Barnes stresses that it will take time for the plantings to “settle in” and for the powerful architectural form of the foliage to be fully realized. He anticipates that the garden will, in maturity, be a mysterious place, shadowy and romantic.
European parterre gardens were often completely enclosed, containing decorative plantings and patterns to be admired from outside the garden. Barnes instead created unembellished outdoor galleries to walk through. In this way, the minimal architecture of the Walker extends itself into the garden. The analogy to the Walker design is continued in the carefully planned openings in the court’s hedges to frame views of sculptures within, an effect not unlike Barnes’s placement of wide doorways between the Walker’s galleries to give glimpses of the next floor. Noting the deliberate break Barnes made with the Olmsed-style naturalism of other Minneapolis parks, Friedman describes their shared goal of a “museum character” for the sculpture garden: “There is an outside museum as well as an inside museum.” (3)
To provide this strong architectonic framework, Peter Rothschild selected trees such as the Glenleven Littleleaf linden, which would lend them to pruning. Rothschild and associate Claudia Thornton obtained no fewer than 875 arborvitae, 200 Black Hills spruce trees, and 70 linden trees. A constraint on the landscape architects was the stipulation that the garden have no floral displays, nothing to compete with the sculpture.
Extensive grading of the site was required to achieve the terracing of the courts, which step down to the north. The granite planters sharply define the grade. The same granite that paved the Walker’s roof terraces is used for the garden’s stairs and planter walls. In contrast to the predominantly European character of the garden, Rothschild found inspiration for the low stone walls in New England. The rustic effect of a split-faced stone appealed to him, as he explains, the idea was to soften the effect of the walls by making them seem more like the kind of walls that a farmer in New England might have laid. The battered walls are self-supporting and lay with soil, allowing for natural movement as the ground freezes and thaws.