A New York itinerary essential is an afternoon walking the High Line, a public park on Manhattan’s West Side built around a defunct elevated railway.
Under landscape architecture firm Field Operations, architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Dutch planting designer Piet Oudolf created a dynamic and painterly park inspired by a larger aerial greenway, the 3-mile-long Promenade Plantée in Paris.
Grasses grow in and around the tracks of an abandoned railroad line on the High Line. Twenty-four years later, the empty train tracks were revived by Friends of the High Line.
Photograph by Mike Peel via Wikimedia.
Revitalize a Post-Industrial Landscape
Photograph by Mike Peel via Wikimedia.
The structure underlying the High Line is the greatest contributor to reducing stormwater runoff and keeping drainage healthy. For shadier and wetter parts of the garden, consider a layer cake of drainage mats with fine and coarse gravel.
Use Less Water
Close the Loop: Erosion Control
The High Line’s many perennials, grasses, and shrubs turn out plenty of waste material that is reused through Fresh Kills in Staten Island and an on-site compost system.
Photograph by Mike Peel via Wikimedia.
Always working toward a closed-loop recycling system, the park recently implemented the use of homemade mulch from fallen leaves and clipped winter stalks; the mulch can be seen in areas of the park where erosion has taken hold.
Photograph by Piet Oudolf.
Design From Big to Small
For more, see Required Reading: How to Recreate Piet Oudolf’s Painterly Landscapes. When parsing out the entirety of a large landscape, Oudolf works from big to small.
Of the 100,000 plants across 300 species at the park, each botanical has a purpose and a story. Or Blond Ambition (Bouteloua gracilis), a grass used in erosion control that tolerates shallow soil and air pollution (an adapted urban dweller).
Select Plants for Hardiness and Purpose
Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed what they call a “pathless landscape” with pre-cast concrete pavers whose tapered ends organically diffuse into plant beds. Is there a section of the garden where clumped plant life could be integrated into an structural element?
Photograph by Angelune des Lauriers via Wikimedia.
Create a Pathless Landscape
Consider Foliage in the Context of a Space
When Field Operatures and Piet Oudolf set out to revive the High Line track, hardscaping and planting was directly inspired by the self-seeded, overgrown landscape that appeared on the defunct rail tracks in the 1980s.
Photograph by Marcin Wichary via Flickr..
Some tracks were filled in with loose gravel while others, particularly points of railroad switch, where used as planters by Oudolf.
A modern Dutch painter, Oudolf is a master of color design but he also considers the texture of every wisp of grass, composite bloom, and structural branch.
Paint with Texture and Variety
Photograph by Piet Oudolf.
In late spring, New York’s High Line Park is covered with deep pink Allium christophii and white Allium nigrum.
Plant According to Microclimates of the Garden
The 1.5-mile garden that runs parallel to the Hudson River sees different levels of wind exposure, light conditions affected by neighboring buildings, and soil depths predetermined by the High Line’s train tracks.
Photograph by Frank Schulenberg via Wikimedia.
At the core of Oudolf’s design approach is seasonal planting and a primarily uninterrupted process of decomposition.
Accept the Beauty of Decay: The Four-Season Garden