Myriad Gardens

[Dustin]

This place looks totally different. I've already forgotten what most of this area used to look like. I'm going to need some before pictures.

I love how you can actually see into the bridge now with the new glass: http://www.flickr.com/photos/5040851...69212/sizes/l/

Wow.. I didn't even notice the bridge.. Cool!

[Thunder]

I hope they make the surroundings of the pond more natural than that.

[soonerguru]

It's been a long time since I've seen renderings, but are they going to plant more trees? It seems barren compared to its former self. This city has really hated trees for some time; just wondering if that's a continuance of that 40-year trend.

[rcjunkie]

It's been a long time since I've seen renderings, but are they going to plant more trees? It seems barren compared to its former self. This city has really hated trees for some time; just wondering if that's a continuance of that 40-year trend.

They sure do, that's why they've had a tree planting program for the past 15 plus years.

[Rover]

It's been a long time since I've seen renderings, but are they going to plant more trees? It seems barren compared to its former self. This city has really hated trees for some time; just wondering if that's a continuance of that 40-year trend.

Where in the world do you get this idea from? The city has been very active in planting trees.

And, just planting a glob of trees isn't landscaping, its forestation. The park is being landscaped to promote specific purposes and create a specific environment. If you look at ALL the pictures available, they seem to be doing a spectacular job.

Also, you can't judge landscaping all the day it is planted. Trees and other lanscaping matures and improves if done correctly. Landscape designers have to have vision. Critics only are required to have an opinion.

[Rover]

I hope they make the surroundings of the pond more natural than that.

I'm guessing you haven't looked at ALL the available pictures or the renderings of how it will look when mature.

[Thunder]

I'm guessing you haven't looked at ALL the available pictures or the renderings of how it will look when mature.

I did look at them. Look at the pictures again and you will see how they poured in too much concrete surrounding the pond.

[Snowman]

I did look at them. Look at the pictures again and you will see how they poured in too much concrete surrounding the pond.

They clearly placed as much concrete as they intended, either the plans changed since you had seen them or you disagree with the style. It is a balancing act between making it accessible, maintainable, building materials and event capability vs natural landscaping. No building project is ever going to be perfect but overall the work here seems quite good and it needed renovation and that brings with it modern building and accessibility codes.

[Kerry]

Thunder - don't you keep fish in a glass tank with plastic plants?

[Thunder]

Yeah. It will be better seeing it in person. The waiting to feed the fish is very painful.

[FritterGirl]

Forgive my brevity (and typos), but I'm typing via mobile. Just wanted to address a few items.

TREES: They are not nearly done with the tree planting. Many, many more will be planted before opening. I don't recall the exact number off of the top of my head, but I know that there will be a net gain in the number of trees in the Gardens than there were prior to the redevelopment. Keep in mind that many of the trees you see in the picture are: 1) not leafed out yet, 2) still young.

Prior to demolition, the MBG manager worked with the landscapers as well as tree consultants to work out a full inventory of trees. The majority of trees removed were those that had either reached the end of their natural trees lives and weren't very viable to begin with, or were trees that had been damaged in the 2007 ice storm and were not really coming back. Some trees were also transplnted to other areas of the Gardens.

As a note, approx 64,000 new plants are be planted in the Gardens. Some may take a year or two to fill out, so the first few years will still look kind of sparse in places.

POND: In response to Thunder's query, the pond is not nearly finished filling, and there are areas on the sides of the pond that were put in specifically to plant native water grasses that that will serve as natural barriers and filtration systems and provide protection and oxygenation for the fish. They're just not planted yet.

As I noted before, it will likely be a few months before the koi are relocated back into the pond since they want to ensure the water is biologically able to sustain aquatic life.

Hope this helps!

[soonerguru]

Forgive my brevity (and typos), but I'm typing via mobile. Just wanted to address a few items.

TREES: They are not nearly done with the tree planting. Many, many more will be planted before opening. I don't recall the exact number off of the top of my head, but I know that there will be a net gain in the number of trees in the Gardens than there were prior to the redevelopment. Keep in mind that many of the trees you see in the picture are: 1) not leafed out yet, 2) still young.

