'Four-season' garden to open at Planting Fields Arboretum in the fall, led by Piet Oudolf
A rendering of the Piet Oudolf Garden, slated to open this fall at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay. Credit: Planting Fields Foundation
When the leaves at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay change colors this fall, a new 24,000-plant garden will welcome visitors to a "four-season" experience in the historic park.
The 1-acre garden will be curated by Piet Oudolf — the landscape architect behind the High Line and Battery Gardens in Manhattan and the Lurie Garden at Chicago's Millennium Park. It is set to open in October.
The garden will evolve with the seasons, changing like a living organism over time. It will bloom in spring and wither in winter, but in a way that showcases both the plants' form and beauty.
Instead of cutting seed heads in the winter, the garden's curators will let visitors see the plants as they transform during the course of the year. The idea is abstract, but intended to emphasize the beauty of a garden not only through color, but also the corporeal elements, said Gina Wouters, president and CEO of the Planting Fields Foundation, which is leading the project.
She said Oudolf's influence will change the way people appreciate plants.
“His whole approach to gardening is thinking about the beauty of a garden and the value of a garden in four seasons, not just the one season when it’s blooming,” Wouters said in a phone interview.
That means deliberately planning to give plants aesthetic purpose while they’re decaying, in effect “allowing them to have multiple lives,” Wouters said.
Seeking more year-round visitors
Officials hope the experience of seeing a new stage of that life cycle throughout the year will draw more visitors during the lull of the off-peak months. It is intended to "celebrate the four-season offerings of plants," according to the foundation's website.
“I think the garden is going to be a natural phenomenon,” Wouters said. “A lot of people come to Planting Fields when there’s a blooming season or to see the fall colors change. … With this garden, there’s a reason to activate this place year-round.”
The Long Island Regional Economic Development Council awarded the Planting Fields Foundation more than $207,000 to promote the garden, Wouters said.
The flora in the new garden, near the Planting Fields Rose Arbor, will mostly be made up of perennials, including plants like Sporobolus, phlox and amsonia, otherwise known as “blue stars,” along with more than a dozen trees and shrubs.
Before the blooming symphony of plants can flourish in the garden, Wouters said weeds need to be removed — a process that is underway. And after the garden opens, she said a new pest — deer — will become the main challenge.
“We’re going to be planting some stuff that they like, so that’s something that we’re going to have to kind of see as we go — what we can do to deter that,” Wouters said, adding the nonprofit is focused on handling those problems in an “environmentally friendly” way.
A team involved
The Planting Fields Foundation hired Oudolf and a team to design and build the garden, which is on state parks department property.
George Gorman, Long Island regional director of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said the fall and spring are the park’s busiest times. The new garden serves as a catalyst to “increase visitation during the off season,” he said in a phone interview.
“The draw will be a brand-new garden,” Gorman said. “We feel that individuals, tourists and visitors will come year-round but also for many years to come.”
William Robertson Coe, an insurance tycoon, purchased the 409-acre North Shore property in 1913 and hired the famed Olmsted brothers to design the landscape of the extensive grounds. Coe’s 65-room Tudor Revival mansion was completed in 1921 and still stands on the property after an earlier mansion burned down in 1918. He sold the property to the state for $1 in 1949, six years before his death, Newsday has reported. It was formally transferred to the state in 1955 and was a SUNY campus until 1971, according to Wouters. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
For all seasons
- Landscape architect Piet Oudolf is designing a garden at Planting Fields Arboretum that will feature more than 24,000 plants.
- Oudolf is the architect behind the gardens at the High Line in Manhattan as well as the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago.
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