Please visit the NEW SITE for Flatbush Gardener
The annual City Nature Challenge (CNC) is this weekend, from Friday April 29 through Monday May 2. I put together a presentation on Slideshare with a brief overview of New York City's participation in CNC.
I'm one of the Brooklyn Borough Captains for the NYC Battle of the Boroughs, a friendly inter-borough competition among the boroughs to promote CNC participation across NYC. Following is a list of all the planned events and participating greenspaces in Brooklyn. You can also find this list on the Brooklyn CNC 2022 iNaturalist Project Journal.
It's a busy season for me this Spring! NEXT WEEK is New York City NYC's GreenThumb community gardening program annual conference, known as GrowTogether:
Part 2 of the GreenThumb GrowTogether conference will be hosted in-person in community gardens in all five boroughs in celebration of Earth Week. Join us for workshops about growing food, healthy eating, native pollinators, flower arrangement, planting seeds, screen printing garden swag, volunteer projects, and more. All the activities are free and open to the public!
... The theme of this year’s GrowTogether is “Deeply Rooted: Growing Community Connections.” Community gardeners from across New York City have been gathering at the GrowTogether conference each spring since 1984 to celebrate the start of the garden season with a day of learning, networking, and reconnecting with friends. - Ibid.
- 38th Annual GreenThumb GrowTogether Conference Part 2 Conference Guide
As noted above, all GrowTogether workshops are open to the public. Please register, as some workshops have limited capacity.
This is my first time participating in GrowTogether. I'll be giving two different workshops on how to use iNaturalist, Friday in Brooklyn, and Saturday on Staten Island.
Updated 2021-09-25: Added Links and QR Codes to "Getting Started with iNaturalist".
I'm pleased to announce that Saturday, September 25th, I will be leading two iNaturalist Workshops "in the field" at The High Line. This is one of several workshops, and many other events, they have scheduled for Insectageddon, which runs from 3-6pm that Saturday afternoon.
I'll be doing two walks:
When not out on one of the walks, I'll have a table in The High Line's Chelsea Market Passage, between 15th and 16th Streets. Please sign up there for one of the two workshops, as space will be limited. Each walk will start out from that location.
iNaturalist Workshop
Hosted by Chris Kreussling, aka “Flatbush Gardener”
Join Chris Kreussling for a walk on the High Line to explore plant and insect interactions and learn about the citizen scientist observation gathering tool iNaturalist. Tours begin at 3:30 and 4:45; please sign up upon arrival at Chris’s table in Chelsea Market Passage. Chris is a Brooklyn naturalist and gardener specializing in gardening with native plants to create habitat for pollinators and other invertebrates.
Note that there are weekend restrictions in place for visitors to The High Line. You must register for timed entry; pre-registration is highly recommended. The only weekend entrances open are at Gansevoort Street, 23rd Street, and 30th Street.
Please give yourself plenty of time to get to my table in Chelse Market Passage for the start of the walk. The 14th Street entrance is exit-only on weekends. The closest weekend entrance is Gansevoort Street, at the corner of Washington Street, the southern end of The High Line. This entrance is just three blocks south of 14th Street.
Update, 2021-06-23: These walks are now FREE with your admission to Wave Hill! Pre-registration is no longer required, but space is limited. Register on-site, the day of the walks, at the Perkins Visitor Center.
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I'm proud to announce that Sunday, June 27th, I will be leading two Native Pollinator Walks at Wave Hill in the Bronx. This is one of several events they have scheduled for their Native Pollinators Day, at the end of Pollinator Week.
I'll be doing two walks:
Flowers attract the attention of both human and animal visitors. Honeybees, bumblebees, and butterflies are easily spotted in the garden but solitary bees, beetles, and other native pollinators are often overlooked. Learn about pollination and observe native pollinators busy at work in the garden with naturalist and gardener Chris Kreussling. Ages 10 and older welcome with an adult. Native Pollinators Day event.
Registration required, onsite on the day of the walk, at the Perkins Visitor Center. Space is limited. Questions? Please email us at information@wavehill.org or call 718.549.3200 x251.
