I was in New York City last week for the memorial service of my oldest, dearest friend, David Reese. Trained as an architectural historian, he was curator of Gracie Mansion under four consecutive mayors of New York City. More recently, as curator of the Louis Armstrong Museum in Queens, he restored Satchmo’s gardens to glorious profusion.
In addition to supervising the care of spacious public gardens, he kept a modest garden on his balcony looking out to the East River. Along with other life advice, we traded plants and gardening tips over the years.
When my family moved to South Hadley from New York in September 1989, David came to visit, bringing a box of daffodil and tulip bulbs. We planted them in the backyard, thrilled to be digging in real dirt after so many years of bagged potting soil.
Being in New York this May reminded me once again that the denizens of Manhattan’s grid of pavement and skyscrapers are determined to keep it as green as possible under the circumstances.
The first garden I experienced on my recent trip was on the rooftop of my hotel on the Upper East Side, a block from Central Park. Sturdy planters filled with pink clematis, crimson rhododendrons, dwarf evergreens, as well as nepeta and a host of other sun-loving perennials edged the rooftop terrace, surrounding tables with colorful canvas umbrellas.
High above the city, I sipped my morning coffee looking out over other rooftop gardens and the streets. Every meager scrap of ground was filled with tidy arrangements of plants. Mass plantings of simple pink begonias filled the squares of earth around carefully tended trees that appeared to be thriving despite their less than ideal growing conditions.
Later in the day I made my way to the West Side to visit the High Line, an ambitious garden-lined walkway that has been created on an abandoned elevated rail line. Think Shelburne Falls’ Bridge of Flowers on steroids.
The High Line stretches more than 22 blocks, from Gansevoort Street, deep in lower Manhattan, to 34th Street. Part lawn, part perennial bed, part woodland, the High Line is the best thing that’s happened to New York’s greenscape since Central Park was built back in the 1860s.
When I lived in New York in the 1980s, this part of the city was derelict, dangerous and decidedly un-trendy. Now, new buildings rise in all directions, each more architecturally daring than the next. Towering cranes, like gigantic praying mantises, bend over construction sites.
Although the High Line averages only about 40 feet wide, it accommodates enthusiastic crowds without people feeling cramped. Ambling tourists, joggers and baby strollers share the walkway with lanky Afghan hounds and bow-legged mutts. It’s restful to walk above the traffic, oblivious of the chaos below.
The perennial beds, maintained by the Friends of the High Line, are creative and dynamic, as lush and manicured as those I admire in botanical gardens. The plants include hardy varieties of hosta, heuchera, iris, allium, salvia and a host of grasses.
The two-block-long Chelsea Thicket features a miniature forest of dogwoods, bottlebrush buckeye, hollies, roses and other dense shrubs and trees. Some of the original railroad tracks are embedded into the walkway, a reminder that this woodland oasis used to be a railroad bed.
There is a sun deck with lounge chairs and a long, shallow water feature where passersby can dip their toes when temperatures rise. A sign near 20th Street cautions: “Beyond this point you may encounter nude sunbathers.” The other side of the sign says the same thing.
Public art installations abound, including fanciful metal works, a Prius-like car made out of tires and murals on walls of nearby buildings. There are frequent breakout spaces with benches and chairs.
The High Line is a testament to the importance of promoting and preserving gardens in urban areas. As I strolled along, I recalled my friend David’s passion for growing things. I was reminded of the Amherst Town Meeting’s recent vote to preserve the David Kinsey Memorial Garden behind the Jones Library. The garden was dedicated in 1999, the same year that the High Line was begun.
Landscape architect Walter Cudnohufsky will lead a tour of the gardens at The Mount, the Lenox estate designed and built by writer Edith Wharton at the turn of the century, on June 18, from 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.
Wharton was an authority on European landscape design and a passionate gardener who envisioned her gardens as an elegant series of outdoor rooms that related to the house and the surrounding natural landscape. The three acres of formal gardens were part of a four-year garden restoration and have been replanted with flowering shrubs and the many varieties of native ferns that Wharton personally collected on expeditions around the Berkshires.
The gardens include an Italian walled garden, a formal flower garden, a rock garden, a lime walk and grass terraces.
Wharton designed and built The Mount in 1902, based on the principles outlined in her influential book, “The Decoration of Houses” (1897), co-authored with architect Ogden Codman, Jr.
Participants will learn to think more closely about garden design as a set of planned relationships. Cudnohufsky is a long-time teacher, founder and past director of Conway School of Landscape Design.
The cost for members is $35; nonmembers: $40. Register at Berkshirebotanical.org.
Participants should meet in the parking lot at The Mount and wear sturdy walking shoes.
Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge has recently opened its summer exhibition, Benched: Take a Seat in the Garden, a delightful collection of garden seating. The garden is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. seven days a week. For more information, go to berkshirebotanical.org.
Don’t miss Tower Hill’s exhibit of nature paintings by Barry W. Van Dusen, an internationally recognized wildlife artist living in central Massachusetts. Van Dusen’s bird illustrations have appeared in many books and publications of the Massachusetts Audubon Society as well as Bird Watcher’s Digest and Birder’s World.
In 2014, Van Dusen was named Master Artist at the annual Birds In Art show (Wausau, Wisconsin). Previous recipients of the award include Roger Tory Peterson and Robert Bateman.
The exhibition is in the Stoddard Center at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, located in Boylston. It’s is open every day but Monday, through June 26. For more information, go to towerhill.org.
Mickey Rathbun can be reached at foxglover8@gmail.com.