© Janet Davis
If you’re in the Big Apple to catch a play or do some shopping, be sure to make time to visit one of the many fabulous and diverse gardens in the city and surrounding area. With a choice that ranges from medieval cloister to old-money estates to TWO world-class botanical gardens, New York offers a rich palette for the garden tourist.
Here are some of my favorite flowering haunts, along with public transit directions from midtown Manhattan. Check for open times before you start out; many gardens are closed Mondays.
·
Bryant
Park located behind the New York Public Library, between 40th
and 42nd Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. Visit
the Bryant Park website.
This delightful garden and public space, smack in the middle of midtown Manhattan, is sheer delight from spring to fall. With its expansive lawn (sometimes folding chairs will be set up for a free concert that thousands will attend later in the evening) and six luxuriant flower borders designed by New York plantswoman Lynden Miller, it’s real treat to take a break from shopping nearby, sit on one of the French bistro chairs, sniff the flowers and watch the madding crowds go by. I especially love it early in the morning when it’s quite and serene.
· The Cloisters (uptown branch of Metropolitan Museum of Art) Fort Tryon Park at Cabrini Blvd. and Fort Washington Ave., Washington Heights. 212-923-3700. See the Cloisters website.
The Cloisters is a
fabulous jewel of a museum set above the Hudson River in wooded Fort Tryon
Park. The park was named for Sir
William Tryon, the last British governor of New York. The original Cloisters was built in 
1914
as a gallery by sculptor George Barnard to house a collection of medieval ruins
he’d bought in France -- quite controversially it would appear, causing France
to immediately enact legislation protecting their historic monuments. In the 1920s, Barnard’s collection was
acquired by the Metropolitan Museum, the purchase financed by a donation from
philanthropist and Standard Oil heir John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He also donated 60 acres he owned nearby,
arranged for more funds to buy additional land, and hired Frederick Law
Olmstead, Jr. (son of the famous father who designed Central Park) to landscape
it. The current Cloisters museum was
built on a 4-acre parcel of land within the park and opened in 1938. It now houses 5,000 tapestries, manuscripts,
books, costumes and other European artefacts dating from the 9th to
the 15th centuries, with an emphasis on the 12th and 13th
centuries. Best of all for gardeners
are the historically accurate gardens adjoining three of the five French
cloisters built into the museum, including the original Cuxa cloister that
Barnard bought from France and the Bonnefont cloister with its wonderful herb
garden. Garden tours are offered at 1
p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays in the months of May, June, September and
October; and are included in the museum admission price. There’s even a special
Garden Day each year in early June.
Directions: The M4 Madison Avenue bus goes right up to the Cloisters from midtown NYC, also the A subway train with a transfer to the M4 bus. The A-train is quicker (a 30-minute ride) since this is a very long way to travel up and down Manhattan on a bus, unless you’re happy to sightsee out the window (which I am -- one-way at least).
· The Conservatory Garden Central Park, 105th Street and Fifth Avenue on the East Side. Open daily 8 am to dusk. Visit the Conservatory Garden website.
This
elegant 6-acre garden at the top of Central Park was opened in 1937 on the site
of a previously demolished 1898 conservatory, hence the name. It is comprised of 3 gardens in English,
French and Italianate style. A favorite
for flower-lovers is the English garden whose generous borders were re-designed
in the 1990s by Lynden Miller, who also designed the mixed borders in Bryant
Park and at the New York Botanical Garden, among other public spaces in the
city. In the center of the English
garden are seasonally changing beds featuring spring bulbs and, later,annuals
artfully displayed in monochromatic color schemes. On the outer perimeters are
handsome borders featuring perennials and shrubs. And the newest garden under the trees on the very outside is a
delightful woodland featuring shade-tolerant bulbs and wildflowers. The English garden also contains a 1937 pool
and fountain inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic book The Secret
Garden.
Directions: Take the M4 bus on Madison and get off at 103rd or 106th and walk 2 blocks west to the park and the garden gates.
·
New York Botanical Garden Bronx River
Parkway and Fordham Road, Bronx, N.Y.
718-817-8700 Closed Mondays
except public holidays. Visit the New York Botanical Garden website.
