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Lynden Miller : The vigilance man who saved New York ’s public car park
To cover Lynden Miller ’s encroachment on New York City , just natter one of the many public gardens she has touch on - from the Conservatory Garden at the northern end of Central Park at 105th Street and 5th Avenue , to Bryant Park behind the slap-up Carrere & Hastings - designed New York Public Library , to Madison Square Park and Wagner Park in Battery Park City , to reclaiming and raise the former working waterfront of Red Hook , Brooklyn , where the grandiose blooms of ‘ Lord Baltimore ’ hibiscus beckon from a block away . witness the fantastical , horticultural ebullience that Miller has brought back to much of New York over the past 25 old age , it is hard to conceive of what those parks were dilute to before she began her unflagging restoration campaign . In most instances , peak , shrubs and modest trees had all but disappeared , leaving behind not much more than meth - strew lawns and a declining canopy of tree .
Today , these gardens embrace a painterly pallette of plantings that ask for people back into public space - and examine that the renewal of urban parks aid to revivify neighborhoods , boost tourism , radically melt off crime , and just as radically increase substantial - landed estate values . It ’s cleared : revitalize our nation ’s parks is estimable for business and adept for the great unwashed . Miller ’s approach has been infectious , setting off public parkland revivification from Chicago ’s Michigan Avenue to San Francisco ’s Union Square .
Miller ’s landscapes convey back retentivity of Olde New York captured in the Impressionist paintings of Childe Hassam and Ernest Lawson . As with these creative person who found inhalation in New York City ’s picturesque green space , such as Union Square and Madison Square Park , Miller has taught us to see these spaces afresh , in part by re-explain the previous nineteenth - one C practice of seasonal display planting , often consult to as “ bedding out . ” similarly , in her 2002 project at The New York Botanical Garden , where she redesigned the perennial borders , and the 260 - foot - prospicient Ladies Border along the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory , she both captured the planting ideal of the Country Place Era ( 1890 - 1940 ) and push the horticultural bound by introducing magnolia , camellia , nandina , and mahonia .
For all the beauty of her garden plantings , there is always a sociopolitical intent behind Miller ’s work , which is perhaps most obvious in “ The Daffodil Project , ” which she spearhead with the Dutch electric-light bulb grower Hans van Waardenburg . On September 12 , 2001 , Miller invite a fax from him expressing his understanding for New York City and a wish to help . Working with the Parks Department beginning in the autumn of 2001 , thousands of volunteer have imbed the nearly 5 million daffodils that Van Waardenburg has donate to the city since that time , and which now flower in honor of those who die on 9/11 and beautify some 1,000 emplacement around the city .
Lynden Miller should be recognized as the tastemaker for the next generation , which views our urban landscapes and open spaces as its sail . For more selective information on Lynden Miller seepublicgardendesign.com
