The Jo Malone London Fragrance Garden: Reclaiming a Toxic Green Space
The renovation of the garden is a collaboration between Jo Malone London and the New York Restoration Project, and features a lovely fragrance garden which is evocative of a traditional English garden and full of the type of delicate, fresh scents—like roses and Carolina allspice—that you wouldn’t ordinarily associate with the Gowanus area but that Jo Malone London does. The fragrance company approached the NYRP, started by Bette Midler as a means to restore and beautify NYC green spaces, to partner up and reinvent this garden, which had long fallen victim to flooding due to its proximity to the canal. The result is a green space that features not only the fragrance garden (which has a walkway paved with repurposed stone from the original garden, as well as the original memorial benches), but also, as NYRP designer Yvi McEvilly tells us, permeable pavers, a rain garden, and bioswale tree planters, which not only divert rainwater, but also repurpose that water for irrigation. The redesign was also respectful of trees that had been planted as memorials; McEvilly says that each tree was replanted within the new garden so that they could be appreciated better individually. On the sunny August morning we visited the garden, the flowers were blooming, bees buzzed from one blossom to another, a friendly neighborhood cat wound his way between our legs, children ran down the paths, gigantic zucchini plants were busy outgrowing their planters, and it was easy enough to see what kind of value this kind of green space can add to a neighborhood.
534 Carroll Street, Gowanus