High Line and Whitney Museum for the Holidays

The High Line from the seventh-floor terrace of the Whitney Museum

The very south end of the High Line, planted with the native American gray birch, Betula populifolia, on the Gansevoort Overlook

Frank Stella sculpture Wooden Star

 

Another Stella sculpture on the fifth-floor terrace called Black Star

 

Mariana Castillo Deball sculpture Who would measure the space. who would tell me the moment?

The 23rd Street Lawn

The fragrant winter-blooming shrub, Viburnum × bodnantense ‘Dawn’ was a welcome surprise

 Ilex verticillata 'Red Sprite' in full fruit

Pershing Square Beams Play Area

Rashid Johnson sculpture Blocks

You Saw It Here First

Last March, I received an email from Margaret Jankowsky, a project designer from James Corner Field Operations, requesting permission to use a photograph from my blog for a design book on the High Line they were creating. She said, "it would be part of a three-spread section that has images of each plant on the High Line." I was surprised and delighted to get the request. Coincidentally, I was in Manhattan at the time attending an optometry conference at the Javits Center which is a block away from the newly-completed north end of the High Line. I usually stay at a hotel called The Jane in the Greenwich Village which is near the South Entrance of the High Line at Gansevoort Street. This allows me to walk to my classes each morning using the High Line. I think I may have been on the High Line when I got the email.

The photograph they were interested in was in a post on an August 2, 2012 titled "Training the Eye on the High Line." It was a picture of Heuchera ‘Amethyst Mist’ with a grass in the Philip A. and Lisa Maria Falcone Flyover.

Early in December, I received my complimentary copy of The High Line by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Sure enough, my credited photograph is on page 269. It was a thrill to be involved, in a very small way, in this book celebrating a public garden that I have studied and admired since I first heard of its existence. I am a big fan of Oudolf and this innovative public space. I has informed design decisions in the public parks in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Later today, I will be visiting New York with my family. I'll post photos of my day there soon.

Now, I know: Chimaphila maculata

Last Friday morning, I took a much needed post-Thanksgiving Day hike up Mount Tom, a 1,202-foot-high rugged mountain peak on the west bank of the Connecticut River in Holyoke, MA. I came across a small stand of a very pretty ground-cover with variegated foliage. At first, I thought it looked like some sort of euonymus but I promptly ruled that idea out. I tried to google the plant by describing it, but without success. I took several pictures with my iPhone and was on my way.

This morning, I was reading the latest post of The New Hampshire Garden Solutions blog called  Native Evergreens and I spotted my mystery plant. Here is what the author said about this lovely little plant: "Striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) loses its chlorophyll and turns deep purple in winter. This plant is relatively rare here and though I’m finding small numbers more and more most of them flower but don’t set seed. I was happy to see this one had a seed pod on it. The Chimaphila part of the scientific name is from the Greek cheima (winter) and philein (to love,) so it loves winter and does not die from the cold." This blog is a must-read for New Englanders interested in nature and native plants. I particularly like it because it focuses on the Monadnock Region where I live in the southwest corner of New Hampshire.