Views of the Central Park Conservatory Garden in Peak Fall Splendor

The Central Park Conservatory Garden feels like under-explored territory in a city not often associated with “wild” landscapes. As the only formal garden in central park, the Conservatory Garden’s six acres are divided into three smaller gardens, each with a distinct style– Italian, French, and English– with a main entrance through the Vanderbilt Gate on Fifth Avenue, between 104th and 105th Streets.

The iron gate at cues the garden’s entrance is a piece of New York history unto itself– made in Paris in 1894, it originally stood before the Vanderbilt mansion at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street– and today, it marks the entrance to one of New York’s most unique and historic gardens.

Unlike the lower end of the park, which is often filled with tourists, the garden offers a quiet respite for people seeking a peaceful, quite natural setting away from the bustle of the city. After a summer’s worth of sunshine, it’s also at its most beautiful in the Fall, when lush summer foliage preps for the arrival of the golden, red, orange, and yellow leaves that characterize autumn in the Northeast.

Bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies populate the quiet planted borders of the Conservatory Garden, which has become a haven for local pollinators.

Although bee populations are dwindling in rural areas worldwide, there are dozens of skyscrapers near central park that play host to hundreds of hives whose bees collect their nectar from flowers in Central Park. There is even a hive on 76th floor of the Residence Inn hotel at Central Park, which “at 723 feet (220 meters) is the highest apiary measured from the ground in the world,” according to Reuters.

Many of the trees in the Northern reaches of the park pre-date the park itself; their wizened boughs now create ample shade and noise insulation for those seeking quiet shelter.

Last year, New York Times ran a story about a secret section of Central Park that reopened for the summer 2016: Hallett Nature Sanctuary, which had not been regularly open since the 1930’s and offers a nice compliment to the Conservatory Garden. The garden’s re-opening was the result of work done under the Central Park Conservancy’s Woodlands Initiative, which works to preserve some of the wildest parts of the park, which itself has remained largely untamed since its inception in 1857.

The Conservatory Garden and other “hidden” destinations within the majestic nether-reaches of the park allow visitors to “get away” amid the spectacle and splendor of the concrete jungle.

New York City legalized urban beekeeping in 2010. According to the NY Department of Health, there are currently cover 300 registered hives in the city, and many of these bees depend on access to colorful flowers for food.

Honey bees, moreover, will travel up to 3 miles to gather nectar from colorful flowers like these, which is why the preservation of “green hubs” around the city is so essential. Central Park might be an obvious resource, but even some colorful geraniums on a windowsill can help support struggling bee populations in the city and upstate.