Prior to demolition, the MBG manager worked with the landscapers as well as tree consultants to work out a full inventory of trees. The majority of trees removed were those that had either reached the end of their natural trees lives and weren't very viable to begin with, or were trees that had been damaged in the 2007 ice storm and were not really coming back. Some trees were also transplnted to other areas of the Gardens.

As a note, approx 64,000 new plants are be planted in the Gardens. Some may take a year or two to fill out, so the first few years will still look kind of sparse in places.

POND: In response to Thunder's query, the pond is not nearly finished filling, and there are areas on the sides of the pond that were put in specifically to plant native water grasses that that will serve as natural barriers and filtration systems and provide protection and oxygenation for the fish. They're just not planted yet.

As I noted before, it will likely be a few months before the koi are relocated back into the pond since they want to ensure the water is biologically able to sustain aquatic life.

Hope this helps!

Outstanding! This is great news, and thanks, you've answered my question. For some reason, I thought the designs called for a lot more trees, but I wasn't sure.

[Larry OKC]

Soonerguru's post reminded me of the flack I got (may have even been in this thread) about the "barren" look to other pics of the MG (before reno). The point then was that they were Google earth pictures and are typically taken when there is less tree canapy (to get in the way). Of course that makes since but lends to the barren look (and grass being brown). After living in the Disneyworld area for 10+ years (back in my high school/college days) I got spoiled. When they landscaped something it rarely looked "new". They didn't have saplings and the like that will take years (or decades) to look good. They would bring in a mature trees etc so it looked like it had been there all along.

Frittergirl has mentioned that the reno will be a combo of sorts with new plantings (that we see in the above pics) and established (but possibly relocated) inventory as well.

[Doug Loudenback]

Forgive my brevity (and typos), but I'm typing via mobile. Just wanted to address a few items.

TREES: They are not nearly done with the tree planting. Many, many more will be planted before opening. I don't recall the exact number off of the top of my head, but I know that there will be a net gain in the number of trees in the Gardens than there were prior to the redevelopment. Keep in mind that many of the trees you see in the picture are: 1) not leafed out yet, 2) still young.

Prior to demolition, the MBG manager worked with the landscapers as well as tree consultants to work out a full inventory of trees. The majority of trees removed were those that had either reached the end of their natural trees lives and weren't very viable to begin with, or were trees that had been damaged in the 2007 ice storm and were not really coming back. Some trees were also transplnted to other areas of the Gardens.

As a note, approx 64,000 new plants are be planted in the Gardens. Some may take a year or two to fill out, so the first few years will still look kind of sparse in places.

POND: In response to Thunder's query, the pond is not nearly finished filling, and there are areas on the sides of the pond that were put in specifically to plant native water grasses that that will serve as natural barriers and filtration systems and provide protection and oxygenation for the fish. They're just not planted yet.

As I noted before, it will likely be a few months before the koi are relocated back into the pond since they want to ensure the water is biologically able to sustain aquatic life.

Hope this helps!

Frittergirl, I just want to say that I think that you guys are doing an absolutely outstanding job and in a very small amount of time. When done, it will simply be stunning for both residents and visitors.

One thing I'm not clear about ... where will the ice skating rink be located? I suppose that I could be less lazy and look for a drawing ... but if you could zone in on one of the photos in the recent (or other) photoshoots that show it, that would be great.

[FritterGirl]

Hey Doug,

Here's a link to a pdf rendering of where all of the Garens' features will be. Feel free to grab it for your archives, if you'd like.

Essentially, the ice skating rink will be on the All Season's Plaza just north of the restaurant, and south of the Meinders Garden on the Gardens' east edge, across from the Cox Convention Center.

The plaza will be an outdoor eating plaza in the summer and will feature a small reflecting pond. In the winter, an ice skating rink will be placed on top of the area.

