It was perhaps the best way to celebrate a beautiful spring day this morning at New York’s ultimate landscape gem, which not enough New Yorkers (and tourists) know about. When Diane Schaub, Curator of Gardens at Central Park Conservancy has lead a private tour for my group this morning, we all agreed. She has New York’s best job. Her presentation was so inspiring and educating that we all came out different. More interested, more knowledgeable, and more importantly, looking differently at gardens and flowers, particularly Daffodils, of which the garden contains hundreds of types. The six-acre formal garden, to which you enter through the Vanderbilt Gate, situated at 105th Street and Fifth Avenue, is divided into three distinctive gardens: Italianette, French, and English. Don’t expect to see a conservancy, because while this area of Central Park originally hosted greenhouses, it was Robert Moses, the brilliant Park Commissioner (from 1934 to 1960), who turned it into gardens. Not just gardens, but dazzling New York experience. The Italianate garden is composed of a large lawn surrounded by exquisite allées of blooming pink and white Crabapple trees; the French-style garden showcases parterres of germander with tulips and white Daffodils surrounding the Three Dancing Maidens fountain by German sculptor Walter Schott; and the English garden, my favorite is a celebration of blooming trees, shrubs and breathtaking flower displays. This two weeks are the best time to visit the Garden in celebrating the spring.
