Circa 2003, Bryant School was ~85 years old and had recently undergone significant renovation and expansion, retaining the primary building façade. The following is a summary from a Landscape Committee’s report from 2003:

• New plantings were installed where façade work disturbed existing plantings. Unfortunately the plantings were insubstantial, and many plants had failed.

• A program to rid the site of ivy, which ringed all three sides of the playground, was initiated in fall 2002 by the Landscape Committee as the first stage of this landscape effort. Most of the ivy had been removed, and the sloped banks deeply mulched.

• A program to utilize the landscape as a teaching resource, with plant identification tags on every plant species on site, backed up by a Plant ID binder with images and plant descriptions.

The site’s greatest assets are the mature landscape plantings that frame school and playground, specifically

• Huge Tulip Poplars are planted as street trees on three sides of the school;

• Mature Ponticum Rhododendrons are arranged at all entries and site corners.

The remainder of the vegetation (was) less spectacular:

• There are several Portuguese Laurel and a few English Laurel plants that long ago overgrew the hedge range and now overwhelm the other plantings;

• Around the building there is a motley foundation planting of mixed evergreen and deciduous shrubs.

The building and playground are set back about 30 to 50 feet from the sidewalk on all sides, creating a fairly generous but linear planting strip around the school. The plantings are most formal at the north entry to the school on 65th Street, with symmetrical arrangement of plants reinforcing the symmetry of the façade and the central entrance to the school. Formality gives way to a looser planting arrangement along the sides, with a mix of foundation plantings and perimeter lawns, with accents of rhododendrons at entry points to the playground. The southern quarter of the site, outside the playground fence, was all ivy-covered steep banks with a symmetrical planting of rhododendrons, until the ivy removal project began.

In December 2002 the Landscape Committee at Bryant Elementary School (Committee) selected Karen Kiest (Consultant) to develop plans for landscape improvements at the school. The Consultant has worked with the Committee to develop and implement an enhancement plan for the school, based on the vision, dreams and ideas identified by the Committee and extended school community. The first phase of the project was installed by March 2003.