In the wake of environmentalism’s fervor for untamed nature, we find that many left over urban spaces are simply neglected and left to their own devices in the name of some idea of “naturalism”, this added to the decline in public spending on landscaping and urban public space upkeep, has led to most areas along public roads and smaller urban public parks looking like abandoned lots – in fact some vacant lots really do look better than the mish-mash of decrepit indigenous or wild native plants long past their prime that is usually now associated with “green space” and unfortunately this is often due to the lack of plant knowledge of landscape architects and horticulturists themselves who are swept up with this idea of planting indigenous or native. The use of improved varieties of “wild” plants and ecological design that artistically and in an intensely designed way sets out to create urban plantscapes that are colorful and interesting all year round, and blend many plant species together for a specific result, sets this “new wave” landscape apart – garden designers such as Noel Kingsbury and Piet Oudolf, (Dutch master: the garden design genius of Piet Oudolf – Telegraph) have been influential in this regard as have the founders of the firm Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, this new garden The New York Botanical Garden will doubtless increase the exposure and the popularity of this trend, which might even thus spread to the Middle and Far East where the style I dub “Cake Decoration Style” of little clipped variegated hedges and trite masses of plants in serried ranks like so many ordered soldiers, still prevails. From the Washington Post By Adrian Higgins
Ramin Talaie/RAMIN TALAIE FOR THE WASHINGTON – Sheila Brady, principal with the DC firm of Oehme, van Sweden & Associates and the designer of the Native Plant Garden at The New York Botanical Garden stands for a photograph.
The new Native Plant Garden at the New York Botanical Garden has been selected as a pilot project for the Sustainable Sites Initiative conceived by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden. The project will culminate in a display garden showcasing native plants of the Northeast region, including a wide spectrum of habitat and microclimate. To quote Todd Forrest, Vice President for Horticulture and Living Systems at the New York Botanical Garden, in his April, 2009 article for Public Garden, this will be “a new kind of native plant garden, one that distills the beauty of the region’s natural landscapes rather than simply attempting to replicate them.”
The garden rejects a conventional idea of presenting native flora as replicated eco-systems and instead gathers American plants with a gardener’s eye for color, texture, combinations, seasonal peaks and other aesthetic ambitions. The planting schemes are complex, and besides the mind-boggling number of plants involved — 90,000 perennials, grasses, bulbs, shrubs and trees in a 31 / 2-acre area — Brady and her collaborators have used varieties bred for improved garden performance.
