The Rock Garden Reopens with Spring in Swing
Posted in Around the Garden on March 20 2012, by Matt Newman
After a long and curious winter, the Rock Garden reopens its gates today, March 20, inviting visitors to experience a rolling landscape of miniature flowers and towering conifers. This Alpine sanctuary of lush woodland plants has been inspiring the admiration of millions of guests over its nearly 80-year history, and remains one of the most bountiful and beautiful public rock gardens in the world.
As luck would have it, when I first arrived at The New York Botanical Garden late last fall the Rock Garden was just locking its gates for the winter. My colleagues had told me, with varying degrees of wistful encouragement, that I should see its threads of gravel paths and high-reaching evergreens when I had the opportunity. There was no place quite so perfect for decompressing, they said. Nowhere better to reflect.
I later happened upon the Rock Garden gate propped open as I was walking through the grounds; I had been jotting down the names of early bloomers which were themselves taking note of the unseasonably warm weather. It was still mimicking a true winter day, of course–the wind was biting–but a nearby NYBG gardener was willing to have a look at my badge and let me explore inside.
I could appreciate why the secluded garden had such a sparkling reputation almost immediately. The gravel pathway winds down into a quiet hollow, with a tranquil pool and a stone cascade that had, by then, been closed up for the season. The tiered slopes with their many tiny plants rise up at a casual incline on each side, and meet with higher berms of conifers to sequester you away from the breeze. The expanse becomes a shallow bowl, just deep enough to buffer the outside world. In its own way, the Rock Garden has nearly everything in common with Eastern zen gardens–with its peaceful disposition and subtle push toward introspection, it’s shy only a bed of sugar sand and a wooden rake.
The winter landscape is now well into becoming a memory for another season, even if we’ve only just met the official “start” of spring. Hellebores and primrose are lighting up the grounds of the Rock Garden with a colorful spectrum of petals, while miniature daffodils and other flowering bulbs take up their positions around the pool. The flow of the cascade is once again bounding down its stepped rocks in a hurry. You might almost think spring has been putting in extra hours behind the doors of the three-acre oasis.
Join us today beginning at 10 a.m., when the gates reopen and the Rock Garden is once again made available to the public. We’re just putting the finishing touches on this year’s plantings, making it an ideal time to see new flowers and foliage as we move on toward a verdant summer.
