Flatbush Gardener: Gardens

Showing posts with label Gardens. Show all posts

2010-07-16

Twentieth Century Club

Part of Garden Bloggers Buffa10, Buffalo, NY, July 2010

A panoramic view of the walled garden of the Twentieth Century Club in Buffalo, NY.

Dinner Thursday evening was at the Twentieth Century Club, a Buffalo institution that had its origins in an alumni association of the Buffalo Seminary. These roots were reflected in the walled garden, a cloistered garden, where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and company beneath the shade of a huge mature beech tree.

Slideshow

2010-07-09

Japanese Garden, Delaware Park, Buffalo, NY

Part of Garden Bloggers Buffa10, Buffalo, NY, July 2010

Today's Garden Bloggers Buffa10 visit to the Japanese Garden in Buffalo's Delaware Park coincided with a Celebration of the reopening of the Garden.

The siting of this garden is unfortunate. NY State Route 198 slices through the Park, crossing Mirror Lake, on the bank of which the garden is situated. Even when you can direct your gaze to block out the bridge and movement of cars and trucks, the rush and roar of traffic crossing the lake is constant.

Slideshow

2010-07-08

Hope Blooms

Part of Garden Bloggers Buffa10, Buffalo, NY, July 2010

Hope Blooms, The Victorian, 200 South Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York

The Victorian, 200 South Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY

Like Cary Street, The Victorian, at 200 South Elmwood Avenue, is also located just around the corner from the Buffa10 hotel. It's one of the headquarters for Garden Walk Buffalo. It's also one of the homes of AIDS Community Services of Western New York. Hidden behind the building is Hope Blooms, "a garden by, and for, people living with HIV/AIDS."

A complete volunteer effort, “Hope Blooms” was built as a unique garden “by and for” those living with HIV/AIDS. Having been featured in a full page photo in the Garden Walk Buffalo Book, it is recognized as one of Buffalo’s significantly beautiful gardens. Christopher Voltz, ACS’ Director of Marketing and Special projects volunteers his weekends, all summer long, to build and maintain this garden.

Clients and patients help plant the garden and its flowers are used to supply fresh bouquets of flowers to client services areas in our offices every week.

This simple gesture is greatly appreciated by ACS’ clients and patients. It is ACS’ belief that a warm and welcoming environment for its clients is of great importance. Whether one is living with cancer, diabetes or HIV disease, everyone deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. These bouquets and this garden are simple ways to demonstrate this to the thousands of individuals and families we serve.

Slideshow

Hidden Treasure

Part of Garden Bloggers Buffa10, Buffalo, NY, July 2010

63 Cary Street, Buffalo, NY

Right around the corner from the Buffa10 hotel, the Embassy Suites Buffalo, is a cul-de-sac named Cary Street. I discovered it by accident when I was trying to find the entrance to the hotel when I drove into Buffalo yesterday. I missed the entrance, and pulled into the first street I found to turn around: Cary Street.

The homes are detached cottages of modern construction, but in Buffalo's vernacular brick Victorian style. No two houses are alike. And most of them have beautiful front-yard gardens.

Slideshow

2009-03-31

And they're off! (That is, the cherry trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden)

The cherries are blooming at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), just in time for the start of Hanami this weekend. In addition to those already blooming on Washington Avenue and the parking lot, there are four blooming within the main collection covered by the BBG CherryWatch Blossom Status Map:

Prunus sargentii 'Fudansakura': one in the Japanese Garden, one near the north end of the Cherry Walk
Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis', near 'Fudansakura' at the north end of the Cherry Walk
Prunus 'Okame', near the south end of the Cherry Walk

[TinyURL]

Links

Cherries, Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Hanami: Cherry Blossom Viewing at Brooklyn Botanic Garden , Flickr photo pool

2009-01-21

Save the Baltic Street Community Garden in Park Slope

Tomorrow night, Thursday, January 22, is an important meeting at MS 821, 4004 4th Avenue, btw 39th & 40th Streets, 7-9 p.m. This meeting is for the general public and concerned parties to share information and opinions about the proposed new school bldg at PS 133 where the Baltic St Garden is located.
- email, Julie Claire, Baltic Street Garden

You may not know the Baltic Street Garden [GMAP] by name, but many of us have travelled past it at high speed. Here's an exterior view, from 4th Avenue and Baltic Street.

During the summer, the huge, two-story tall and wide, brilliant orange-flowering Trumpet Vine, Campsis radicans, is its own 50mph garden (a garden that can be seen while driving past it at 50mph).

This garden was on the first 2008 Green With Envy tour, organized by the Brooklyn Community Gardeners Coalition (BCGC). At last Saturday's BCGC meeting, we learned that the Garden is threatened by plans to build a new school on the site. Several plots have already been destroyed without warning by drilling equipment for soil sampling to determine the precise location of a new school building.

