Restoration of historic garden at Newfields nearing completion
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Rendering: Courtesy of Newfields
Newfields' latest endeavor, set to open next year, will almost certainly bear fruit for the art museum campus.
Why it matters: The $10 million flower and vegetable garden replaces a parking lot and restores the last missing piece of the historic Lilly House's landmark grounds.
Driving the news: The new space opens next spring, nestled against the existing historic glass greenhouses where the Lilly family had their own kitchen garden, full of cut flower beds and vegetables to feed the estate known as Oldfields.
- Jonathan Wright, the Ruth Lilly director of the garden and Fairbanks Park at Newfields, says the project will respect the history of the early 20th-century garden while bringing it into the modern day.
- "It needs to be relevant for the next generation and serve the mission for many years to come," he said.
State of play: One of the biggest changes will be the addition of a gently graded wall along one side of the garden that rises to a viewing platform, allowing visitors to look out over the whole of the space.
- Wright said the idea came from touring magnificent kitchen gardens in places like France and England where visitors enjoyed looking out at them from above, usually from the accompanying castle.
- Without such an amenity, Wright said they had to find a way to add elevation.
- Hedges, already in the ground, will serve as the additional walls around the space.
Plus: It will include new bathrooms, a grotto, a reflecting pond, a pavilion and a refreshments outpost.
- The pavilion will double Newfields' current capacity for garden-based programs.
- The museum is working with local artists to create benches and sculptural seating.
Zoom in: The heart of the garden is three-quarters of an acre, split between a cut flower garden on one side, which can be used for floral arrangement and design and edibles.
- The edible side will be largely vegetables that will eventually produce food for local food pantries.
- Five espalier fruit trees, which are sculpted into ornamental designs, will flank the new wall and walkways.
Between the lines: Every detail has been carefully considered, from bathroom tiles that harken back to the Lilly family swimming pool to the sidewalks.
- Wright said they didn't want plain concrete, but also couldn't bring back the raked gravel seen in historic photos of the original garden for accessibility reasons.
- So, 14 concrete samples later, designers chose an exposed aggregate that has a light, pebbled finish that nods to the original gravel paths but will be easy to maintain and smooth enough for strollers and wheelchairs.
The latest: The first round of plantings, more than 1,000 individual plants, is growing in the nursery behind the scenes, waiting for their permanent home.
- Work will continue through the fall and winter, with completion expected by next May.