位于曼哈顿西侧的位于哈德逊河(Hudson River)的西侧,是一个名为Little Island的新纽约市公园。这项耗资2.6亿美元的商人宠物项目巴里·迪勒(Barry Diller)设有2.4英亩的绿树成荫的道路,圆形剧场和美食广场。小岛的想法始于大约十年前,尽管五月底刚刚向公众开放。您认为它已经存在更长的时间,您会被原谅。公园在混凝土郁金香式的柱子上伸出河,伸出公园本身是一堆树木,而不是在地面上固定有木桩的瘦树苗。这些树看起来好像已经在这里住了一段时间了,那是通过设计。
Little Island’s 114 trees were sourced from three suppliers, all specialists in high-caliper trees (tree size is denoted by caliper, a measurement of the diameter of the tree trunk): Halka Nurseries, which has two 1,300-acre farms in southern New Jersey; Ruppert Nurseries, a 600-acre wholesale tree grower in northern Maryland; and Hammell Nurseries, which spans more than 1,000 acres in eastern Pennsylvania. There are 35 species of trees throughout the park, including red oaks, Japanese cedars, October Glory red maples, and zelkova “Green Vase” trees.
由于树木必须被运输,并且由于它们已经有了大量的根系成熟,因此播种的时机至关重要。尼尔森(Nielsen)描述了每棵树的众多考虑因素:“在正确的季节挖了树吗?它获得了足够的根质量吗?在它被放入粗麻布袋中,然后放在卡车上的时间,它浇水了吗?这是多少时间?它将在卡车上花多长时间?在将树被运送到该地点的时间之间,我们将其放在地上了多长时间?沿途有很多步骤可以导致问题。”她将自己的景观承包商Brightview归功于所有这些要点。
由于它是私人资助的,因此,小岛通常对公园不寻常。这笔资金有助于支付这些大型植树的奢侈。“I wouldn’t normally recommend to a public client that they put in 10-inch-caliper trees because you could get 10 other trees for the cost of 1 tree, and smaller trees are a bit more foolproof in terms of digging and transporting and planting,” Nielsen says. But even with the splurge on larger trees, they were still a small extravagance compared to the rest of the multimillion-dollar project. Of the $260 million Diller spent, Nielsen estimates that the plant material—which includes roughly 400 species of foliage, along with shrubs, grasses, vines, and perennials—cost about $6 million.一旦通过这些障碍,就面临建造公园的实际挑战,将树木置于地面上是其自己的壮举。当从地上出来时,树木正在流失,这可能会损害其生存的机会。尼尔森(Nielsen)记得一辆12英寸的瓷器枫木或橡木,当它到达现场时,重量约为20,000磅。第二天,当它被起重机捡起来种植时,它损失了6,000磅的水重。
尼尔森解释说:“如果没有立即种植那棵树,它的根部会干燥,它将遭受痛苦。”公园里的树木(一种侵扰,疾病,雷击)仍然有可能发生某些事情,但幸运的是,它们处于两年的保修期内。尼尔森说:“树木是整个景观中最大的投资,我认为它们对现场的视觉上也非常重要,因此,可以说,他们的护理和喂养是非常高的优先事项。”
There’s no doubt getting all those trees onto Little Island was a feat, but there’s also no doubt to Nielsen that it was worth it: “Landscape [is] what people experience and smell and walk through and touch and love [about] a place, especially a park.”