One of my all-time favorite gardens in the entire
world, the NYBG has a little bit of everything for the garden tourist. Located on 250 acres in the Bronx, it has
the Nancy Bryan Luce Herb Garden, divine perennials and shrubs in the Jane
Watson Irwin Perennial Garden and the Ladies Border (again by Lynden Miller),
the vibrant Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden and the Ruth Rea Howell Family garden
(one of the best teaching facilities in any botanical garden). And don’t forget the beautifully-restored
Enid Haupt conservatory (shown here), with its tropical plants, desert species
and gorgeous waterlilies in ourdoor pools, plus the elegant planting of
Japanese flowering cherries at Cherry Hill (mid-late April) . Don’t be stingy with your time; this is an
all-day experience, whatever time of year you choose to come. So take a picnic (or eat in the well-stocked
restaurant) and make a grand day of it.
Directions: From Grand
Central Station at 42nd and Park Avenue, take the Metro-North
commuter train (MTA), Harlem Local Line to “Botanical Garden” station. It’s a comfy 20-minute ride and stops right
across the street from the NYBG.
·
Wave
Hill West 249th Street and Independence Avenue, Bronx: Hours 9-5:30 in summer, 9-9 Wednesdays
June-July. Closed Mondays except public holidays. 718-549-3200 For
more information, see their website.
This mansion and estate on the Hudson River
overlooking New Jersey’s 
Palisades Park has a storied past. It was built as a country home in 1843, and
later owned by a publishing scion who entertained prominent guests such as
Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley. Teddy Roosevelt rented it as a summer place;
Mark Twain leased it at the turn-of-the-century, building a treehouse in a
chestnut tree on the lawn; and singer Arturo Toscanini lived there for a while
too. A gift to New York of the last
owners, the Perkins family, Wave Hill now operates as a cultural and education
center and a sublime display garden.
There’s the Dry Garden, the Herb Garden, the Aquatic Garden, the Marco
Polo Stufano Conservatory (shown here), the Flower Garden, the Wild Garden –
and a cadre of knowledgeable volunteers who can answer your questions. And if you’re tired after all your
sightseeing, there’s a handsome Italianate pergola where you can sit in the
shade and watch the river go by.
Directions: Take the
Metro-North commuter train (MTA) from Grand Central Station and get off at
Riverside. It’s a 5-block walk up the
hill from the station through a nice residential neighborhood. There are signs along the way directing you
to the garden
· Brooklyn Botanic Garden 1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn. Open 8 to 6 weekdays, 10 to 6 weekends. Closed Mondays except public holidays. 718-623-7200 For more information, visit their website.
When I
visit New York in spring, I try to time my stay to coincide with the Cherry
Blossom Festival or Matsura Hanami, always held the last weekend in
April at the BBG. Then I stroll in the Cherry Esplanade under billowing Japanese
cherry blossoms or circle the pond in the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden (shown
here) or snap pictures of the magnolias on the Magnolia Plaza. May brings the fabulous wisteria vine,
azaleas and rhododendrons in the Osborne Garden. But summer is beautiful too, when the roses are in bloom at the
Cranford Rose Garden and the perennials are in fine fettle on the Lily Pool
Terrace, and (if you’re lucky) the massive Amazon waterlily (Victoria
amazonica) in the Robert Wilson Aquatic Garden in the Steinhardt Conservatory
might be in flower too. And trees grow
in Brooklyn too – lots of them, in the Bluebell Wood and on Daffodil Hill and
in the Plant Family Collection area.
But there’s more, much more. Be
sure to find out for yourself.
Directions: Take the #2 or 3 subway train from Times Square. Get out at Eastern Parkway and you’re right at the garden and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
· Old Westbury Gardens, 71 Old Westbury Road, Old Westbury, N.Y. (Long Island). Open Wednesday through Monday (closed Tuesdays) from 10 - 4:15 from early April to the end of October. 516-333-0048. For more information, visit the website.
Old
Westbury on Long Island was built in 1906 as a home for newlyweds John and
Margarita Phipps, heirs to industrial fortunes made by their fathers in the
U.S. and Ireland respectively. The estate was maintained as a private residence
until 1958, when it was incorporated as a non-profit institution There are 88 acres of formal gardens here,
and it is a delight to wander through the mature grounds imagining what life
must have been like for the Phipps family and other members of the Long Island
gentry. Be sure to visit the gorgeous
Walled Perennial Garden with its pergola and formal pool, the AARS Rose Trial
Gardens, the Demonstration Vegetable Garden, the Silver Herb Garden -- and the
fabulous Charles II Manor House is a must-see!
Directions: From Grand Central Station in Manhattan, take the Long Island Railway to the Westbury Station, then a 2.5 mile taxi ride to the gardens.