Christmas Dinner at Duncan Genns Senior Housing

This is the third year that Juniper and I (mostly Juniper) have organized a Christmas dinner at Duncan Genns, which is just around the corner from us on Chauncey near Evergreen. It’s a fun day. I was especially pleased that my friend Cynthia Hills from the Phoenix Garden stopped by with her family to say hello and to bring a really good chocolate cake.

Here we go again…

I guess I’ll be posting more often. Read this important article about threats to community gardens.

Winding Down

It’s a shame I haven’t been documenting this view down from our balcony. But believe me, this garden has been filling in nicely — a big improvement from the construction fill of just three short years ago. The purple asters are putting on a good show. Of course, the anise hyssop has been going non-stop for months. Ultimately, though, it’s October, and the garden year is winding down.

Nursery Crawling

Juniper and I went nursery crawling yesterday. Our major destination was the ever interesting Catskills Native Nursery outside of Kerhonksen. This is a rather small operation with an amazing breadth of stock. I especially like their woody stock selection — it’s very well organized and labelled, unlike a lot of nurseries. Last year we bought a Yellow Lantern magnolia and a Saskatoon bush. We wanted another Saskatoon, but sadly they were out.

We stopped next at Phantom Gardener outside of Rhinebeck. I had never been here before, and was attracted by their billing as “Organic from the start.” This place was much more up-market than Catskills Native — appropriate to their area, I guess. Nice, wide selection of plants, from native to English boxwood — much like my own garden. They had terrific bookstore, to boot. Next time I’ll have to budge more money. A plant sale was in progress, so I picked up a cranesbill geranium, an Oenethera, and a couple asters at a great price.

On the way back, we stopped in Hudson to look around and buy an ice cream cone. What a town of contrasts. One block of very clear, very rough poverty. The next was totally gentrified and gussied up. We pulled into a kind of snooty place called ‘Lick,’ which did have good ice cream. Basically, the three star reviews on Yelp are right. The five stars must be plants, not the green growing kind. Anyway, right where we parked across the street was this amazing place called Secret Garden. The guy who owns it — according to his Dad, who was minding the shop — was in the landscaping business for several years before decided to grow and sell his own annuals. They had an amazing selection of verbenas, which is not a plant that I’ve ever been very fond of, but have grown to really like. They’re very colorful, very sturdy and more drought tolerant than any other annual I know. Unfortunately, my front yard is full up. I would have liked to buy a flat — I bought three and had a hard time fitting those in the next day .

Unexpected Growth

Two recent photos — a grass garden growing out of the unused entrance to the Chauncey Street J stop. And a robust cosmos growing out of the soil that collected around a hydrant on a particularly bleak block of Broadway in Brooklyn near the Broadway Junction stop.

Lilies in concrete

Lilies on Pilling Street

This clump of lilies, planted in a concrete tub up the street from my house on Pilling Street, blooms year after year with, as far as I can tell, a minimum of maintenance. Of course, this ain’t no fancy Beth Chatto-style container garden, but it’s nonetheless fabulous. A minor urban miracle.

Back from Destiny

I just returned from two weeks at Faerie Camp Destiny. I had a good time, but I must say living on the land is physically strenuous. I arrived in the middle of another rainy stretch in an already rainy summer. Everything was damp and clammy. The only dry structure is the new kitchen, which Ophelia and Jules were working hard on finishing. All other shelter at Destiny is temporary. My big project was whittling down the big pile of straw left over from the kitchen’s straw bale walls. I used it as mulch and as a sketching medium for a garden border in front of the kitchen — I’m thinking it would be nice to focus on medicinal and magical herbs and plants, but I don’t know what is on other people’s mind. Here’s a before photo, and a shot of the straw sketch for a herb spiral.

Wet, wet, wet June

The rain this month has to be setting some kind of record. This bed in the Phoenix Garden is completely flooded out. Most community gardens built on old building sites have super fast drainage — all the rubble underneath. But because this bed is the low point in the garden, and because it’s near the truck gate and the soil is compacted, Betty Spencer, the gardener here, practically would have done better planting rice.

City Hall Hearing Wednesday, 6/24

This is promising — the NYC Community Garden Coalition and their allies are taking a positive step, even though the flyer is worded reactively.

Highland Park

Highland Park is the nearest large park to where I live – about a 10 minute bike ride. Of course, that’s a bike ride down a particularly bleak stretch of Bushwick Avenue, where the Jackie Robinson Parkway disgorges, and the businesses are all auto-related — gas stations, car lots, repair shops — interspersed with large MTA complexes. From Bushwick Avenue it’s a hair-raising turn onto Highland Avenue, against car drivers who are already in a throughway mindset.

But when I finally get there, Highland Park is a always a huge relief. To be sure, it’s a bit down-on-the heels, especially compared to similar parks in wealthy neighborhoods. But the ball fields and basketball fields are usually in full use; families are picnicking; lovers are strolling.

Ridgewood Reservoir is basically contiguous to Highland — I can’t determine if it’s technically part of the park or not. There’s a struggle happening on whether to turn it into ballfields or preserve it in it’s now feral state. Apparently, it’s one of the few birch forests on Long Island and is something of a de facto bird sanctuary. Save Ridgewood Reservoir is a terrific activist blog that is well written, well researched, and very, very passionate. I don’t know where I come down on the basic issue. When I was there last evening around 7:00, there were dozens of people jogging, walking, and biking around the reservoir perimeter path. All the adjoining ball fields were in full use. Clearly there’s a demand for more playing fields during peak weekend and evening hours. Most of the area is fenced off to the public, perhaps for good safety and conservation reasons, but still, it’s fenced off. And the surrounding forest and wetlands are extremely degraded – lots of invasive weed species like ailanthus and phragmites. If it’s going to be a true sanctuary, it will take investment. Ultimately, this is not really a matter of leaving it alone.