A City of Green Contrasts - New York Windowboxes to Conservatory Gardens

Like all large and fabulous cities, New York is one of great contrasts, in its gardens as well as its neighborhoods, people, climate..We stayed at the charming little Gem hotel in Chelsea (could a hotel room be any smaller??) a neighborhood that's a microcosm of the city's greater contrasts, from the gritty old railyards slated for development to   brownstones sporting windowboxes like this one.  The Ipomoea batatas 'Margarita' a.k.a. sweet potato vine, is so much happier and more vigorous growing in the muggy heat of New York than it is here in the Northwest where it languishes. Isn't the chartreuse vine perfect against the brick and cobalt blue of the trim, let alone with the red geraniums and purple wave petunias?

Then there's this pastoral wave of hydrangeas and landscape in Central Park that is more English countryside than Manhattan...

DUMBO is an arts neighborhood in Brooklyn, beneath the bridges, rich in studios, galleries, hipsters and food carts. Residents and shopkeepers are taking great advantage of the river location and the great old buildings - this flower shop captures the area's funky aesthetic -

The formal, European inspired Conservatory Gardens (below) on the upper, East edge of Central Park are a bridge and a world away from DUMBO. The visual and emotional distance between them (let alone the Prada fashion exhibit at the Met I was on my way to when I strolled through the Italianesque section of the Conservatory Gardens) is disorienting and intriguing enough to make me long for another week in New York to absorb it all...

 

Comments

[london hotel booking]

These amazing photos made me want to step into the screen of my laptop. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!! Thank you for sharing all this beauty.