See also The Native Flora Garden and The Bluebell Wood.

The Osborne Garden of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with the Brooklyn Museum as a backdrop, yesterday afternoon.

As befits a formal garden, the plant palette of the Osborne Garden – the grand entrance to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden from Eastern Parkway – is somewhat restricted. The main body of the design is a large rectangular lawn, flanked by symmetrical ranks of azaleas, crabapples, and Wisteria arbors. But who’s complaining.

The symmetry is obvious as one enters the garden from Eastern Parkway. But that symmetry is deceptive. There are decidedly different experiences of entering into the garden when one goes to the left or, as I prefer, to the right. There’s a progressive sense of enclosure, in part because of the rock wall and the rise of Mount Prospect Park. And the light is decidedly different, more sheltered and shadowed, on the right-hand, western path.

With its rock wall and bedding displays, the western path also offers more horticultural variety.

And best of all, it leads to the shade garden. The azaleas of the Osborne Garden hint at the explosion of Rhododendron in bloom throughout the Garden right now.

And just to the left of that border is the secondary entrance to the Native Flora Garden, of which I’ll have photos tomorrow.

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Related Content

The Osborne Garden and Shade Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2008-05-16
The Osborne Garden, 2008-04-06

Osborne Garden, BBG (Flickr Photo Collection)

Links

Osborne Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden< /span>