Book Review: Parks, Plants, and People: Beautifying the Urban Landscape, by Lynden B. Miller

Parks, Plants, and People: Beautifying the Urban Landscape
by Lynden B. Miller
W.W. Norton & Co., New York, NY; 2009
208 pp; hardcover; 300 color photographs; $49.95
ISBN 978-0-393-73203-0

Gardening in the urban landscape is vastly different from designing a private garden. That's why Lynden B. Miller's new book is such a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on creating civil, humane urban environments. The book's 208 pages encapsulate three decades of practical, experience-based knowledge on how to bring the beauty and healing power of nature into the seemingly hostile world of concrete and asphalt populated by hordes of people who don't know a daffodil from a dandelion.

Miller argues passionately for the proposition that "good parks have the power to transform city life, changing the way people feel about themselves and their city." Part instruction, part inspiration, the volume is far more than a compilation of plant lists and garden layouts. (In fact, there are only a couple of garden plan diagrams in the entire book.) Rather, Miller paints a broader picture, assuming the reader knows the rudiments of horticulture, and focuses instead on the special problems of planning, financing, constructing and maintaining urban parks and gardens. Not only is the book a must for any design professional involved with urban projects, but it's also is a great gift to inspire and energize a potential donor or sponsor who is being recruited to support an urban spaces venture.

There's plenty of horticultural advice in the book; Miller shares lots of information about how several of her favorite plants perform in difficult urban settings. The book's primary value, however, is in sharing her know-how about practicing the art of garden-making in the midst of the public realm. Gardening while navigating the complexities of restricted budgets, government bureaucracy, community groups, non-profit boards and volunteer organizations is several orders of magnitude more arduous than designing a garden landscape for a single well-heeled client.

Lynden Miller didn't set out to be an urban gardener. She was trained as an artist, and horticulture was simply a hobby. Almost by accident, she was recruited by the Central Park Conservancy in 1982 to see what she could do to restore the Conservatory Garden in New York's Central Park. This was a period when New York's entire infrastructure – including Central Park – was suffering from decades of neglect. Through Miller's herculean efforts, by the time of the Conservatory Garden's 50th anniversary in 1987, the garden was fully restored and greeted with rave reviews. To achieve this miracle required enormous vision, energy, perseverance and plain hard work. And at the end of the process, Miller discovered that she had become – by trial and error – an expert on urban gardening. She went on to design, build and oversee many urban landscape projects, ranging in scale from Bryant Park gardens in New York City, to small community gardens and streetscape median strips.

The author's training as an artist has served her well, because in many respects garden designers work with many of the same elements as a painter: contrast, repetition, line, scale, form, texture and color. And indeed, many of Miller's gardens have a very painterly quality in the ways she combines and contrasts foliage shapes, colors and textures. In Miller's design philosophy, the blooms of plants are secondary to the form and structure of the plants themselves.

Written in down-to-earth language, the book is extremely accessible for the professional and amateur alike. For example, she always gives the common names of plants as well as the polysyllabic scientific Latin names. The net effect of this extremely useful volume is like a conversation with a friendly, worldly-wise neighbor who is trying to give you the benefit of her years of experience so you don't make the same mistakes she did.

Miller is positively evangelical about the power of well-planted, well-maintained places to transform city life and the way people behave and feel about their city. Based on her personal experience, the author asserts that well-kept public gardens elevate citizens' behavior: "They pick up their trash and they are courteous to one another." She also makes a convincing case that good parks and public spaces "cause neighborhood real estate values to rise dramatically" – always a good selling point when you are fund-raising among business groups and real estate interests. However, she makes it clear that outdoor spaces with a patch of ivy and a little grass to mask the concrete are NOT enough: The public space must be designed, planted – and maintained – in ways that declare to visitors that the place is valued and cared for by fellow citizens.

The author is a plant person. She likes trees and shrubs and concedes that they have an important role to play. But she makes the case that plants – whether flowering or not – bring life and magic to public spaces that you can't get from trees and shrubs alone. And she notes sadly that plantings are usually the last thing thought about in many public projects – and by that time the project budget is already shot. The unfortunate result often is the shrub-and-ivy afterthought that lacks crowd-drawing power.

Miller is a believer in the principles for organizing city spaces first articulated by sociologist William H. Whyte in the 1970s. For example, the book strongly supports Whyte's ideas about providing open access and plentiful seating – preferably movable seating when possible. Miller has then "greened up" some of Whyte's ideas with the addition of more plant material to provide greater variety and delight. The author notes that beautiful plants provide focal points for the "triangulation" phenomenon that Whyte observed: Complete strangers in an urban space will often start up a conversation when they are both looking at an item of unusual interest, such as an exotic bloom.

The core of the author's 35 years of experience are contained in the book's seven central chapters: (1) Elements of a Successful Public Space; (2) Mixed Plantings for Year-Round Interest; (3) Soil Technology; (4) Maintenance of Green Spaces; (5) Recruiting & Nurturing Volunteers; (6) Developing Advocates for Public Gardens; (7) Generating Funding from the Private Sector.

For instance, here's one of many dozens of Miller's practical suggestions: She strongly believes a garden should have visual interest in all four seasons to keep visitors coming back throughout the year. ("A garden that is not beautiful in winter is not a beautiful garden.") But many garden designers focus on how a garden looks when flowers are in bloom and plants are all leafed out – and the winter months are an afterthought. To guard against this natural tendency, Miller says she designs the winter look of a garden first – and then goes on to plan the other three seasons.

Continually interspersed with all her useful how-to advice, however, is a continual emphasis on the why of urban green spaces. Miller demonstrates that high visitor traffic is the most effective way to "police" public parks and gardens, citing not only her own experience but also scientific studies that have shown that the most beautiful places in cities are also the safest. And, Miller says, the way you make beautiful places is with well-designed and well-maintained plantings.

My major quibble with the book is the fault of the publisher, not the author. In an apparent maneuver to keep the book to around 200 pages, the majority of the color images are presented at such a small size (2x11/2 in.) that their informational value is compromised. Moreover, the photo captions are rendered in tiny san-serif type, making them very difficult to read if you don't have the eyes of a Peregrine falcon. Many readers "of a certain age" – including this reviewer – have to resort to a magnifying glass to decipher the captions.

But this is a small complaint about an otherwise valuable, ground-breaking work. After reading it, the author had convinced me of the truth of her closing words about the creation and upkeep of urban gardens: "Make it gorgeous and they will come; keep it that way and they will help you." TB

Clem Labine is the founder of Old House Journal, Traditional Building and Period Homes magazines. He has received numerous awards, including awards from The Preservation League of New York State, the Arthur Ross Award from Classical America and The Harley J. McKee Award from the Association for Preservation Technology (APT). Labine was a founding board member of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America (ICA&CA). He served on the board until 2005 when he moved to Board Emeritus status. His blog can be seen at www.traditional-building.com/clem_labine.

OCTOBER 2009 » book review