That area was still very much under demo when we walked by the other day. In fact, when the Gardens reopen in April, the majority of the East side (east of the East lake) will still be closed off for construction.

[FritterGirl]

Comments on some of the photos (and I'm just adding flickr links since I'm notoriously bad at uploading photos here):

Northeast Entrance: This will be a --> grand entry portal on the Northeast Corner of the Gardens. All of the stone there is taken from natural water areas in and around Northeastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, so is very much reflective of the topography and landscape of that part of the state. The plant materials in this area (Meinders Garden / Meinders Meadow) will also be reflective of this part of the state. The landscape architect who did this part of the work (Murase and Associates) hand picked these stones and measured them out to create this structure. An entry portal sign will go around here somewhere, and the rocks themselves are a water feature, so water will cascade down them and go into runnels that will run to other parts of the Gardens.

The sandstone walls that you see are also a --> water feature. Water will trickle down from slats in the walls and flow down into runnels (you can see one at the bottom of the wall in this photo). The runnels will run in several places through the Gardens and will flow into larger stream-like features that will empty into the Meinders Gardens pond, or the main MBG lake.

This photo is of the --> WAVE FOUNTAIN that I mentioned in an earlier post. Each of the individual pieces of granite were hand cut, numbered, and then put in place like a puzzle. The water in this fountain is dispersed via a computerized ultrasonic pressure that causes the water to create "shapes" in the top of the pool. The water will then run down the sides and collect for filtration and recirculation. Shapes can be anything, really, that we want them to be.

This is another stone --> WATER FEATURE that is on the north border of the East Lake. Water from the main entry portal, as well as the runnels from the walls, will collect here and run into the lake from this water fall feature, tying the two together.

Lastly, in --> THIS PHOTO I want to point out two things. First: the tan, sand-looking material in the tree beds is actually a material called decomposed granite. It's has a heavy sand quality to it, retains moisture well, and is heavy enough not to dust up during our wind storms. Plus, it creates and attractive color, that when viewed in multiple beds, gives an architectural shape and dimension to the Gardens. Second: You can clearly see in this photo some of the areas where we will plant natural grasses and water plants to help create filtration and barrier areas for the lake. These are the curved areas that are carved into the ponds. They will be filled with grasses and other materials, and pretty much surround the lake.

Hope this provides some answers to questions you may not have even thought of yet. I thought the information was interesting, so thought I'd share.

[Doug Loudenback]

Thanks for the update and additional information, and for showing me that the skating rink is on the east side, near Robinson, and, fashioning an an east/west line that runs along the north side of the botanical tube, along the north side of that line just described, more or less.

[BoulderSooner]

thanks for the great update ..

[Dustin]

The sandstone walls that you see are also a --> water feature. Water will trickle down from slats in the walls and flow down into runnels (you can see one at the bottom of the wall in this photo). The runnels will run in several places through the Gardens and will flow into larger stream-like features that will empty into the Meinders Gardens pond, or the main MBG lake.

Wow! That is really cool. Wasn't expecting that. This place is going to look amazing! Great update FritterGirl

[jbrown84]

"Children's interactive fountain. This state-of-the-art fountain will cycle through a "thunderstorm" with "thunder" sound effects, mist and light before it "rains." The circles in the ground are fountains that burst up in the shape of flowers."

That's going to be incredible! Everything about this is looking so great. Reminds me very much of the Getty Center gardens here in LA, which is what I envisioned when the renovations were first announced. They did a great job!

[Watson410]

They opened up Reno just South of the gardens and removed the contruction boards/fence between the street and the gardens.. You can see the transformation that has been taking place for the past year and I have one thing to say.. WOW!!! Check it out if your going to the game tonight. I can't wait for it to be done!!!

[UnFrSaKn]

Here's a photo of the Myriad Gardens map from the pdf.

[J. Pitman]

Good lookin

[David Pollard]

Did I read correctly several months ago that the Pavilion in the South Western corner will not be built?

[therondo]

FritterGirl, do you know what enhancements won't be done for the Festival of the Arts?