The Baltic Street Garden was a pioneer garden in Park Slope. According to Jon Crow, co-chair of BCGC:

This was the pioneer garden in Park Slope, originally located on the site where the Key Food now stands [on 5th Avenue]. I believe the garden was recreated around 1980 in its current location.

This garden predated and inspired the creation of many other gardens in the area. This is not just an active, thriving garden. It's part of the history of the community gardening movement in Park Slope and Brooklyn.

It is a public meeting open to all, and we will probably have a chance to speak. [Rosemary Stuart, superintendent of District 15] was not sure exactly how it would be run, but the Board of Ed will be there along with the School Construction Authority, and anyone else who would like to attend. Please come if at all possible, so we can show them we care about preserving our present garden or creating a new garden space within the new school design.

There may or may not be a sign in sheet for people who wish to speak. I plan on speaking for sure, and if you would like to, look for a speaker sign in sheet at the entrance.

2009-01-16

Spencer Street Community Garden, Bed-Stuy, Green With Envy Tour 2008 III.06

This is the Spencer Street Block Association Community Garden, at 230 Spencer Street, between Willoughby & DeKalb, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. This was the 6th stop on the third 2008 Green With Envy tour of Brooklyn Community Gardens last October.

2009-01-14

Greene Acres Community Garden, Bed-Stuy, Green With Envy Tour 2008 III.04

One of the paths defined by hexagonal raised beds at the Green Acres Community Garden in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn

Stop #4 of the third 2008 Green With Envy (GWE) tour of Brooklyn community gardens was the Green Acres Community Garden, at the corner of Greene and Franklin Avenues [GMAP] in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant.

2009-01-11

Cedar Tree Garden, Bed-Stuy, Green With Envy Tour 2008 III.02

The second of the stops on the third Green With Envy tour of Bed-Stuy community gardens this past October was the Cedar Tree Garden at 305 Greene Avenue.

Madison Street Garden, Bed-Stuy, Green With Envy Tour 2008 III.01

Winter is a good time to dig into my photo archives. October seems so warm right now.

This is a slideshow from the Madison Street Block Association Garden at 88-90 Madison Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. This was the first stop on the third of the Green With Tours of Brooklyn community gardens I attended during 2008. GWE 2008 III visited gardens in Bed-Stuy.

2008-09-10

Seven years

This morning I went to Battery Park to sign my name on a beam which will be used in the construction of the National September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero. This beam-signing opportunity runs through 6pm today, and again tomorrow, September 11, from 10am to 6pm.

I went alone. The collective spirit of those assembled felt strange to me. People waiting to enter were talking with each other, laughing, catching up. For many of these people, it seemed to be a reunion, or even more causal, like a ride in the elevator.

Those of us who arrived before 10am had to wait nearly two hours to sign. Everything had to wait for the arrival - and departure - of Mayor Bloomberg. He played the role of the bad dinner guest, who arrives late, so everyone else's food is cold, and lingers far too long, straining the patience of even the most gracious hosts.

While I was waiting, reporters trolled through the crowd. Shortly after I arrived, I was interviewed briefly by 1010WINS, a local radio station. They asked my name, asked me to spell it out, asked me where I worked. Then they asked me, something like: When you think about that day, what comes to mind? I looked up at the sky, as blue this morning as it was that morning. My eyes filled with tears. I choked out a response: It's an atrocity. For anyone to do that in the name of their god is an atrocity.

Ground Zero, September 27, 2001

They also asked what I was going to write. I told them I was going to write the name of the Memorial Cobblestone Campaign I started: Gardeners for Recovery.

Eventually we got to actually wait in line, instead of muddling about in the cattle pen on the sidewalk. Some of this drudgery was relieved by the company of a bulldog. His name was 6, the number. With his underbite and watery eyes, he reminded me of a deep-sea anglerfish. He was very sweet and affectionate. His person said he hated to get his picture taken, but we seemed to have developed a rapport. Perhaps it was the butt-rubbing and ear-fluffing that won him over.

Each of us was given a commemorative marker with which to sign. A magnetic template on the beam constrained the area in which we could write. I had hoped to write the statement of the cobblestone campaign I started:

Gardeners for Recovery recognize the importance of gardens and gardening for individual, community, and global healing and recovery.

There wasn't enough room for that, so I simply signed it with my name and that of the campaign.

At that point, I had waited so long, I didn't know what to do next. I was actually shaking a little, so I sat down on a park bench just outside the signing area. I half-collapsed when I sat down. Each beam weighs 4 tons. I was feeling the symbolic weight of what we were all doing there this morning, why each of us felt, in our own way, we wanted to do this.

When I left the beam-signing area, I walked over to The Sphere. Battered and bent, it was relocated from the plaza of the World Trade Center to Battery Park. It will eventually be returned to the site when construction is completed.