Today, the New York State Departments of Agriculture and Markets (DAM) and Environmental Conservation (DEC) confirmed the first-ever discovery of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) in New York City in Prospect Park. Of an initial survey of 10 suspected trees in Prospect Park by Prospect Park Alliance—the non-profit that cares for the Park in partnership with the City, three were confirmed to be infested by this invasive pest by a Cornell University researcher.
High Performance Landscape Guidelines is the first document of its kind in the nation: a comprehensive, municipal design primer for sustainable parks and open space. The product of a unique partnership between the Parks Department and the Design Trust, a nonprofit organization that helped create sustainable guidelines for NYC buildings, High Performance Landscape Guidelines covers every aspect of creating sustainable parks, from design to construction to maintenance, and feature many best practices for managing soil, water, and vegetation resources.The Guidelines, running over 270 pages, cover site assessment; design, construction and maintenance; and soils, water and vegetation. the final section of the manual includes several case studies, including two of Brooklyn's Parks: Calvert Vaux and Canarsie Parks.
- Press Release, January 6, 2011
Climate change threatens the stability and longevity of New York City’s infrastructure, buildings, and parks; it also compromises the health and safety of the city’s population. Unless the growth of greenhouse gas emissions is curbed and reversed, experts predict that climate change will result in significant sea level rise, increased storm intensity and frequency, and increased temperatures.[goog.gl]
Two factors will exacerbate the impacts of climate change in New York City: the urban heat island effect and the city’s overburdened stormwater infrastructure.
- Climate Change and 21st Century Parks, Part 1, Guidelines
| Location | Address | th>Service|
|---|---|---|
| The Amazing Garden* | Columbia Street at Carroll Street | Chipping |
| Cobble Hill Park* | Verandah Place & Clinton Street | Chipping |
| Coffey Park | Dwight Street & Verona Street | Drop-off only |
| Fort Greene Park* | Washington Pk. & Willoughby Avenue | Chipping |
| Green-Wood Cemetery | 25th Street & 4th Avenue | Drop-off only |
| Hattie Carthan Garden* | Across from Von King Park: Lafayette Avenue & Clifton Place | Chipping |
| Lincoln Terrace Park | Buffalo Avenue between East New York Avenue & Eastern Parkway | Drop-off only |
| Maria Hernandez Park | Knickerbocker Avenue & Suydam Street | Drop-off only |
| Marine Park* | Avenue U & East 33rd Street | Chipping |
| McCarren Park* | Driggs Avenue & Lorimer Street | Chipping |
| McGolrick Park | Monitor Street & Driggs Avenue | Drop-off only |
| Owl's Head Park* | Colonial Road & 68th Street | Chipping |
| Prospect Heights Community Garden | 252-256 St. Marks Avenue | Drop-off only |
| Prospect Park* | Third Street at Prospect Park West | Chipping |
| Prospect Park Circle* | Parkside Avenue & Prospect Park Southwest | Chipping |
| Sunset Park | 44th Street & 6th Avenue | Drop-off only |
From Friday, May 1, to Saturday, May 9, we're celebrating the hundreds of native flowers, trees, shrubs and grasses in the Big Apple. Take advantage of the spring weather, and come out for a week of environmental learning, with free activities, walks, and talks galore.I'm proud that this year, for the first time, I've been invited to participate in an official capacity. This Saturday morning, May 1, I'll be on-hand at the information booth at Union Square to help answer questions and provide information about native plants.
At least 50 varieties of native plants are locally extinct or nearing elimination, say project scientists. Nuttall’s mudflower (Micranthemum micranthemoides), last collected from the region in 1918, is likely extinct throughout its former range. Scarlet Indian paintbrush (Castilleja coccinea), pennywort (Obolaria virginica), sidebells wintergreen (Orthilia secunda), and sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) are among the wildflower species to have seriously declined in the region. Black crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) is locally extinct, without a trace of a population remaining today in the New York City metropolitan area.The story has been widely covered in blogs and other media, including New York Times Science. I've included the complete press release below for reference.
- Some Plants Native to NYC Area Have Become Locally Extinct As New Flora Has Moved In, Finds Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Press Release, 2010-04-05
