The Conservatory Garden is a

formal garden A formal garden is a garden with a clear structure, geometric shapes and in most cases a symmetrical layout. Its origin goes back to the gardens which are located in the desert areas of Western Asia and are protected by walls. The style of a forma ...

near the northeastern corner of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

Upper Manhattan Upper Manhattan is the most northern region of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary has been variously defined, but some of the most common usages are 96th Street, the northern boundary of Central Park ( 110th Street), ...

, New York City. Comprising , it is the only formal garden in Central Park. Conservatory Garden takes its name from a conservatory that stood on the site from 1898 to 1935. It is located just west of

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

, opposite 104th to 106th Streets.

History

The park's first head gardener, Ignatz Anton Pilát, stored plants at the site of Conservatory Garden during the construction of Central Park. At the time, park architects

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...

and

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape designer, best known as the co-designer, along with his protégé and junior partner Frederick Law Olmsted, of what would become New York Ci ...

wanted to landscape most of the northeast corner of Central Park as part of an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

, including the site of the current Conservatory Garden and

Harlem Meer Harlem Meer is a man-made lake at the northeast corner of New York City's Central Park. It lies west of Fifth Avenue, south of 110th Street, and north of the Conservatory Garden, near the Harlem and East Harlem neighborhoods of Manhattan. The la ...

. However, this proposal was not implemented because of a lack of funds. Additionally, a formal conservatory had been planned for

Conservatory Water Conservatory Water is a pond located in a natural hollow within Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. It is located west of Fifth Avenue, centered opposite East 74th Street. The pond is surrounded by several landscaped hills, including Pil ...

, further south in Central Park, but was never built. A greenhouse on the site of Conservatory Garden was erected in 1898, and it contained exhibitions of plants and flower beds. Later, the glasshouses at the site were used to harden hardwood cuttings for the park's plantings. In 1935, NYC Parks commissioner

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...

destroyed the greenhouse which he believed to be obsolete. Moses engaged landscape architect

Gilmore D. Clarke Gilmore David Clarke (July 12, 1892 – August 8, 1982''New York Times'', August 10, 1982, p. B19: Gilmore D. Clarke, 90, is dead; designed major public works'.) was an American civil engineer and landscape architect who designed many pa ...

, to design a new garden using planting plans by his wife M. Betty Sprout.

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

workers built and planted the garden, which opened to the public in 1937. By the 1970s, the garden had become a wasteland. In the late 1980s, it was restored and partially replanted under the direction of horticulturist and urban landscape designer

Lynden Miller Lynden B. Miller (born December 8, 1938) is an author, an advocate for public parks and gardens, and a garden designer, best known for her restoration of the Conservatory Garden in New York’s Central Park, completed in 1987. Education and earl ...

and reopened in June 1987. The overgrown, top-heavy

crabapples ''Malus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 30–55 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae, including the domesticated orchard apple, crab apples, wild apples, and rainberries. The genus is native to the temperate zone of th ...

were freed of watershoots and pruned up to a higher scaffold for better form. The high-style mixed planting was the first to bring estate garden style to urban parks, part of the general renewal of Central Park under

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Elizabeth Barlow Rogers (born 1936) is an environmentalist, landscape preservationist, author of numerous books and essays, and a former park administrator. Her most notable achievement was her role in the revitalization of New York City’s Cen ...

of the

Central Park Conservancy The Central Park Conservancy is a private, nonprofit park conservancy that manages Central Park under a contract with the City of New York and NYC Parks. The conservancy employs most maintenance and operations staff in the park. It effectivel ...

Sections

The garden is composed of three distinct parts, skillfully restored since the 1980s. It is accessible through the Vanderbilt Gate at

and 105th Street, a quarter mile (400 m) south of the park's northeast corner, as well as other points within the park. The Vanderbilt Gate once gave access to the forecourt of

Cornelius Vanderbilt II House The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House was a large mansion built in 1883 at 1 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It occupied the frontage along the west side of Fifth Avenue from West 57th Street up to West 58th Street at Grand Army Plaz ...

, the grandest of the Fifth Avenue mansions of the

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...

, at 58th Street and Fifth Avenue, sharing the Plaza with the

Plaza Hotel The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, a ...

. The wrought iron gates with cast iron and repoussé details, were designed by Post and executed in an iron foundry in Paris. Below the steps flanked by Cornelian cherry (''

Cornus mas ''Cornus mas'', commonly known as cornel (also the Cornelian cherry, European cornel or Cornelian cherry dogwood), is a species of shrub or small tree in the dogwood genus ''Cornus'' native to Southern Europe and Southwestern Asia. Description It ...

