In August 2025 I travelled across the pond to New York City for the International Waterlily & Water Gardening Society’s annual symposium. I arrived a day early for a pre-symposium tour of downtown Manhattan’s smaller, and very unique, public gardens.
The first was Little Island built on the Hudson River to replace the dilapidated Pier 54. It was here that survivors of the Titanic would finally find safety, with a rusted steel archway at the entrance being all that remains of the Cunard-White Star building. This remarkable structure is made up of 132 giant concrete planters called “tulips” that make up the 2 1/4 acre park. Careful consideration was required when planting these as the weight load capacity for each varied, mature trees had to be moved from one planter to another during construction to avoid overloading. The dense planting focused mainly on native plants such as Acer rubrum, Cercis canadensis, Clematis, Echinacea, Hydrangea arborescens, Juniperus virginiana and Lonicera. Those that caught my eye were the swathes of Allium lusitanicum ‘Summer Beauty’ and Lagerstroemia indica ‘Natchez’ (Crepe Myrtle) with long panicles of white blooms with a sweet fragrance.
Our next stop was the High Line. In 1934, to improve pedestrian safety, an elevated freight line was built to serve the busy Meatpacking District. The line ran until 1980, when lorries became the preferred mode of transport, and the elevated line lay abandoned. For two decades nature took over with wild plants naturalising along the 1.5 mile structure. In the early 2000’s the line was saved from demolition and repurposed as a public park with different planting zones from woodland, grassland and even a wetland.
We started at the southern end Ganswvoort Woodland, with a thicket of Betula populifolia ‘Whitespire’ (Whitespire gray birch) and Amelanchier laevis (Allegheny serviceberry), providing some welcome shade in the afternoon heat.
In the Chelseas Grasslands the Rudbeckia subtomentosa were in full bloom among the many other perennials and grasses. The wetland featured some familiar planting including Lobelia siphilitica (Blue cardinal flower) and Sagittaria latifolia (Duck-potato). Some other noteable plants along the way included Eurybia divaricata ‘Eastern Star’ (White wood aster) and Cephalanthus occidentalis ‘Sugar Shack’ (Button bush)
Our final garden of the day was the Conservatory Garden, a six-acre formal garden in the north-eastern corner of Central Park, which is composed of three distinct areas; Italian, French and English. We entered through the Vanderbilt Gate on Fifth Avenue which leads into the Italianate garden, at its centre a formal lawn leading fountain, all enclosed by a low Yew hedge. The French garden was perhaps not the best time to visit but is well-known for its large Tulip displays in the spring, there was another Crepe Myrtle this one was a pink, and an interesting fountain, featuring a bronze cast called Three Dancing Maidens which had been donated from Untermyer Gardens.
Perhaps I was biased but my favourite had to be the English-style garden with its informal perennial borders bursting with colour, various Salvia, Rudbeckia and Lobelia, Hibiscus syriacus (Rose of Sharon) and Acer palmatum (Japanese maple), perhaps not all in keeping. The lily pond offered our first glimpse of some waterlilies, all tropical cultivars with blue and purple flowers, lovely to see but not typically seen in an English pond!
The day ended at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, somewhere you could spend a whole day at, but as a group of water gardeners we naturally found ourselves studying Claude Monet paintings!
