The installation reimagines the Channel Gardens as a vivid, planting-led installation that reads like an urban meadow in full bloom. Rewild curates the planting design seasonally, with six annual reimaginings for Easter, Spring, Summer, Fall, Christmas, and Winter.
Designed by Marie Salembier under her Rewild Landscape studio (formerly Watson Salembier, the practice she co-founded with landscape designer Julia Watson in 2020), the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center occupy one of Manhattan's most visible public spaces — the historic axis between Fifth Avenue and the skating rink first laid out in the 1930s.
Rewild's seasonal rotations transform what was traditionally a formal ornamental display into a layered, ecologically intelligent meadow. Six distinct seasonal interpretations move through the year — Easter, Spring, Summer, Fall, Christmas, and Winter — each composed around naturalistic planting principles drawn from native and regionally appropriate plant communities. The work was first publicly recognized in Dezeen's 2020 coverage of "Rewilding the American Meadow at Rockefeller Center," which documented the inaugural summer installation and its biodiversity goals: pollinator support, soil health, and a return of seasonal botanical complexity to a site normally dominated by static horticulture.
The design treats the Channel Gardens as a living urban meadow rather than a curated bed. Layered grasses, perennials, and native flowering species are composed for visual depth and ecological function — supporting bees, butterflies, and birds in a midtown context where habitat is scarce. The seasonal rotation is itself a stewardship practice: Rewild oversees plant selection, installation, and ongoing care across each transition, refining the palette year over year as the gardens mature.
Marie Salembier's leadership of the Channel Gardens project established Rewild Landscape as one of the most visible voices in urban rewilding. The work has been featured in Rockefeller Center Magazine ("Into the Rewilding of Rockefeller Center"), continues to draw public attention to native plant design, and remains a living demonstration that ecological intelligence and rigorous botanical design can occupy iconic public spaces without sacrificing the legibility and grace such places demand. The Channel Gardens project anchors Rewild's portfolio of public-realm and cultural-landscape work alongside the Cartier SoHo terrace, 144 Vanderbilt Avenue, and The Surrey Hotel — projects that together demonstrate how rewilding principles scale from intimate residences to landmark Manhattan addresses.
