Lurie Garden Maintaining a naturalistic garden in a public space

by Heather Prince

Lurie Garden is a beloved garden space within Millennium Park that has served as an inspiration for visitors since it opened in 2004. It has showcased the naturalistic style of its designer, Piet Oudolf, and enchanted guests with its rich four-season palette of plants. When you go, notice that it is tucked behind the Shoulder Hedge of deciduous and evergreen trees to shield it from heavy pedestrian traffic moving through the exceptionally popular Millennium Park. The Seam is the pedestrian path that bisects the garden into the Light Plate to the west and the Dark Plate to the east and provides a strolling experience. The Light Plate is designed to be bold, dry, and bright and allow for an experience of vistas and views. The plantings are an ever-shifting palette of perennials and bulbs that offer dramatic sweeps of blooms and intertwined textures. The Dark Plate is filled with trees underplanted in

shrubs and perennials to evoke a feeling of lush coolness and soft, filtered light.

Facing the challenge

As a naturalistic planting, Lurie Garden presents both rewards and challenges for the horticulturists, volunteers, and staff who care for it. We spoke with Director & Head Horticulturist Laura Ekasetya about the different strategies they employ.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is anticipating and managing the expectations of visitors, city officials, and park district staff. The Lurie Garden staff is in a unique position. Instead of being subject to changing out plantings, “The expectation is to fulfill Oudolf’s vision for the garden; how to have a wild garden without pushing the envelope too far. (continued on page 42)

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They grew accustomed to our face “The first couple of years people didn’t like it. It takes time for perennial plants to fill in. By the third year, everyone loved it,” recalled Ekasetya. Lurie is fortunate in that the garden designer, Piet Oudolf, is still living and taking an active interest in the gardens. City officials have respected the goals of his design and allowed staff to keep Oudolf’s characteristic vision thriving. “We are fortunate that the designer of the garden is living. We follow the original designs and constantly ask if any changes or edits fit into that original design intent,” she commented. Oudolf is regularly consulted as the garden evolves and plants create their own communities. “For example, Astrantia is in the garden and it wants to be wetter. So, we let it grow where it thrives, which may not be the original location in the design,” observed Ekasetya. A unique challenge to Lurie Garden is that it’s open late. With that in mind, “Because the garden is open until late at night, we have a lot of plants that bloom white, including white coneflower and culver’s root. There’s also a whole different group of pollinators out at night,” reported Ekasetya. As an evening garden, it opens new vistas and textures for the visitor experience.

Engaging visitors is a key component in Lurie Garden’s strategies to connect the millions of people who visit to the

plants and wildlife. In a typical year, “We have docents

outside three days a week. They have information to pass out on the plants, stickers about the pollinators, and offer free tours. We have 75 free nature programs to engage families. We do workshops. We do whatever we can to engage people, be it in person or through social media.” With a robust social media presence and an active email newsletter, Lurie is constantly sharing what’s happening in the gardens. One of the major efforts was to accurately map the plantings as guests constantly ask for the location of specific plants or try to identify species. “Our former apprentice, Peter Slothower, updated our mapping. The map is attractive to look at and we post where you can find highlighted plants in the garden. It’s been really fun,” enthused Ekasetya.

People can also be a hazard to the gardens. A popular spot for wedding and event photography, “We have a security guard to keep people from entering the plantings for photos,” stated Ekasetya. The docents also provide gentle (continued on page 44

(continued from page 42) reminders to prevent visitors from straying into planting areas for that perfect social media post.

Fostering wildlife in the City With a naturalistic garden heavily planted in natives and native cultivars, Lurie Gardens is filled with all kinds of wildlife. This is another challenge for its caretakers — balancing visitor interactions with the visitors. “The wildlife mostly takes care of itself,” observed Ekasetya. “Ducks can be a problem. We have had to relocate a duck family now and then. They are too cute and people will love them too much. It can create a hazard with the water features. We have Cooper’s hawks perching on the hedge and peregrine falcons overhead. Occasionally, the red wing blackbirds are a problem, but mostly they divebomb me,” she chuckled. “Without people this spring, we now have a fox and we’ve spotted the possums, which normally are quite shy.” Thousands of pollinators call the garden home. “Some people are scared of bees. There is a lot of mountain mint, which is always loaded with pollinators when in bloom. We need a sign in that spot, but we did make a sticker depicting the solitary wasps and bees and hand it out frequently.” In a refreshing change, Ekasetya noted, “We follow Oudolf’s vision. We don’t move plants to accommodate people—we try for PR.”

