Hidden Gardens

Recently I've taken to walking over to the Church of St Luke in the Field on the weekends to sit in their gardens. An Episcopal church originally founded in 1820, St. Luke's in the Field shares its block of Hudson Street in the West Village with an elementary school, St. Luke's School, along with a series of lovely gardens.  

Hidden behind tall brick walls is a series of six gardens, all connected by paths that allow you to stroll from one to the next. There’s a lawn, maple and cherry trees, a rose garden, and even a contemplation corner with pink, purple, and white flowers. It’s a wonderful retreat from the bustle of the city where cell phones are discouraged but where one can sit and read or ponder for as long as one wishes.

My favourite though is the Barrow Street Garden, which isn't perfectly manicured (a plus in my mind) and is filled with a wide variety of flowers from hydrangeas and roses to petunias and Lantana. It's also home to a multitude of birds and butterflies (and, unfortunately, bees). Just today, I watched a hummingbird drink from a butterfly tree (can you spot him in the photo?) as monarch butterflies flitted by. I also got to hang out with dozens of little sparrows, who I adore. These guys have no fear, hopping down right next to you.

At times, living in the city only adds to the stress that's already in our lives. That's why places such as these are so important; even in the midst of concrete and taxis, one needs a bit of nature and quiet to calm the nerves and lift the spirits.

All photos by Michele.

Tudor Place

Two stone whippets at the entrance of the Bowling Green at Tudor Place.

In need of a break, I took the train to Washington, DC last week to visit some dear friends for a few days and relax. There were lots of fun activities including going out to Nationals Park to watch a live broadcast of the Washington National Opera Company's performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Earlier that day, we ventured over to Georgetown to check out Tudor Place, a historic home and garden.

In 1805, merchant Thomas Peter purchased 8½ acres of land in Georgetown Heights for $8,000, money that his wife, Martha Parke Custis Peter, a granddaughter of Martha Washington, had inherited from George Washington. Dr. William Thornton was chosen to design a home for the Peters and their children that would befit a family of their status. Utilizing some existing buildings on the property as wings for a larger house, Thornton created a grand building that mixed Federal and neoclassical design and included a marble-floored Temple Portico. Finished in 1816 and named Tudor Place, it would be home to six generations of the Peter family.

While I normally like visiting historic houses, we were interested in the garden. When originally designed, the garden would have been used mainly to grow food and herbs for the family. Today, it’s purely ornamental with stone paths, a bowling green, small dell, and the most wonderful sloping south lawn. I could only imagine how delightful it would be for a child to live here, able to play adventurer in the dell or roll down the lawn. 

There were some flowers in bloom but not as many as I would have wished to have seen (a lone tulip told me I had missed my chance by a few weeks). Nonetheless, there were some pretty little roses to be found as well as massive peonies, hydrangeas, and bright pink azaleas. 

The garden is broken up into different sections, which gives you the feeling of stepping from one land into another. While the dell is overgrown and filled with old growth trees (on one of which we spotted a black squirrel) other parts of the garden are very structured like the Flower Knot, in the center of which stands a sundial from Crossbasket Castle in Scotland, the Peter family's ancestral home. Speaking of the dell, there is a brick semicircular seat above it that's a great place to sit for a spell. Look closely at its wrought iron back, and you'll find the intertwined initials of the last owner of Tudor Place, Armistead Peter III, and his wife, Caroline.

One of the nicest surprises wasn't garden related at all. Rather it was Armistead Peter III's beloved 1919 Pierce Arrow roadster in the garage. Costing more than the original price of the property, it immediately conjured up images of flappers and Gatsby.

Sitting on a bench behind the house, listening to the birds in the trees, it was easy to see why Tudor Place stayed in the Peter family as long as it did. It's absolutely lovely.  

Tudor Place is located on a street filled with loads of historic homes and so after the garden we went for a stroll. We walked by Dumbarton Oaks, which I've visited before to see their beautiful garden (this time we just stopped to admire their lush lilac hanging over a wall and the shiny "1920" lettering on the gate).

There were so many nice houses to see, some with small gardens of their own and others with interesting signage (delivery and service entrance this way) and even a friendly neighbourhood cat. It was a perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon in Washington, DC.

For more information about Tudor Place, visit here. 

All photos by Michele.

The Frick Magnolias

With an unexpected free afternoon today and magnolias still on my brain, I decided to check out the famed magnolias at the Frick Collection.

Planted in the Fifth Avenue Garden in 1939, the two saucer magnolias and one star magnolia are magnificent and as much a part of the museum as the artwork inside. Some years I’ve missed the blooms and was afraid that this week’s cold snap would have done them in but there they were, a bit thinned out but still looking beautiful albeit against a grey sky.

A man on the sidewalk had his easel set up and was painting the lovely pink and white blooms. A doorman from one of the nearby buildings came around the corner and watched him for a while. I darted across the street to get a closer look (I really shouldn’t be playing chicken with MTA buses) at the painting and the magnolias, wishing once again that I could paint (no skill whatsoever).

Afterwards, I walked around the corner to see what was blooming in the 70th Street garden. There along the side of the museum were tiny snowdrops and grape hyacinth while a blanket of bluish purple pansies greeted you in the front of the garden. Both of the Frick gardens are off limits to visitors even if you’re a member of the museum (like I am). One of these days, I hope to get inside the gates and see everything up close. But for now, at least I got to see the magnolias.

All photos by Michele.

Saturday in the Garden

The Jefferson Market Garden in the West Village is a favourite place of mine that I've written about before. Without a plot of my own, I've taken to thinking of it as my garden. Walking by last Saturday I was struck by the sight of dozens and dozens of white roses hanging over the garden wall. 

Inside the other roses were a full riot of colour. Although the stream of white roses were striking, I was partial to these red beauties. It wasn't all roses though. There were foxgloves and alliums and even a voodoo plant (blood red, of course). Here are some other scenes from the garden.

For more info on the garden, visit their site here.

Fort Tryon & the Cloisters

After my first visit to the Cloisters, I swore I would return every season. Suffice it to say, I haven't kept that promise. So knowing that spring blooms would soon be gone, I convinced a dear friend to meet me early on Sunday morning (OK, before noon) to make the trek up to Washington Heights. Once there, we didn't rush to the Cloisters but rather took our time meandering through the lovely Fort Tryon Park with its views of the George Washington Bridge and the Palisades across the river in Jersey.

The park was in full bloom from cherry blossoms to azaleas to lilacs to tulips. The sun was out and the noise of the city seemed far away. Built in 1935 by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr, the son of the Central Park architect, it's one of the loveliest spots of greenery in the city.

Our destination though was the Cloisters, the branch of the Met devoted to medieval art and gardens. The collection is small enough that you can see everything without getting exhausted, which is always a plus. I love the room with the unicorn tapestries but also like the the Gothic Chapel with its Austrian stained glass windows and statues of Saint Petronella and Saint Margaret of Antioch who's missing her nose.

But the real attraction of the Cloisters for me are the gardens. The small Trie Cloister garden was being redesigned but the Cuxa Cloister garden (above) was warm and inviting as was my favourite, the Bonnefont Cloister Herb Garden (below), where more than 250 types of plants and flowers are grown, all of which could have been found in a medieval garden.

Lovely pink peonies, darling little yellow primroses, flowering quince trees, and dozens of other species filled the garden. And there were even wattle fences! We stayed there longer than any other place in the Cloisters. With a nice breeze coming in from the river, it was incredibly peaceful and almost seemed like we were in another country. My only complaint, that we had to share it with others. 

Photos by Michele.