Hope Blooms

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

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


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.

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Hidden Treasure

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

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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.

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Shufflin' Off ...

Today I'm driving from Syracuse to Buffalo, New York, to attend Garden Bloggers Buffa10, the third annual meetup of North American (U.S and Canada) garden bloggers. The first was two years ago in Austin, Texas. I attended last year's Chicago Spring Fling and had a blast.

Buffa10 runs from tomorrow, Thursday, July 8 through Sunday, July 11, in the middle of Buffalo's all-garden blowout, Garden Walk Buffalo, the largest garden tour in the U.S. With more than 350 gardens on display, we'll only get to visit a handful in our four days.

Be Green Organic Yards NY

The New York Sate Department of Environmental Conservation announced a new initiative to encourage the use of sustainable gardening and yard care practices.



Be Green(sm) Organic Yards NY will provide training and licensing. Businesses complying with their practices will be able to display the Be Green logo. DEC is also enlisting course providers to deliver the training.

I hope their program includes eliminating leaf-blowers.

From the July 2010 issue of NYS DEC's online magazine, Environment DEC:

NY's Invasive Species Plan Announced

Chelidonium majus, Lesser Celandine, growing in my garden, June 2006.


The plan will create the first-ever official lists of invasive species, both plant and animal, and create the legal authority to enforce controls as state regulations.

h/t @BuggedDoc

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Press Release

Monday, June 28, 2010
Contact: Jessica Ziehm
518-457-3136
jessica.ziehm@agmkt.state.ny.us

COUNCIL RELEASES PLAN TO COMBAT INVASIVE SPECIES IN NYS
Report Identifies New Process to Categorize Non-Native Invasive Species

The New York State Invasive Species Council today submitted its final report to Governor David A. Paterson and the State Legislature. The report, titled “A Regulatory System for Non-Native Species,” recommends giving the Council authority to develop regulations for a new process that will prevent the importation and/or release of non-native invasive species in New York’s waterways, forests and farmlands.

The report, prepared by the nine-agency Council and co-led by the Department of Agriculture and Markets and the Department of Environmental Conservation, introduces a new process for assessing each invasive species for its level of threat, its socioeconomic value, and for categorizing them into distinct lists for appropriate action.

BBG Celebrates Native Plants Throughout July

Native Rhododendrons blooming in BBG's Native Flora Garden, May, 2009

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Press Release

Celebrating Our Backyard: Brooklyn Botanic Garden Presents Native Plant Month, July 2010

Brooklyn, NY—June 29, 2010—This spring, the results of a 20-year study of the flora of the New York metropolitan region by Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) found many native species locally extinct or in precipitous decline. During the month of July, BBG will highlight the region’s native flora, displaying its beauty, explaining its importance, drawing attention to its plight, and providing simple ways to help in its restoration. BBG’s knowledgeable horticulturists and scientists will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the power of the native plant through field trips, workshops, and other insightful classes and lectures.

In 1911, the “Local Flora Section” was the first garden to open to the public at BBG. Since then, the Garden has maintained its commitment to the study and conservation of locally native plants, most recently through its multiyear New York Metropolitan Flora project (NYMF), in which nearly every species growing within a 50-mile radius of the city was cataloged and mapped. Many of the native plants in the study—which found a significant number of species in perilous decline—are propagated in the Native Flora Garden, as the Local Flora Section is known today, in an effort to conserve them.

June 16: Community Visioning Workshop for a new Communal Garden

The Parsonage at the Flatbush Reformed Church is the proposed site for a new communal garden.

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This Wednesday, June 16 at 6pm

Are you a gardener, or have you always wanted to get your hands in the dirt?
Sustainable Flatbush is collaborating with the Flatbush Reformed Church to create a new community garden!

Join us in a creative brainstorming session to plan this new neighborhood green space!

WHAT: Community Garden Visioning Meeting
WHEN: Wednesday June 16th at 6pm
WHERE: Flatbush Reformed Church, 890 Flatbush Avenue (at Church Ave.)

Refreshments and childcare will be provided!

What to expect at the meeting:

* see the garden location!
* contribute your ideas for what the garden will be
* what we can grow (flowers? herbs? vegetables?)
* how we can best use the space we have
* how we will build and maintain the garden
* learn how you can get involved!

Sign up here to attend a Visioning Meeting and keep up-to-date on news related to the garden.

For more information: 718-208-0575 / info@sustainableflatbush.org

Recipe: Macerated Strawberries

I made this yesterday for dessert for the visit of a high school friend, whom I haven't see in some decades. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of this. Another time.

I got the original recipe from a Greenmarket flyer a couple of years ago. It's one of my favorite ways to prepare strawberries. It's a great cool dessert for hot summer days. It can also be prepared hours ahead of time, even the day before, then assembled just before serving.

Maceration is one of those cool, unusual words that sounds a little gross, but precisely describes what's going on. It refers to the period of letting the strawberries soak with the vinegar-sugar mixture, which blends the flavors.

Got Snails?

Garden Snail along the Shady Path, May 2010


I was contacted on behalf of an urban nature educator who needs snails. She has a project this weekend on Governor's Island to create snailariums. Who knew?! She got some snails, but not enough.

We are a neighborhood with a surfeit of snails. With yesterday's rain, and more predicted today, it should be a good time to collect. If you're interested in participating, see the original request from Wild Gotham Fran on the Brownstoner Garden Forum:

I am teaching a workshop at the Figment Arts Festival (6/11-13) on Governor's Island on how to upcycle a shoebox into a posh house for a common garden snail. I am an urban nature educator and have a web show called Wild Gotham that focuses on everyday wildlife in NYC. If you have excess snails, I would love to come get them at your convenience or you could drop off at my house in Park Slope. Snails will be displayed at Figment and afterward released into my backyard where, along with all the others, they will devour my plants. Thank you in advance.- Fran

Tree Snail, Hattie Carthan Community Garden, Bed-Stuy, October 2008

Help Envision a New Garden: Sunday, June 6

Update: June 16: Community Visioning Workshop for a new Communal Garden

Update, 2010.06.04: Added information about the site.
Update, 2010.06.03: Added registration link.

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The Parsonage, Flatbush Reformed Church, 2103 Kenmore Terrace, corner of East 21st Street, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Thus Sunday, June 6, from 4-6pm, we'll be holding the first of two Community Visioning Workshops for a new communal garden on the grounds of the landmarked Flatbush Reformed Church. One site is a small, fenced-off area. The other is the front lawn of the Parsonage. This landmarked historic building was built in 1853 - though portions of it may be even older - and moved to this site in 1913.

Front lawn, looking east from East 21st Street


The main area is the front lawn of the Parsonage. It's a large area, about 25-feet deep, from the fence along Kenmore Terrace to the porch of the house, and about 85-feet long, from East 21st Street to the Church parking lot. There are opportunities to further develop the buffer plantings, 3-1/2-feet between the fence and the sidewalk, that Church members have already established.

Buffer Plantings, looking from the entrance gate toward East 21st Street


The site is dominated by large, mature Oak trees lining the fence on Kenmore Terrace and East 21st Street. These cast dense shade, and working with this constraint will be one of the challenges for designing the garden and plantings. I have a lot of experience with urban shade gardens, and see the potential in this site.