The horticulturalist

December 20, 2007

"The topiaries aren't real," says Jim Burgess, the horticulturalist at Tavern on the Green, "They come from the set of the movie 'Edward Scissorhands.' Mr. LeRoy bought them 15, 16 years ago. "

The gardens are constantly changing, says Burgess, who, along with a staff of two plant the thousands -- 1,500 mums in the fall and 30,000 tulips in the spring -- of flowers that make their appearance here each season. The plantings get rotated out every ten days, he says, and they get donated to gardens around the city. "It costs well over $70,000 a year -- just for the materials -- to keep the gardens looking the way they do," he says.

The restaurant also works closely with the Central Park Conservancy and with the Bloomberg administration. In fact, it will be donating 10 trees to the mayor's goal of planting 1 million trees around the city. But the gardens are Burgess's main concern, and the restaurant's clients can get very proprietary about them. One of the regulars, in fact, was so distressed about changes in last summer's plantings that he took the issue up with management. Where are the impatiens, Regis Philbin wanted to know. -- Lauren Johnston and Linda Perney