Central Park Conservatory Garden

The majestic trees of North America were a source of great national pride in the 19th century and many of the entries for the 1858 design competition suggested that an arboretum be included in the Park. Olmsted and Vaux envisioned their arboretum for the northeast corner of the Park - now the site of the Conservatory Garden and the Harlem Meer. The arboretum was never established, but the Park's first formal garden - the Conservatory Garden - was created in 1898 when a large E-shaped greenhouse was constructed at Fifth Avenue and 105th Street. It featured an indoor winter garden of exotic tropical plants and outdoor decorative Victorian flowerbeds. In 1937, the deteriorated greenhouse was demolished and a new six-acre formal garden was designed for the site.
The garden is divided into three distinct styles: French, Italian, and English. The French-style garden - closest to the Meer - features an ellipse of meandering boxwood and pansies, and showcases spectacular seasonal displays of tulips in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn. In the center is the charming Three Dancing Maidens fountain by German sculptor Walter Schott. The central Italian garden features an elaborate wrought-iron entrance gate and a wisteria pergola, a large lawn surrounded by clipped hedges, a 12-foot-high jet fountain (3.7 meters), and two exquisite allées of pink and white crabapple trees on either side of the lawn. To the south is the English-style garden, featuring sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh's lovely Burnett Memorial fountain surrounded by flowering trees, beds of perennials and annuals, and a woodland slope.