beds and came upon this delightful little statue surrounded by a reflecting pond full of water lilies. It sits in the center of the English garden section. We sat down on a bench to enjoy the beauty of our surroundings for a few moments. It was so peaceful and beautiful and I just soaked it in. There was a blue jay sitting on the tray that the upright figure of the fountain is holding. I love blue jays, and was delighted to see it. If you look closely, you can see him sitting there in the picture below.

The water lily pond was very pretty, and there were even a few blooms. There were goldfish swimming in the pond and occasionally we caught glimpses of their bright orange bodies through the lily pads.

The statue and pond together are known as The Secret Garden water lily pool. The statue was created by Bessie Potter Vonnoh to honor Frances Hodgeson Burnett, the author of the book The Secret Garden. The figures represent the book's main characters, Mary and Dickon. I read this book about a year ago and loved it. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend that you do.

Soon we wandered into the next section -- the Italian style garden, which basically consists of a giant lawn. The south and north sides of the lawn are each bordered by a walkway lined with crabapple trees. We found ourselves in the south walkway after leaving the English style garden. It was again so quiet and the trees were beautiful. We stood still for a few minutes admiring the trees' twisting, brown trunks as they stood out against their verdant green leaves and ivy-covered ground. As we stood there silently we could hear the rustle and plop of crabapples as they fell from the trees and hit the ground below. It almost felt like we were in a rainforest or something with the bird calls and occasional fall of fruit. (That may mean I've been watching too many David Attenburough animal documentaries lately.) These trees become covered with pink and white blooms in the spring -- I may have to schedule another visit next spring to see their blooms.

At the top of the walkway was a brick building containing restrooms. To the side of the building was a raised planting bed full of pretty hostas of all different shades of green. At the end was a banana plant and next to it some variety of plant with gigantic leaves. They were probably three feet wide! Some guys walking by told us the name of the big-leafed plant but I can't remember what they said.

There was also a wisteria vine growing up the side of the building. I love wisteria.

Looking east across the lawn we saw this building rising above the park. Its design is different enough from the other buildings in Manhattan that it caught our attention. We walked by it after we left the gardens and discovered it was some sort of hospital or medical care facility. 

On the west end of the lawn sits a raised metal pergola covered in wisteria. The structure runs in a semi-circle across the entire end of the lawn. We walked up the stairs and through the pergola.

The vines and their foliage were growing so thick across the top of the pergola that it was nice and shady inside. I bet it looks fabulous in the spring when the wisteria produces it drooping clusters of fragrant purple blooms. Another reason to come back in the spring. 

Between the lawn and the pergola sit curving rows of yew hedges that run around one side of a fountain. As we came out of the other end of the pergola, we noticed some people by the fountain. There was one fellow in particular that caught our eye. He had two good-sized turtles with him. He had tied a rope around the center of each turtle and was dipping the turtles into the fountain's pool. He would hold onto the top end of each rope and lower the two turtles into the water for a little bit, then pull them out and set them on the pool's lip. He was there for quite awhile doing that. It was the weirdest thing. I guess he just brings his pet turtles over to the Conservatory Garden for a little dip. I've never gone turtle dipping before, but he looked like he was enjoying himself, so it must be fun. 

We walked down to the east end of the lawn, opposite the fountain and pergola to a get a picture of the whole thing. The entire lawn is surrounded by yew hedges. It was very pretty, but in a different way from the English garden. It almost was like a palette cleanser between the two more ornate sections of the Conservatory Garden.

The French style section consists of a circular Japanese holly hedge, inside which is a smaller circle of beds. Four arches covered in "Silver Moon" climbing roses are spaced evenly around the hedge and act as doorways into the center of the garden. The arches represent the four seasons. Each arch is immediately surrounded on either side by a planting of various flowers, presently black-eyed susans and other varieties of rudbeckia along with a few annuals. Each season they switch the plants growing inside the hedge between the arches to create solid plantings of a single variety.  Right now, for fall, the bed is full of 2,000 Korean chrysanthemum plants. It's a bit early so the plants haven't started blooming yet. In the spring the same beds are full of 20,000 tulips.

The inner beds are full of a clipped green plant growing in a maze-like design. I didn't get a close enough look at the plant to tell what it was. Surrounding the miniature maze hedges was a bright red, leafy plant that was absolutely gorgeous. I have never seen anything like it and have no idea what it is. The sunshine would shine through the plants leaves, making it an even brighter red. If you know what type of plant this is please leave a comment telling me. I would love to know.

In the very center of the French style garden sits a fountain named Three Dancing Maidens, which is a copy of the original fountain created by German sculptor, Walter Schott, in 1910. The original is in Mecklenburg, Germany and is also known as the Nymphenbrunnen or Dancing Nymphs. The fountain in the Conservatory Garden was owned by Samuel Untermeyer, and after his death his children gave it to the City of New York in 1947. Consequently, it is sometimes called the Untermeyer fountain.

We sat on a bench for awhile admiring the fiery red plant and then realized it was time to go meet Brian as he got off work.

We walked out of the ornate Vanderbilt Gate -- the Conservatory Garden's main east-side entrance on 5th Ave between 104th and 105th Streets. These gates were made in Paris, France in 1894 and originally stood at the entrance to the Vanderbilt Mansion on 5th Ave and 58th St. The mansion was demolished in 1927 and Bergdorf Goodman built in its place. The gates were moved to the Conservatory Garden in 1939.

I found this old picture of the Vanderbilt Mansion with the gates as I was looking up more information about them. I thought I would share.

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After leaving the gardens we headed for the nearest subway stop on Lexington Ave and 103rd St. As we were walking towards the subway and had to cross through the George Washington Carver projects, we realized that we were in East Harlem. It makes sense, because the Conservatory Garden is just south of the Harlem Meer in Central Park and only one-quarter mile from the park's northern most edge. We thought that Harlem was just north of the park, but apparently the east side curves down around the park's eastern edge. It was a little sketchy, but we made it to the subway just fine.

We met up with Brian at work as he was getting off and headed home on the subway. We did a lot of walking that day, but it was all wonderful (well except for the short jaunt through Harlem). If you're looking for a beautiful place to visit while in New York, this would be one of my first recommendations.