The High Line Opened 15 Years Ago. What Lessons Has It Taught Us?

Be careful: The garden wants to have its own way, to blur the lines and refocus those pictures you planned so carefully and then planted.

Anyone who has ever tried to create a garden — especially a naturalistic one — learns a few things very quickly. Most emphatically, that change is the only constant. But also that the skills of observation and anticipation are the gardener’s most essential horticultural tools in any effort to stay ahead of it.

Try working in this loose, nature-inspired manner in an urban setting — in man-made beds 30 feet above street level, filled with a mere 18-inch layer of soil — and you have the High Line. Those added constraints only intensify the challenge.

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the opening of the first section of that 1.5-mile-long park, built on an elevated rail line on the West Side of Manhattan. And by now, Piet Oudolf’s planting design is one of the best-known naturalistic gardens anywhere, a sort of emblem for the style from the leader of the movement.

In addition to some seven million people a year who visit the High Line, it has attracted another devoted following: a fan base that includes warblers and other migratory birds, 33 native bee species and various butterflies, including painted ladies. The other day, one laid her eggs on a swath of pussy toes (Antennaria neglecta).