A one-acre garden designed by the landscape architect behind Manhattan's High Line opens to the public Saturday at Planting Fields in Oyster Bay, bringing more than 25,000 perennials, bulbs and grasses to a site anchored by the estate's historic Rose Arbor. The new Oudolf Garden marks Piet Oudolf's first public garden on Long Island, built around a mature white oak and timed to unfold with the seasons rather than peak for a single bloom.
According to LI Parks News, the garden is scheduled to open to the public on October 17 and was planned around the Rose Arbor's historic footprint. Planting Fields Foundation describes the one-acre layout as placing the arbor at its center, a detail confirmed on the foundation's own project page for the Oudolf Garden at Planting Fields. The estate sits at 1395 Planting Fields Road in Oyster Bay on Long Island's North Shore, per I LOVE NY, and its grounds are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to News12 Long Island.
A Designer Known for the High Line and Lurie Garden
Oudolf designed Manhattan's High Line and Chicago's Lurie Garden in Millennium Park, placing the new Planting Fields project alongside two of his most recognized works, per News12's reporting. The High Line itself calls the elevated park the most emblematic expression of his style, noting in its own retrospective, Wild by Design, that Oudolf partnered with Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the park's 2004 design competition proposal. That same account describes his design philosophy as one where “the full annual lifecycle of the plant is considered — including the beauty of their skeletal forms in winter.”
That winter-forward thinking carries directly into Oyster Bay. Oudolf's plant selections for the new garden include species chosen as much for their winter skeletons as their summer blooms, and his designs more broadly retain seed heads, fading flowers and dried grasses for visual interest into autumn and winter, according to News12. LI Parks News echoes that approach, reporting that the plantings favor “form, texture and seed heads continuing to shape the garden after individual flowers have faded.”
Conflicting Counts on Plants and Species
Just how many plants will eventually fill the acre depends on which account you read. LI Parks News reports the completed garden is planned to include more than 25,000 plants and grasses representing more than 100 species, while Dutch Culture USA describes a smaller total of 24,000 plants spanning more than 90 species. Neither figure has been reconciled in available reporting, but LI Parks News noted in a July construction update that 21,000 plants were already in the ground, with another 4,000 expected over the summer — a pace that left nearly 90% of the garden planted, per I LOVE NY's account of the garden taking shape.
More than 100 volunteers contributed to the planting effort, according to News12. Many of the chosen species are native to the United States and pollinator friendly, per Herald Community Newspapers, aligning with the garden's stated goal of serving as a meeting ground for people and pollinators across all four seasons.
Meadow Matrix and Restful Domes
At the heart of the layout sits a central planting matrix designed to feel like a wild meadow, with grasses surrounding repeated groupings of flowers, the Planting Fields Foundation explains on its page devoted to Domes in the Matrix. Three raised lawn-grass domes rise within that matrix, intended as vantage points where visitors can look out over the plantings and, in the foundation's words, find “a place of rest for visitors physically.”
Restoration of the Rose Arbor itself is tied to the garden's broader funding picture. New York committed $1 million to restore Planting Fields gardens through the state's fiscal year 2027 budget and the Environmental Protection Fund, the same LI Parks News report states. Bank of America separately announced a $100,000 grant for the garden in February, while the foundation is seeking an additional $300,000 specifically for the arbor's design, construction and continued care — work that includes 31 custom-designed arbors planned as part of the restoration, according to the foundation's project page.
A Curator Who Learned the Craft at Lurie Garden
Overseeing construction is Peter Slothower, Planting Fields Foundation's landscape curator, who previously worked at Chicago's Lurie Garden, according to Newsday. That background links the new Long Island garden directly to one of the same Oudolf projects News12 cites as a touchstone for his reputation as creator of the so-called New Perennial Movement.
Art Installation Opens the Same Day on the East Lawn
The Oudolf Garden is not the only debut planned for Saturday. A 2026 installation titled Fragment of the Foundations for a Babel Tower, created by Dutch visual artist and filmmaker Fiona Tan, opens the same day on Planting Fields' historic East Lawn, just north of the main house, per News12. The piece draws on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel and features a labyrinth-like arrangement that appears simultaneously under construction and in ruins, inviting visitors to stroll and meditate through the site, with films by Tan featured there as well. It remains on view through September 2027.
The installation is part of Planting Fields' Catalyst program, launched in 2020 to commission contemporary artists for site-specific work across the 409-acre estate, which was shaped in the 1930s by the Olmsted Brothers firm after being developed by the Coe family, who supported artists and creative work of their era, News12 reports. Together, the new garden and the Babel Tower installation reflect what the outlet describes as Planting Fields' effort to connect its historic legacy with contemporary art and design — a pairing organizers expect to keep evolving as the young plantings mature and fill out the landscape in the years ahead.
