Resource: Center for Urban Forest Research

Another resource I just discovered, the Center for Urban Forest Research (CUFR) is a project of the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service. Although based in California, CUFR's research and products are applicable to most urbanized environments.

Our research demonstrates new ways in which trees add value to communities. We convert our results into real dollars and cents in order to stimulate more investment in trees. Using our research results, we create new methods and strategies for managing and caring for community forests to help managers optimize the benefits and investment value of their community forest.
- Our Research, CUFR

Most of our research falls into five major categories: Benefits and Costs, Energy Conservation, Air Quality, Water Resources, and Fire. However, we are not limited to those five categories. Additional research focuses on Urban Forest Policy and Management, Tree Stewardship, Biometrics, Infrastructure Conflicts, and Urban-Wildland Interface.

Links

Center for Urban Forest Research
Pacific Southwest Research Station
USDA Forest Service

Resource: The Sustainable Sites Initiative

While doing some research for a post on NYC's street trees, I just discovered the Sustainable Sites Initiative:

The Sustainable Sites Initiative is an interdisciplinary partnership between the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the United States Botanic Garden and a diverse group of stakeholder organizations to develop guidelines and standards for landscape sustainability. The motivation behind this initiative stems from the desire to protect and enhance the ability of landscapes to provide services such as climate regulation, clean air and water, and improved quality of life. Sustainable Sites™ is a cooperative effort with the intention of supplementing existing green building and landscape guidelines as well as becoming a stand-alone tool for site sustainability.

On November 1, they released a Preliminary Report on the Standards and Guidelines for Sustainable Sites. The full report [PDF] is 107 pages and addresses several dimensions of landscape design, including hydrology (water), vegetation, soil, and materials (hardscape). They are now for which they are seeking "input on all aspects of the content." Their goal is to release an updated version in October of 2008, completing the final report by May 2009.

This report makes three overarching recommendations for sustainable land development and management: 1) assemble a group of knowledgeable and diverse professionals to form an integrated project team, 2) prior to making decisions, conduct a complete and thorough assessment of the site, and 3) integrate land practices that replicate the functions of healthy ecological systems.

Sustainable land practices can support the functions of healthy systems and harness natural processes to provide environmental benefits. The Sustainable Sites Initiative is aimed at providing the land development and maintenance industries with the tools to move toward a more sustainable future.

The Web site provides synopses of the benefits of sustainable sites and how to implement them. The Human Well-Being section provides insight into the particular importance of living, green spaces for urban populations:

A series of studies of inner-city neighborhoods [Kuo, F.E. 2003. The role of arboriculture in a healthy social ecology. Journal of Arboriculture 29, 3:148-155] finds that green spaces with trees contribute to healthier, more supportive patterns of interrelations among residents, including greater sharing of resources.

Links

The Sustainable Sites Initiative
American Society of Landscape Architects
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
United States Botanic Garden

The Daffodil Project on Cortelyou Road

Many hands make light work

Today we planted the last of 1,000 Daffodils and 400 Crocus along Cortelyou Road. Over two weekends, we covered every block from the Q subway stop to Coney Island Avenue. We were able to plant all but one of the new tree pits, running out of bulbs before the last one.

Observe: Experts at work


This weekend's volunteers included:

• Aowyn
  
• Barzeli
  
• Mela
  
• Jan A.
  
• Jan R.
  
• John
  
• Linda
  
• Matt
  
• Ronan
  
• Sally
  
• Susan
  

I know I've left out at least one name. If I've omitted or misspelled your name, please let me know.

Cortelyou Gothic


And again this weekend, this was an opportunity or me to meet neighbors for the first time. The flowers may bloom next Spring, and they may multiply over the years. The sustained consequences of the Daffodil Project are the communities it helps to build.

Related Posts

The Daffodil Project Plantings on Cortelyou Road, November 4
1,000 Daffodils for Cortelyou Road, October 27
The Daffodil Project: Grief & Gardening #5, November 26, 2006

Links

The Daffodil Project

Frost Watch!

News12 Brooklyn is reporting it's supposed to get down to 32 degrees overnight. The National Weather Service is predicting a low of only 34 degrees. Still, the coldest night of the season, and they've issued a Frost Advisory.

Tomorrow's Flatbush Community Garden Meeting is Cancelled

The public meeting about the nascent Flatbush Community Garden (The "Ex-Lax" Gardens), tentatively scheduled for tomorrow morning, has been cancelled.

The owner of the property is not available to meet tomorrow morning.

There are tentative plans for a community meeting before the end of the year. When those plans are confirmed, I will publish them here.

Meta: #4 (The Brownstoner Effect)

As of this morning, Flatbush Gardener is, however briefly, #4 in Top 100's list of gardening sites. As Willy Wonka would say, "That's just unexpected, and ... weird."

[When I started out writing this post, I was #5. It went up to #4 while I was writing it.]

There are a couple of things going on that contribute to an anomaly like this. Part of the explanation is that I've been home sick most of the week. I've had time to do research and write for the blog, and I know that fresh content is the biggest draw for visitors to the site. However, the larger factor in this anomaly is what I call the "Brownstoner Effect."

I use a couple of different tools to measure visits to the site. Here are charts from two of them, Sitemeter and Statcounter, showing page views and visits to the site over the past 30 days.