The Sphere, Battery Park, September 2003

The Sphere, Battery Park, September 2003

The radio guys had asked me if signing the beam would make a difference. I don't really believe it does, certainly not one signature. I told them, "it's a gesture," an expression of the hope for recovery. Maybe the collective weight of all those signatures can have an impact, can make a difference on someone. Maybe we can reflect on our own collective responsibilities as a people, as a nation.

The Sphere, yesterday

Flags, flags, flags ... flags waving everywhere. I understand the impulse, yet I don't feel it as a defiant gesture. It feels like a concession to me. That we have no greater symbol than our nation's flag makes me sad. What evil has been committed in the name of that flag? How is it any different from the evil committed against us seven years ago?

Anti-war graffiti on the base of a statue of George Washington in Union Square Park, September 24, 2001

Anti-war graffiti on base of statue, Union Square Park, September 24, 2001

It has taken far too long to reclaim that void. It will be several more years, and billions of dollars, before we can really reclaim it. I am comforted that the vision for the memorial is essentially a garden: a plaza filled with oak trees, waterfalls plunging into the earth where the towers stood, stairs to lead us down into the earth, where we can be surrounded by emptiness and the white noise of the leaves of the trees and the rushing waters, where we can be alone together, and reflect.

[bit.ly]

Gardeners for Recovery
9/11

Links

National September 11 Memorial
The Sphere

2008-08-19

Brooklyn Bear's Carlton Avenue Garden, Fort Greene, Green With Envy Tour, II.10

The Green With Envy Tour II at the Brooklyn Bear's Carlton Avenue Garden in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

The final stop on the Green With Envy Tour II was the Carlton Avenue site of the Brooklyn Bear's Gardens.

Check the links below for photos from the other stops on both Tours I and II. And watch for announcements for the next Green With Envy Tour, which I'll post on this blog.

Street Entrance

This garden had the most-developed and luxuriantly planted streetscape of any community garden I've seen. This has a big impact even when the garden is closed.

Approaching the garden from the north, the first thing you notice is the three story mural painted on the side wall of the adjacent building.

Here's a closer look.

As you get closer, the streetside planters demand your attention.

In the planter to the left of the entrance are the silver-white flowering bracts of mountain-mint, Pycnanthemum muticum. I recognized it because I grow the same species in my backyard native plant garden. In this garden as well as my own, at this time of year they are swarming with multiple species of bees, flies, and wasps, all important pollinators of food crops.

Opposite, to the right of the entrance, is another planter with a different design. Asymmetrical plantings like these entrance planters maximize the massing possible with a given plant palette. The greater variety of plants provide for longer, and more varied, blooms. All of these are strategies to attract both plant pollinators and insect predators close to the garden's growing areas.

Every garden has a "garden is open" sign. This one includes several imperatives.

More ornamental plantings, including several mature trees, lie inside the fence.

Common Areas

The garden is built on a slope. The raised beds form terraces built into the hillside. This photo is the best I got to show this. I'd like to see this garden in the winter.

The picnic area, which appears in the opening photo, is part of the gathering area at the low side of the garden.

Composting

The mandatory composting area. This triple-bin arrangement was the most common. These weathered bins are still on the job. Signs moved from bin to bin let gardeners and visitors know where to add fresh material, and where they can obtain compost for use in their beds.

Glam

Marigold

Monarda

Achillea

Coreopsis

2008-08-18

South Midwood Garden Tour and Art Show

Campus Road Garden, South Midwood, Flatbush, Brooklyn

This Saturday, August 23, from 3pm to 5pm, the Campus Road Garden at Avenue H and Campus Road is hosting an art show and garden tour:

Come view the garden, sit among the flowers and butterflies, and see art created by your neighbors.

2008-08-12

The Greene Garden, Fort Greene, Green With Envy Tour, II.9

Green With Envy Tour at the Greene Garden in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

The Greene Garden is a shady green space across the street from Fort Greene Park. When I saw this, I imagined the wonderful shade gardens that could be created here.

There are no growing areas, just common areas for socializing, and relaxing, interconnected by wandering paths.

The gazebo is really nice. In my long-term vision for integrating the rear of my house with the backyard garden, I imagine something like this at the corner of a back porch, providing an entrance from the driveway and garage at the rear of the property onto the porch and access to the rear of the house.

This garden is a work in progress.

No glam in this garden, yet. It has the potential to become a showcase shade garden. Meanwhile, there some artificial color is scattered about.

Pages

2010-07-16

Slideshow

2010-07-09

Slideshow

2010-07-08

Slideshow

Slideshow

2009-03-31

Related Content

Links

2009-01-21

Related Content

2009-01-16

Related Content

Links

2009-01-14

Related Content

2009-01-11

Related Content

Related Content

2008-09-10

Related Posts

Links

2008-08-19

Street Entrance

Common Areas

Composting

Glam

Related Content

2008-08-18

2008-08-12

Related Content