''), the central section of the Conservatory Garden is a symmetrical lawn outlined in clipped yew,Designated "French" or "Italian" equally by journalists; in autumn 2006 the yews were replanted with more naturally spreading ''Taxus media ‘Hatfieldii' '' cultivars that will make low formal shaping easier to maintain. with a single central fountain jet at the rear. It is flanked by twin

allée In landscaping, an avenue (from the French), alameda (from the Portuguese and Spanish), or allée (from the French), is traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its La ...

s of crabapples and backed by a curved

wisteria ''Wisteria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae), that includes ten species of woody twining vines that are native to China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Southern Canada, the Eastern United States, and north o ...

pergola A pergola is most commonly an outdoor garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained. The ...

against the steep natural slope, that is dominated at its skyline by a giant

American Sycamore ''Platanus occidentalis'', also known as American sycamore, American planetree, western plane, occidental plane, buttonwood, and water beech, is a species of ''Platanus'' native to the eastern and central United States, the mountains of northeas ...

. Otherwise there is no flower color: instead, on any fine Saturday afternoon in June, it is the scene of photography sessions for colorful wedding parties, for which limousines pull up in rows on Fifth Avenue. To the left on the south side, is the garden of mixed herbaceous borders in wide concentric bands around ''

The Secret Garden ''The Secret Garden'' is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in ''The American Magazine'' (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and ...

'' water lily pool, dedicated in 1936 to the memory of

Frances Hodgson Burnett Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (published in 1885–1886), '' A Little ...

, with sculpture by

Bessie Potter Vonnoh Bessie Potter Vonnoh (August 17, 1872 – March 8, 1955) was an American sculptor best known for her small bronzes, mostly of domestic scenes, and for her garden fountains. Her stated artistic objective, as she told an interviewer in 1925, was to ...

. Some large shrubs, like tree lilac,

magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendro ...

buddleia ''Buddleja'' (; ''Buddleia''; also historically given as ''Buddlea'') is a genus comprising over 140 species of flowering plants endemic to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The generic name bestowed by Linnaeus posthumously honoured the Revere ...

s and '' Cornus alba 'elegantissima''' provide vertical structure and offer light shade to offset the sunny locations, planted by Lynden Miller with a wide range of hardy perennials and decorative grasses, intermixed with annuals planted to seem naturalized. This garden has seasonal features to draw visitors from April through October. To the right of the central formal plat is a garden also in concentric circles, round the Untermyer Fountain, which was donated by the family of

Samuel Untermyer Samuel J. Untermyer (March 6, 1858 – March 16, 1940) was a prominent American lawyer and civic leader. He is also remembered for bequeathing his Yonkers, New York estate, now known as Untermyer Park, to the people of New York State. Life S ...

in 1947. The bronze figures, '' Three Dancing Maidens'' by

Walter Schott Walter Schott (18 September 1861, Ilsenburg - 2 September 1938, Berlin) was a German sculptor and art professor. Life His father, , was a well-known metallurgist who was the manager and inspector at the smelters of Count Heinrich zu Stolberg-W ...

(1861–1938), were executed in Germany about 1910 The Untermyer Fountain
/ref> and formed a fountain at Untermyer's estate "Greystone" in

Yonkers Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

, New York. This section of the Conservatory Garden has two dramatic seasons of massed display, of

tulip Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...

s in the spring and Korean

chrysanthemum Chrysanthemums (), sometimes called mums or chrysanths, are flowering plants of the genus ''Chrysanthemum'' in the family Asteraceae. They are native to East Asia and northeastern Europe. Most species originate from East Asia and the center ...

s in the fall. Beds of

santolina ''Santolina'' is a genus of plants in the chamomile tribe within the sunflower family, primarily from the western Mediterranean region. They are small evergreen shrubs growing tall. The leaves are simple and minute in some species, or pinnate ...

clipped in knotted designs with contrasting bronze-leaved bedding

begonia ''Begonia'' is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. The genus contains more than 2,000 different plant species. The Begonias are native to moist subtropical and tropical climates. Some species are commonly grown ind ...

s surround the fountain, and four rose arbor gates are planted with reblooming 'Silver Moon' and 'Betty Prior'

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

Notes

References

External links

CentralPark.com
s complete guide to all 28 flowers of the Central Park Conservatory Garden
Conservatory Garden
at the official site of Central Park

11 June 1987 {{coord, 40.7938, -73.9523, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title Central Park Gardens in New York (state)