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Curator's Corner
The Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden Celebrates 50 Years
When visitors arrive at the open gates of Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden, they are invited into a green oasis of sensory delight where they can indulge their senses. As the scents of fragrant plants like lemon verbena, marigold, and lavender waft through the air, visitors are encouraged to reach out and touch a fuzzy lamb's ear or the intricate tendrils of curly mint as they listen to sounds of water splashing in the fountain pool and take in the brilliant beauty of nature's palette. This glorious composition of scent, touch, sound, and sight is the art of the Fragrance Garden curator.
Designed by renowned landscape architect Alice Recknagel Ireys in 1955, the Fragrance Garden measures approximately 60 feet by 100 feet and is oval in shape, with benches strategically located so that visitors can savor the elegance of this enduring "secret" garden. The 28-inch-high stone walls and sunken-garden design create an intimate place that brings visitors into close contact with plants. The west entrance is framed by gates with a dianthus motif—gift of the Abraham Cayton family in 1955, the year the Fragrance Garden opened. Surrounding a flagstone walk and central lawn are four large, elevated beds divided by theme: plants for touch, plants with scented leaves, fragrant flowers, and kitchen herbs.
Caleb Leech: curator, the Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden
The Fragrance Garden is the country's first garden created for the visually impaired and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Braille labels etched on brass plaques identify the specimens, which grow in raised beds designed to be at just the right height for people in wheelchairs to smell and touch the plants.
The Fragrance Garden curator is faced with the challenge of integrating new plants for the collection every year into the garden's defined space while remaining true to the garden's original design. The curator also needs to ensure that the scents of the 60-plus different plants exist together in harmony in the four distinct beds. To accomplish this goal, the curator conducts extensive research and uses specific criteria to carefully select plants from respected nurseries. The curator also takes care to combine annuals with perennials and fragrant shrubs, as well as plants that are most aromatic at different times of the day or evening. Inspiration may come from anywhere, and the Fragrance Garden curator often consults historical plant lists and visits both public and private gardens around the world. The curator also tries to design based on the perspective of a visitor in a wheelchair.
BBG recently named Caleb Leech as the Fragrance Garden's newest curator. Caleb joins a short list with a great pedigree of curators who have contributed to the enduring magic of the BBG Fragrance Garden. "We research a wide variety of plants to select those that fit a certain criteria," explains Caleb. "Color is important to us—and while that may seem odd for a garden that was designed for the sight impaired-we have to remember that color is not just for us humans. Nature utilizes color to attract pollinators. In turn, visitors to the Fragrance Garden are treated to the sound of the pollinators—be they birds, bees, or dragonflies!" At the same time, the color white is important to use in the Fragrance Garden. Candytuft and white catmint, for example, are not only fragrant but their brilliant white color makes them visible to those with partial sight.
As in all gardens, it is always a challenge to keep the Fragrance Garden interesting and compelling from spring through fall—visually and tactilely as well as olfactorily.
Some favorite plants of past Fragrance Garden curators include pineapple sage—noted by Leonard Paul, the Fragrance Garden curator who preceded Caleb (and who is now foreman of the grounds). Meghan Ray (now curator of the Rock Garden) cited her quest for novelty plants such as Vigna caracalla (snail vine) a lovely fragrant climbing plant. Caleb is fond of the wisteria that graces the entrance, the spring bulbs, and the nicotiana and moonflower that sweeten the evening garden.
The Fragrance Garden is one of the most popular of the Botanic Garden's renowned "gardens within a garden" and a striking example of the Garden's reputation as a garden of firsts. Not only can those with disabilities readily glide around the garden in a wheelchair or walker and reach the plants in the raised beds, but children especially appreciate the garden. "Kids' natural curiosity is fueled by the chance to actually touch the plants," says Paul. "I enjoy watching the excitement as school groups utilize the Fragrance Garden as a teaching tool."
Ultimately, fragrance is very personal. A person's favorite scent can range from citrus to spice to sweet—all within the same day! Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Fragrance Garden curators are the stewards of a very personal and intimate garden. They recognize it is a huge privilege to curate this special, first-ever Fragrance Garden. Over the last 50 years, it has been appreciated by all people, regardless of their physical capabilities—a tribute to the Garden's mission of displaying plants and practicing the high art of horticulture in order to provide a beautiful and hospitable setting for the delight and inspiration of the public.
Happy 50th birthday to the Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden!
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Visit the Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden in BBG's Garden Stroll.