Report on the New York Botanical Garden

by Olmsted Brothers

The vista is well worth getting in itself, because one of the defects of the Botanical Garden today is its deficiency in landscape reaches and views of sufficient length to give the sense of spaciousness and the mystery of distance. Moreover there is an unpleasantly complete landscape separation of all the land to the east of the river from that to the west.

But the special opportunity which the situation of the Iris and Horticultural Gardens seems to present lies, in connection with opening the vista, in the bold regrading of portions of the non-conforming hillside above mentioned, and the extension of the mainly herbaceous planting of these gardens so as to produce a continuous and unified, though rich and varied, texture throughout the space within the framing trees and hills.

Within the limits of this general conception the garden might successfully be given any one of an infinitude of local expressions, from that of a naturalistic hillside rich in flowers, like some alpine glades, to that of an intricately terraced hillside where the flower beds and paths would be made flatter in cross-section for the practical convenience of intensive use and be supported by low walls. Such a terraced treatment might, on the one hand, be highly architectural in its general structure, or, on the other hand, it might be rather casual and unobtrusively irregular and picturesque like many of the hillsides so pleasantly and richly terraced into vineyards and gardens by the peasants of Italy, of Switzerland, of the Rhine and of Japan. Considering the practical necessities of exhibiting many kinds of plants of horticultural interest, of making them closely accessible to large numbers of people, of cultivating the beds and of avoiding the waste of rain water on steeply sloping cultivated ground, we should be inclined to favor the latter type, frankly man-handled in its general scheme but rather free and picturesque in its detail, its terraces supported in the main by uncemented walls suitable for treatment as wall gardens. The lower slopes and terraced benches could well be used in large part for a great collection of the upland irises, perhaps in conjunction with peonies; the hollow at the base might be devoted largely to the moisture-loving Japanese irises; while the outer and upper portions could be used for other horticultural exhibits of the type represented by the now isolated and unrelated beds of beautiful chrysanthemums, of narcissus, and (this spring) of tulips.

4. If and when the Park Department greenhouses and work yards can be removed from the old Lorillard Mansion gardens, as they certainly ought to be for the proper development of the Botanical Garden (preferably, as in the case of the Park stables, to the undeveloped park lands just across Pelham Parkway) a peculiarly valuable area in the very heart of the Garden’s most precious landscape will be freed and will offer a very notable opportunity for a new feature.

To begin with, the opportunity here exists to create a long north and south view, wholly self-contained, beautifully enclosed, and nicely fitted to as interesting a piece of topography as is to be found anywhere within the limits of the Botanical Garden. And, as already stated, there is a serious deficiency in such long inviting views.

In the second place, within the land thus freed from obstructive utilitarian structures, and without impairing the long views thus obtained but enhancing their charm and interest, there could be developed, under the most favorable conditions, an admirable example of a sort of thing of which there certainly ought to be a first-rate example somewhere on the tract. The sort of thing we mean is a type of what is sometimes called a landscape garden, the heart of which is a beautifully modelled lawn, enframed by beautifully composed trees irregularly disposed, under which the lawn here and there loses itself in shadowy mystery, while elsewhere its irregular margin is formed by masses of flowering shrubs and flowering herbaceous plants, providing, as an incident of the landscape, an informal or naturalistic herbaceous garden designed predominantly or almost exclusively for esthetic effect.

The suggestion in your report of April, 1923, at first appealed to us strongly, namely, that this area, if and when freed from the Park Department greenhouses, work yards, etc., be used for a really first-rate Formal Garden in connection with the reconstruction of the Lorillard Mansion, which you proposed should serve as a place for exhibitions, for the meetings of garden clubs and for kindred activities. Unquestionably it is a very desirable thing to provide, in the most perfect possible way, somewhere in the Botanical Garden area, for the grouping of such functions in a beautiful building, domestic in scale but considerable in size, intimately related to a beautiful garden of a suitable kind. The most suitable kind of garden for such a purpose would be, in an agreeable sense of the word, “formal;” that is to say emphatically not “naturalistic.”

This is not the place to attempt a thorough clearing up of the confusions of meaning which have caused for many years so much misunderstanding over this word “formal” as applied to gardens and gardening. Most of the misunderstanding is due to unexpressed mental reservations as to what is meant by the word, or to differences of emphasis on various phases of formality. To some the word suggests mainly certain kinds of formality which are unattractive or even distressing to them; associated with stiffness, rigidity, bald precision of detail, or such complete dominance of architectural elements as to make the term “garden” almost a misnomer. To others the word suggests merely a pleasantly obvious orderliness in the general disposition of the major parts of a garden, frankly expressing deliberate human design and control; as by symmetry of certain forms about a straight axis, or the disposition of paths and masses of vegetation in such a way as to suggest to the eye easily recognized simple shapes of agreeable proportions, rectangular and otherwise; all of which is consistent with great exuberance and freedom and spontaneity of detail, especially in the growth of plants and in the composition of plants within the orderly and formal framework of the general plan. If so conceived, “formal” is applicable alike to a garden made up wholly of flower beds and turf and to one largely characterized by paved walks and steps and walls and fountains and sculptural and architectural elements, provided the latter be enriched by sufficient vegetation to entitle it to the name of garden at all.

Obviously a botanic garden is hardly a legitimate place to devote much space or money to the creation, for its own sake, of any formal design so predominantly architectural or sculptural in its interest that the vegetation plays a wholly secondary rôle—such a thing as might be more properly called a court-yard or a plaza than a garden. But it is equally obvious that it is legitimate and desirable to provide, for the benefit of that great part of the public which is interested in plants mainly for their usefulness in pleasure gardens, one or more excellent examples of a sort of garden which countless generations of mankind have delighted to have in association with dwellings—a frankly man-made thing, expressing man’s skillful artistry and the completeness of his command over his surroundings: formal in the sense that the dominant form of the thing as a whole and the form of the more conspicuous relationships between its several parts are not merely beautiful but unmistakably intentional and deliberate.

We do not question that such a formal garden could be done beautifully in the locality now in question.