Planting Fields opened its Oudolf Garden to the public on Saturday, October 17, as the estate's fall calendar was heading toward its last weeks. The new acre in Oyster Bay was planned with this season in mind. Piet Oudolf, the designer behind Manhattan's High Line, picks plants for how they look after they bloom as well as during it. That means the garden's first visitors see it at a stage it was designed to carry. The months ahead, when the estate gets quieter and parking fees stop, are the best time to watch it change.
News 12 Long Island reported that the garden holds more than 25,000 perennials, bulbs and grasses. It is the only public garden on Long Island designed by Oudolf. The Planting Fields Foundation calls it the most significant addition to the 409-acre estate since the Olmsted Brothers finished their work there in the 1930s.
Seed Heads Are Part of the Design
Most ornamental gardens are planned around a peak bloom. Oudolf's are planned around a plant's whole year. In its preview, News 12 described the approach this way: seed heads, fading flowers and dried grasses stay in place as part of the design, giving the beds interest into autumn and winter. The plants were chosen in part for their "winter skeletons."
Foundation president and CEO Gina Wouters explained the idea to the Herald Community Newspapers in March. She said Oudolf's work values "seasoned beauty," and that his designs value plants "when it's blooming, when it's dead, when it's decaying, all of that."
The garden opened while the estate's homepage was promoting trick-or-treat tours and a fall 5K, so its first public season runs from autumn into winter.
How the Acre Is Laid Out
Peter Slothower, the estate's curator, has been writing about the build on the Foundation's blog. His posts are the clearest guide to what you walk through. The outer beds use block planting, with large, graphic groups of plants repeating in a patchwork across the site. The center is what he calls the "matrix." In these meadow beds, small groups of irises, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans repeat in a rhythm, and thousands of grasses fill the space between them.
Three mounds of mown lawn rise out of that meadow. Slothower writes that they set visitors at about the height of the flowers and give the eye a flat green place to rest amid all the texture. Benches are also in place.
At the center of the plan is something much older. James Greenleaf created the Rose Arbor for the Byrne family around 1906, and the Coe family kept it when they bought Planting Fields in 1913. Oudolf's plan puts it at the heart of the new acre. In a September 12 post, Planting Fields said the historic arbors had been restored ahead of the opening. News 12 adds that the garden is framed by a mature white oak.
The Garden Will Look Different Next Year Too
This is a young planting. News 12 reported that the garden is expected to change as its plants mature and fill in, and that more than 100 volunteers helped plant it. Speaking to Newsday over the summer, Slothower described the long view behind the plan:
"Part of his genius is that he looks at this plan and he can envision what all of these plants are going to look like at any point in the season and through the years as they develop."
So the garden changes on two timelines: through the seasons, and from year to year as the plants grow in. A walk this fall and another next fall will show different gardens. For someone who lives a short drive from Oyster Bay, that makes the garden a place to come back to.
A Second Opening on the East Lawn Picks Up the Theme
Planting Fields opened a second project the same day. Fragment of the Foundations for a Babel Tower, by Dutch artist and filmmaker Fiona Tan, is this year's Catalyst commission. It sits on the historic East Lawn, just north of the Main House.
The Foundation's Catalyst page describes a labyrinth-like installation drawn from Athanasius Kircher's 1679 Turris Babel. It is meant to look both under construction and in ruins, as if uncovered partway through an archaeological dig. Tan's work also draws on the tradition of the garden folly, a playful structure placed in a designed setting to invite people to stroll and reflect.
Placed next to the Oudolf acre, it makes a matched pair. One garden treats decay as part of its beauty, and the lawn beside it holds a structure designed to look half-built and half-ruined. Tan is the seventh artist commissioned through Catalyst, and her piece is scheduled to stay on view through fall 2027. It will be there for at least one full turn of the garden's seasons.
The Estate's Calendar Thins Out While the Garden Keeps Changing
The busy part of Planting Fields' fall ends in mid-November, right when the Oudolf beds move into their seed-head and dried-grass phase. The dates below run from the weekend of October 23 through the winter.
| Date | At Planting Fields | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Fridays and Saturdays through Oct. 31 | Gold Coast Garden Tour | 11 a.m. to noon; $18 general, $17 seniors, $5 ages 6 to 17; includes a brief stop outside the new garden |
| Select dates, Oct. 23 to 31 | Trick or Treat Tours | Daytime tours |
| Saturday, Oct. 24 | Fall 5K Run/Walk | 7:30 a.m. to noon |
| Friday, Oct. 30 | 1920s Murder Mystery Party | 6 to 9 p.m. |
| Through Nov. 15 | Self-guided and guided Main House tours | Fridays to Sundays; $15 self-guided, $18 guided |
| Dec. 9 to 30 | Holiday self-guided house tours | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; guided holiday tours Dec. 12 to 20 |
| February | Camellia bloom in the greenhouse, per the Foundation's winter guide | Greenhouse admission is free, per the hours page |
The guided garden tour is the only scheduled program on that list that stops at the new acre, and it ends October 31. After that, visitors see the garden on their own, and the grounds stay open daily except December 25.
What a Winter Visit Costs
The practical details make a December or January walk easy:
- Hours. The Foundation lists the park as open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed December 25. The New York State Parks page lists 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., which matters on short winter afternoons.
- Parking. It costs $8 per car at self-serve pay stations. In the fall, the fee applies on weekends and holidays only, and the Foundation lists November 16 as the last day of collection, a day later than the State Parks page. The next collection period on the Foundation's schedule starts in April.
- Seniors. Visitors 62 and older park free on weekdays by swiping a driver's license at the pay station.
- Greenhouses. Both are open Wednesday through Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with free admission and no reservation needed.
That makes the Oudolf Garden one of the easiest new attractions on the North Shore to revisit. For several winter months there is no listed parking fee, and the camellias give you a reason to come back in February to see how the grasses have held up.
There are also nearby Gold Coast dates if you want to make a fall weekend of it. Sands Point Preserve hosts its Halloween Ball at Hempstead House on October 24 and Princess and Villains Day on November 1. Its Four Seasons in Music concert runs November 8 from 3 to 5 p.m. Old Westbury Gardens presents Autumn Serenade: An Evening of Piano and Song with Amelia Milo and Philip Edward Fisher on November 7, from 4 to 6 p.m.
If you want to talk about North Shore homes within reach of Planting Fields and the rest of the Gold Coast, The Agency Long Island knows these roads and these seasons well. Contact Us.
