Under ‘The Gates,’ This Horticulturist Plans (and Plants) for Spring

Asked, inevitably, about “The Gates” by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the Central Park Conservancy’s director of horticulture, William Berliner, smiled and shook his head, knowing where the question might lead.“Anything that disrupts the daily operation of the park, is,” he said, pausing to fold his arms and tilt his head contemplatively, “not a problem, but how would I say it?“With 15,000 metal bases, it is difficult to plow paths and move equipment,” he admitted. But, “They [the planners] have provided tremendous resources. We have an excellent special events team. Thanks to them, the impact on my operation has been minimal,” he added quickly.Mr. Berliner’s colleagues say he’s just as easy to work with. “He’s the ultimate team player,” said a vice president at the conservancy and a mentor of Mr. Berliner’s, Neil Calvanese.It takes a lot of manpower to keep the park shipshape, and Mr. Berliner and his staff of 90 full-time gardeners would stay plenty busy without special events – even if no one ever set foot in the park. Beautifying 843 acres – 6% of Manhattan’s total acreage – requires enormous effort. And, after all, New Yorkers do set foot in, play soccer on, and cycle through the park every day. About 25 million people visit annually, and Mr. Berliner must juggle the needs of a delicate landscape with those of its owners, the public.“The general public thinks the park is indestructible,” the 46-year old said, sitting behind his desk in a tiny office at the park’s 79th Street Yard (and wearing a green plaid shirt and tie – because of the interview, he said). He called it “fragile” and explained, “They don’t understand that the park can’t take all that use without giving it time to rejuvenate and recuperate. They feel it’s indestructible because every time they come in, it’s beautiful.“The lawns are mowed; there’s no garbage. They think that just happens. We put ourselves in a catch-22. As we make the park more beautiful, more people come and seek to use it,” he said. “We’re always being given more challenges.”As Mr. Berliner suggested, maintenance involves giving the grounds a rest. Periodically, gardeners fence off lawns to allow the soil to rejuvenate. When it becomes compacted, it cannot absorb water and will not support plant life. Before the conservancy started restoration in the early 1980s, failure to periodically close grassy areas resulted in the dustbowls that scarred much of the park.“Some people think we’re restrictive, but it’s a tradeoff. We do rotate ballfields and fence off lawns. Some people get offended by the signs,” Mr. Berliner said. “Practice good stewardship and respect the park.”Soon, crews will begin spring planting, and more plantings are scheduled for in the early summer and fall. But weather patterns dictate their work – not just day-to-day, but long-term. Rainfall, an inconvenience for most New Yorkers, takes on more significance for a head horticulturist. “We lost a lot of trees due to drought over the past few years,” Mr. Berliner said.In 2004, Mr. Berliner’s staff, which peaks at 120 during the six busiest months of the year, planted over 200,000 specimens of flora. That included 100 trees, 1,500 shrubs, 50,000 pieces of ground cover, 20,000 perennials and wild flowers, 25,000 annuals, more than 100,000 bulbs, and 10,000 aquatic plants (seven bodies of water cover 150 acres of the park.)“Each year, my goal is to increase those numbers,” he said. “[Last] year was great. We hired a full-time rove crew.” (“Rove” stands for “roving,” or gardeners who are not assigned a particular zone of the park to tend.) “They were instrumental in installing a lot of the plant material.”This year, Mr. Berliner said he looks to “continue to beautify the drives and plant a lot of flowering trees (Yoshino cherries, magnolias, and crab apples) around the drives, creating themes around the park wherever we have open canopy.” He also spoke of continuing “the restoration project in the woodlands” and of plans to “thin out invasive trees.”Central Park is fertile ground for invasive species like ailanthus and Norway maples, which can take over and choke other plants. Groups of volunteers and staff steadfastly weed and prune to eradicate such invaders.Mr. Berliner joined the conservancy in 1985 as a seasonal worker on the landscaping crew. Soon after, the organization made him one of the first “zone gardeners” in the park. “I spent a year as the zone gardener at the Reservoir, maintaining the track,” he recalled. A season on the tree crew followed.“Tree climbing was certainly a challenge, and I wanted to learn to take care of trees,” said Mr. Berliner. The conservancy has one crew dedicated to keeping the 26,000 park trees healthy, which often entails removing “hang ers,” dead limbs swinging perilously over walkways.After Mr. Berliner honed his tree climbing skills, his boss, Mr. Calvanese, started a rove crew. “I was a one-man SWAT team,” recalled Mr. Berliner. “He had me go downtown, in the southern end of the park.” Mr. Berliner said it was “myself and a rickety truck, pruning the landscape, eradicating all the weeds.Since then Mr. Berliner has climbed the conservancy ladder. Asked about his organic ascension in the organization (he became director of horticulture in 1997), he said, “It was pretty much a natural progression.”“I always had a great affinity for the outdoors,” he explained. “I was a Boy Scout for many years and loved camping. I wanted to grow up to be a forest ranger.” This despite being a city kid: “I’m a true-bred Brooklynite,” raised in Bay Ridge. The third of seven children born to a Con Ed electrical engineer and a homemaker, he attended the elite Stuyvesant High School before graduating from The State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry.He’s still living in Brooklyn, now in Marine Park with his wife of 21 years, an assistant principal, and their two daughters.Asked what it has taken to achieve such success in Central Park, Mr. Berliner spoke glowingly of his colleagues. “It’s about teamwork,” he said.“We trust and support each other, plus I have beautiful canvas to work on.” Christo and Jean-Claude think so, too.

Under ‘The Gates,’ This Horticulturist Plans (and Plants) for Spring

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