The High Line’s gardens are lush with blooms and green growth in the summer. Photo by Juan Valentin

There’s nothing like a brutal, overlong winter to make one appreciate a summer garden. On those days when the sun is hot and you’re tempted to hurry by beautiful blooms, remember this. And this. And that mid-April snow-ice-storm that brought our long-awaited #CrocusWatch2014 to a harsh and unceremonious end.

Treasure the miracle that is the summer garden.

In the summertime, the High Line’s gardens are so lush and prolific that the landscape appears to transform practically overnight. Our bloom lists – updated monthly – and Plant of the Week features are very helpful for to keeping up with our changing landscape. But if you’d simply like to revel in the wild splendor of the summer garden, we hope you’ll enjoy these images by High Line Photographers paired with quotes from some of our favorite artists, writers, and thinkers.

A High Line gardener tends to plants in the Chelsea Grasslands, near West 18th Street. Photo by Juan Valentin

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” —Claude Monet

A coneflower gets ready for its close-up. Photo by Mike Tschappat

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment.” —Georgia O’Keeffe

Parker’s Variety fernleaf yarrow (Achillea filipendulina ‘Parker’s Variety’) bloom among Marianne Vitale’s Common Crossings, part of High Line Art’s group exhibition Archeo. Photo by Timothy Schenck

“Art takes nature as its model.” —Aristotle

Up close with a Mars Midget pincushion plant (Knautia macedonica ‘Mars Midget’). Photo by Mike Tschappat

“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.” —Gerard de Nerval

Gateway joe pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Gateway’) blooms a delicate pink. Photo by Steven Severinghaus

“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” —Henry James

Photo by Eric La

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” —Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”

Pink Delight meadow sage (Salvia pratensis ‘Pink Delight’). Photo by Steven Severinghaus

“I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.” —Georgia O’Keeffe

Photo by Timothy Schenck

“Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape / Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie”

A honeybee pays a visit to one of the High Line’s magnolia blooms. Photo by Phil Vachon

“The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.” —Jean Giraudoux

Learn more about the honeybee.

Yngve Holen’s Sensitive 4 Detergent, part of High Line Art’s Archeo, is surrounded by summer blooms at West 20th Street. Photo by Timothy Schenck

“The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.” —Auguste Rodin

Violet wood sorrel (Oxalis violacea) bloom next to one of the High Line’s tracks. Photo by Steven Severinghaus

“There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.” —John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

Photo by Phil Vachon

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” —Frank Lloyd Wright

Colorful rows of orange butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and Visions in Pink Chinese astilbe ( Astilbe Chinensis ‘Visions in Pink’) bloom on the High Line in early summer. Photo by Steven Severinghaus

“There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another.” —Edouard Manet

The branches of the Grace smokebush (Cotinus ‘Grace’) are silhouetted against the late-afternoon sun. Photo by Timothy Schenck

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.” —William Blake