4. The NYBG’s Rockstar Roster of Landscape Architects, Planners, and Designers
Beginning with Calvert Vaux, who created the initial design in 1895, through John Brinley, the Olmsted Brothers, Beatrix Farrand, Marian Coffin, Penelope Hobhouse, Ellen Shipman, Dan Kiley, Robert Zion, Piet Oudulf, and Lynden B. Miller today, the NYBG has been designed and tended by the nation’s finest landscape architects and horticulturalists.
Designers had to address questions of circulation and maintenance as well as beauty. An important criterion these days is sustainability. Thus Lynden Miller’s “refreshing” of the Ladies’ Border included an experimental element, says the NYBG. Plants once thought half-hardy for this planting zone are being tested for their ability to survive as the climate changes. As Todd Forrest says, “The garden is alive, which means it changes and grows and adapts.”
