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Amazing Place
by Bee Mohn
I enter Central Park's Conservatory Garden through the iron Vanderbilt Gate on Fifth Avenue at 106th Street in Harlem.
Down the steps, an Italianate garden with a rectangular lawn yawns long before a fountain. Low yew and spirea hedges surround the lawn and on the street-side bank, azaleas, Japanese hollies, bottlebrush and American elms protect the garden's serenity from the rest of New York City.
Two formal gardens abut this one and are part of the entire six-acre Conservatory Garden, named after a large Victorian glass conservatory that stood here from 1898 to 1934. The reigning politicos during The Great Depression thought the glasshouse was too expensive to maintain, so it was torn down.
Although Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's original "Greensward Plan" called for a formal garden in the south end of the park, it wasn't until the mid '30s when Betty Sprout did the planting plan and layout. The Works Progress Administration and the City Parks Department built the garden in the north end on what was naturalized land and the garden opened in '37.
Walking to the left, I gaze down an allee of pink and white Siberian crab apple trees arching over a bench-lined walk where lovers sit on this day. Just beyond is The Secret Garden, or South Garden Ă‚Â a circular series of raised beds and stone walks Ă‚Â with elegantly boisterous plantings in the English fashion.
"The Secret Garden is well hidden, maze-like with an air of mystery. It's a romantic spot," says Diane Schaub, Conservatory Garden curator.
Displays of unusual annuals and deftly-used more common ones fill the beds around shaved and sculpted evergreens. Muted nicotiana accents the blues of scented heliotrope, lobelia and tall ageratum. "I chose the flowers for those beds. We have hundreds of varieties," Schaub says. "There's never a dull moment. Some bloom in February and we may have roses in November."
Perennials  hosta, buddleia, oak leaf hydrangea — are planted among the shrubs and voluminous grasses around the perimeter of the garden. A neat flagstone walk runs through them, but the bell-like blooms of green nicotiana flaunt the formal arrangement.
Cool ferns share a bed with variegated Solomon's seal, vinca and hosta, and a seven-foot thistle defies the seriousness of the layout. Even the everyday has a natural flair.
"There are a lot of twists and turns that lead to a feeling of discovery. Even without the flowers in the winter, the garden is beautiful. You can really appreciate the structure," says Schaub.
Winding around the flowery maze, I stumble upon a sculpture "given to the children of the city," where a young mother relaxes on a bench with her baby. It's a sculpture of a young girl with birds, and a real sparrow sips from the water she carries.
"This is the most beautiful part of the park and not as crowded," says Melinda Cornwell, NYC resident. "If Central Park didn't exist, New York would explode."
I slip through the tall shrubs, across the allee and the center garden, where men sit and enjoy the geyser-like fountain, and into another green labrynthe at the North Garden.
The steps under a rose-covered arbor lead to a theater-in-the-round with three bronze dancing nymphs on a fountain stage. This is a cast of Walter Scott's "Three Dancing Maidens" sculpture built in Germany before 1910. it came to the park in 1947 and is known as the Untermyer Fountain.
The oval-shaped garden contains red, orange, purple and blue gomphrena, lobelia, petunias and torenia that set off 2,000 Korean chrysanthemums, soon put on their own show. The French-style beds are outlined in germander, which is root hardy here.
Special flower displays set the plantings on fire in different seasons. Spring brings the blaze of 20,000 tulips against the crabapples in the North Garden, then the focus shifts to the South garden's annual and perennial beds. In the fall, the mums bloom.
"The way the interest shifts in the garden is a nice feature and allows for different kinds of experiences," says Schaub. "And with three European-style gardens together, it's a mini garden history lesson."
A flower aficionado can spend all day here. In search of refreshment, I stop at the coffee shop at the Harlem Meer. It serves exotic fresh-squeezed fruits and good coffee. I hang out for a while and watch the birds fly by Ă‚Âsilent white geese, a great blue heron — fearless like many other animals in Central Park.
The 11-acre lake, once a swamp, is part of Olmsted and Vaux's original design although the land was acquired years later. The Harlem Meer landscape is 65 acres of water, rock outcrops, old trees and woods complete with a waterfall and wildflower ravine.
One man lies on the grass, hands behind head, soaking up the day. Men fish, kids skate board below big flapping tees, mothers stroll with double carriages, a class of small kids in blue shirts marches by holding hands, black pigeons with white wings soar.
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published August 01, 2003
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