Each plant has been carefully chosen, but some are more aggressive than others. It’s a balance between allowing plants to showcase their four-season interest, while making sure a single species doesn’t take over. “The mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) can be an aggressive spreader. We dig a trench around it in spring every year to keep it in check,” reported Ekasetya. “Northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium) was originally in three locations, but we’ve reduced it to one. We’ve kept it in a spot that doesn’t get a lot of wind, so the seeds don’t blow through the other garden areas. We also deadhead about one-third to one-half of the seeds. It maintains the airy look with all that wonderful movement but reduces the seed population. Penstemon is another free seeder, but the seedheads are so dramatic. We just thin out seedlings in the spring and pot them up for the plant sale. Compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) is on the south end, and we have it every 10 to 15 feet as it is an incredible architectural plant. We try to transplant some and give away some with good success.”

Some plants are managed for their season of unattractiveness since it is a high-traffic garden. “We might cut back the Virginia bluebells because as they fade, they are unattractive,” commented Ekasetya. One of the signature features of the garden is the salvia river that wends its way through the space, turning it into a sea of purple in June. “The salvia river is another challenge. The faded seedheads aren’t looking great by August, so we have other things that come up through it.” (continued on page 46)

(continued from page 44) Some seedheads may also get clipped, depending on the year.

Lurie Garden is a garden that must look spectacular almost year-round. Oudolf made deliber- ate plant choices so that even at season’s end, the gardens have a subtle beauty in their interwoven textures. “Most of the plants look good even when they are dormant or dried. Plants were chosen for looks when dormant as well as in bloom,” reported Ekasetya. “Multiseason interest is really key in this garden. Blue star (Amsonia sp.) is lovely in bloom in June, a beautiful texture in the summer as the plants grow and double in size, and then turns golden to orange in the fall. Oudolf thinks about the plant’s entire life cycle in his designs. In his latest book, he calls them ‘plants that keep you up at night’.”

The plantings are left up all winter, creating new interplays between dried leaves, remnant seedheads, and airy grasses. In about March, crews cut back most of the plant material, rotat- ing between areas to leave some stems and leaf litter for over- wintering wildlife, particularly insects. “It is a totally different style of maintenance. We are try- ing to make a home for wildlife, so material remains over the winter and we employ strategies to keep it on site. Our only real downtime is when we cut the garden back and you can really see the planting zones and bones of the design,” said Ekasetya. Brush cutters as well as hand tools are employed, and plant material is either allowed to compost in situ or spread out on site.

Although spring bulbs have been a part of the garden dis- plays since 2006, in 2019 more were planted and the designs updated. Jacqueline van der Kloet, garden designer, bulb expert, and colleague of Piet

Oudolf, created the original bulb scheme utilizing more than 60,000 bulbs. Over the years, another 100,000 have been added. Last fall, van der Kloet returned to update the designs and add 65,000 more thanks to a donation by C.J. Weijers and planted with volunteers and community partners. These plantings have created waves of blooms over many weeks before the perennials appear on the scene. Purple, blue, and white colors prevail in swathes and eddies of color. Many minor bulbs were chosen so that their fleeting foliage is already dormant in time for summer flowers. “The early bulbs are more subtle. We hired a drone from Ten12 Productions and generously supported by Future Plants, to show the gardens this spring and posted to social media. It’s been really fun to give people a new perspective,” observed Ekasetya. You can also find a virtual video walk through van der Kloet’s home gardens as she describes her design philosophies on Lurie Garden’s website.

“Over the years, Lurie Garden has only increased in popularity. As more and more people experience the gardens, folks are taking home new ideas for their per- sonal landscapes. As they have learned how to maintain the balance between naturalistic plantings, public and wildlife interactions, and managing it all sustainably, Lurie Garden has played a role in quietly revolutionizing Midwestern landscape design. “People want this now. It’s important to learn how to do this type of gardening. There are more and more people wanting this,” emphasized Ekasetya.