TheConservatory Garden is aformal garden near the northeastern corner ofCentral Park inUpper Manhattan, New York City. Comprising 6 acres (24,000 m2), it is the only formal garden in Central Park. Conservatory Garden takes its name from aconservatory that stood on the site from 1898 to 1935. It is located just west ofFifth Avenue, opposite 104th to 106th Streets.[1]
The park's first head gardener,Ignatz Anton Pilát, stored plants at the site of Conservatory Garden during the construction of Central Park.[2]: 55–56 At the time, park architectsFrederick Law Olmsted andCalvert Vaux wanted to landscape most of the northeast corner of Central Park as part of anarboretum, including the site of the current Conservatory Garden andHarlem Meer. However, this proposal was not implemented because of a lack of funds.[3]: 146 Additionally, a formal conservatory had been planned forConservatory Water, further south in Central Park, but was never built.[3]: 144
A greenhouse on the site of Conservatory Garden was erected in 1898, and it contained exhibitions of plants and flower beds.[3]: 146 Later, the glasshouses at the site were used to harden hardwood cuttings for the park's plantings.
In 1935,NYC Parks commissionerRobert Moses destroyed the greenhouse which he believed to be obsolete.[4] Moses engaged landscape architectGilmore D. Clarke, to prepare designs for a new garden, including planting plans prepared by his wife, M. Betty Sprout.[note 1]WPA workers built and planted the garden, which opened to the public in 1937.[3]: 146
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 designerLynden Miller[5][6] and reopened in June 1987.[2]: 144–145 [7] The overgrown, top-heavycrabapples 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 underElizabeth Barlow Rogers of theCentral Park Conservancy.[7]
The Conservatory Garden underwent another renovation in the 2020s at a cost of $17 million.[8] After work on the South Garden was completed in early 2023, the Central Park Conservancy renovated the North Garden and Italianate Center Garden.[9] As of 2023[update], the project was planned to be complete by early 2025;[9] it was ultimately finished by that June.[10][11] The project had cost $25 million.[11]
The garden is composed of three distinct parts, skillfully restored since the 1980s.[3]: 146 It is accessible through the Vanderbilt Gate atFifth Avenue and 105th Street, a quarter mile (400 m) south of the park's northeast corner, as well as other points within the park.[12] The Vanderbilt Gate once gave access to the forecourt ofCornelius Vanderbilt II House, the grandest of the Fifth Avenue mansions of theGilded Age, at 58th Street and Fifth Avenue, sharing the Plaza with thePlaza Hotel. The wrought iron gates with cast iron and repoussé details, were designed by Post and executed in an iron foundry in Paris.[13]
Below the steps flanked by Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), the central section of the Conservatory Garden is a symmetrical lawn outlined in clippedyew,[note 2] with a single central fountain jet at the rear. It is flanked by twinallées of crabapples and backed by a curvedwisteriapergola against the steep natural slope, that is dominated at its skyline by a giantAmerican Sycamore. 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.[14]
To the left on the south side, is the garden of mixed herbaceous borders in wide concentric bands aroundThe Secret Gardenwater lily pool, dedicated in 1936 to the memory ofFrances Hodgson Burnett, with sculpture byBessie Potter Vonnoh.[13] Some large shrubs, liketree lilac,magnolias,buddleias andCornus 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 theUntermyer Fountain, which was donated by the family ofSamuel Untermyer in 1947. The bronze figures,Three Dancing Maidens byWalter Schott (1861–1938), were executed in Germany about 1910[15] and formed a fountain at Untermyer's estate "Greystone" inYonkers, New York.
This section of the Conservatory Garden has two dramatic seasons of massed display, oftulips in the spring and Koreanchrysanthemums in the fall. Beds ofsantolina clipped inknotted designs with contrasting bronze-leaved beddingbegonias surround the fountain, and four rose arbor gates are planted with reblooming 'Silver Moon' and 'Betty Prior'roses.
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40°47′38″N73°57′08″W / 40.7938°N 73.9523°W /40.7938; -73.9523
