New Orleans Botanical Garden

This guide to the New Orleans Botanical Garden follows landscape architect William Wiedorn, who drew a strict Art Deco design of four garden rooms radiating from one reflecting pool, only to find four live oaks already growing where his lines needed to go. It traces how he redesigned around the trees, the Works Progress Administration crews who built the garden in 1936, and the water features that carry the plan, from the central pool to the Conservatory's waterfall. You'll hear about sculptor Enrique Alferez, whose Art Deco figures still line the paths, and why the city's humid climate lets more than two thousand plant varieties thrive here. Stand beneath the oldest of the four oaks to see how the design bent around it.