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Up On The Rooftop - rooftop gardening
Flower & Garden Magazine, July, 2000 by Keith Corlett
Very opposite in style and feel is the Vogel garden in the midtown business area of the city. It nestles like an oasis in full open view of a modern skyscraper backdrop, which includes the Citicorp complex, and provides the perfect foil for a city garden. Surrounded by vine-covered trellises specially designed to echo the architectural vista and circular roof entrance tower, it includes a wisteria-covered arbor for privacy and summer shade. Both structures add a vertical and overhead foliage plane to help create the illusion of a larger and fuller garden--a key design technique for countering the smallness of city terraces. After the initial spring surge of tulips and daffodils, the garden gradually fills out with daylilies and other perennials, which are followed by a dominant flush of impatiens that continue to flower until frost. Weeping birches, upright junipers, arborvitae, spreading Japanese maple, and weeping cherry provide the foundation planting. A lion's head bowl fountain adds to the tranquillity and provides a focal point within the garden. For the Vogels, it's really the best of both worlds, offering a countrified retreat within walking distance of their professional world.
The Taylor garden, atop a duplex penthouse standing sentinel over Greenwich Village, overlooks a magnificent panorama of the Hudson River and New Jersey to the west and a dramatic view of Wall Street to the south. Alone on high, the garden takes the full brunt of the northwester and northeaster gales. Conifers come into their own here, as they can withstand the exposure; spruce, fir, junipers and yew dominate the planting. While the lower level garden uses many dwarf or low-growing varieties to reinforce the vista, the upper garden, a more private space, includes both weeping and upright birches, upright junipers as a wind screen, and flowing ornamental grasses. Wisteria and clematis vines cover the arbors, while Boston ivy and trumpet vines link the two levels. The highlight of the garden is the conservatory, which provides a stately finishing touch to the high scenic grandeur and, to the envy of most of us gardeners, allows Willard Taylor to be truly a gardening man for all seasons.
Going higher in the sky and moving north to the upper East Side again, we come to the Herman penthouse garden sitting thirty-seven stories high on top of one of the tallest apartment buildings in the city. With a northwest exposure, it has just about the toughest climate in Manhattan. All the trees and shrubs are conifers, which gives a reminder of the many shapes and textures available in the family for interesting design even in the severest of conditions. While pleasing the eye, the flowing curve of the planters also helps counter the boxlike shape of the terrace. And as in all rooftop gardens, the planters behind the curved facia are built in modular form to make building maintenance easier. Glowing summer sunsets give a pleasant close to the day for Phil Herman, while nothing is cozier than looking out of the solarium in the morning at a fresh covering of snow on the evergreens in the heart of winter. Who could wish for more as a city dweller?
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