Battery Conservancy gardens

Not 2 minutes' walk from the South Ferry subway stop on the 1 or the R or the W, or the free Staten Island ferry, for that matter, are the lovely Battery Conservancy gardens (Piet Oudolf-designed), and the constantly improving waterfront.

Nice big hostas - H. sieboldiana, maybe, and curved benches.

I didn't visit the huge eagle or the 2001 Space Odyssey slabs...I am not a monument fan. Gardens are the best memorials.

The riotous peony in the middle of this bed seemed a little out of place, but nice.

The plant sale, the reason I was there, featured slim pickin's.

Those high-flying $200 ticket holders cleaned much of the interesting stuff out.

But, an excellent opportunity to study the plantings in the park under the mature plane trees. The curved beds have been delineated by slightly raised CORTEN (sorry, it's always written that way) steel edging, and where perennials are not massed, the formula seems to be: plant three kinds for successive bloom and coverage of flopping leaves.

Bluebells.

So funny. The BBG bluebells are still shy, but here down at the water, in more sun, they are out.

ID required. This is a very interesting geranium: about 18'" high, with a variegated leaf.

There were a couple of quiet cafes under the trees, and I perked up when I saw a cold beer sign near the Battery Conservancy restaurant. I ignored it and went back to work, but I'll be back: the perennials are just beginning to fluff out, and there are thousands of them, in beds evolving from the shade-suited to sunlight and saltspray types.