SiteMeter 30-day Chart for Flatbush Gardener, November 10, 2007


StatCounter 30-day Chart for Flatbush Gardener, November 10, 2007


A couple of things are visible in these two charts:

• Although their actual counts are different, the shapes of the two charts are roughly the same.
  
• There was a spike in visitors and page views from October 23-25.
  
• There's been a sustained higher than usual number of visitors over the past four days, since November 6.
  

I need to dig just a little deeper to figure out why there's increased traffic on those dates. It doesn't take long to determine that those are days that Brownstoner had a link to one of my posts.

My free Sitemeter account only provides details for the last 100 page views. It's okay for seeing the most recent activity, but nothing beyond that. Also, it doesn't provide any quick analytical views of the data. But I can't see the 100 most recent "Referrals", links from other sites. Right now, for example, 8 of the 20 most recent came from Brownstoner. So the sustained traffic of the past few days seems to be continuing.

My upgraded StatCounter account records the last 2,000 page views. More important, it provides some basic analysis of the data.

		Referring Link
	376	www.google.com
	252	No referring link
	192	images.google.com
	191	www.brownstoner.com
	68	www.blogger.com
	65	brownstoner.com
	46	www.livinginvictorianflatbush.com
	43	ditmaspark.blogspot.com
	25	kensingtonbrooklyn.blogspot.com
	24	search.yahoo.com
	15	images.google.co.uk
	15	www.flickr.com
	13	brooklynjunction.blogspot.com
	11	aolsearch.aol.com
	8	www.kensingtonbrooklyn.blogspot.com
	7	del.icio.us
	7	images.google.ca
	7	search.aol.com
	7	www.google.ca
	6	images.google.com.au

As usual, Google tops the list with 376 of the last 2,000 views. Most of the visits to my blog come from Google searches. I periodically look at what people are looking for when they find my blog. That helps me categorize my content better, and sometimes leads me to improve specific posts. But that's a topic for another post.

In second place, with 256 views when you combine the results for "www.brownstoner.com" and "brownstoner.com", is Brownstoner. You can also see several other familiar (to Brooklyn readers) blogs: Living in Victorian Flatbush, Ditmas Park Blog, Kensington (Brooklyn) (with 2 URLs), and Brooklyn Junction. They're all neighbors who write about local topics.

Next is "No referring link." In theory, this should reflect all views where folks visited my blog directly, without getting referred by a link from another page. In practice, this also includes anyone who is blocking referrer information, or who has cookies disabled, perhaps specifically for StatCounter.

There are always some sources of error in numbers. Identifying and removing them is important to me. For that I prefer the power tool of "hit counters" Google Analytics.

Update: By the evening, Flatbush Gardener was #3.

Sunday: Bonus Daffodil Planting on Beverly Road

Sunday morning there will be additional Daffodil planting along Beverly Road. I've been in correspondence with a neighbor, Natasha, from Beverly Square East. She wrote me earlier today:

This is just a quick note to let you know that I'm planning to plant Daffodils on Sunday 11/11 starting at 10am. I'll be meeting some friends on Beverley between 16th and 17th street. We're going to start at 16th Street and head towards Flatbush. I borrowed some extra planting implements from a friend, so people should feel free to come even if they don't have tools.

So Sunday you have two opportunities for planting Daffodil bulbs. Meet at 10am on Beverly Road between 16th and 17th Street; planting will proceed east along Beverly Road. Or meet at 10am at the library plaza on Cortelyou Road at Argyle; planting will proceed west toward Coney Island Avenue.

Reminder: Plant Daffodils on Cortelyou Road This Weekend

There's also Daffodil planting on Beverly Road this Sunday.

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Green Thumbs Up! Some of the crew of volunteers who planted Daffodils last Sunday.


Weather permitting (as long as it's not raining), we'll continue planting Daffodil bulbs in the tree pits along Cortelyou Road this Saturday and Sunday morning. We'll meet up at 10am in front of the library at the northeast corner of Argyle Road. Please bring your own tools and work gloves, if you have them. If you don't we'll have enough on hand to keep you busy!

This weekend, we'll begin working our way West from Argyle Road toward Coney Island Avenue. If you can't join us at 10am, look for the folks digging in the tree pits! Last weekend we finished up by 12:30pm, so please feel free to stop by and see how we're doing.

And if you come on Sunday, bring some shopping bags and pick up some seasonal fruits and vegetables at the Greenmarket, which is open through the end of the month.

Related Posts

The Daffodil Project Plantings on Cortelyou Road, November 4

Links

The Daffodil Project

Preserving Livable Streets: DCP's Yards Text Amendment

2008-04-30: Approved!
2007-11-15: Added link to DCP Zoning Glossary.

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Illustration of Front Yard Planting from DCP's proposed Yards Text Amendment online presentation
At tonight's CB14 Public Hearing, this is sure to be one of the items on the agenda. On September 17, NYC's Department of City Planning (DCP) released a proposal to amend zoning regulations to address, for the first time, the extent of paved and planted areas on private property:

November 12: Sustainable Flatbush Town Hall Meeting

This is listed in the sidebar Calendar, but I wanted to highlight this community meeting happening next Monday.

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Sustainable Flatbush is about to enter an exciting new phase of our activities in the neighborhood, and we’d love for YOU to be involved! Please join us:

WHAT: Sustainable Flatbush Town Hall Meeting
WHEN: Monday, November 12th at 7pm
WHERE: 462 Marlborough Road (between Ditmas and Dorchester)

Longtime Flatbush resident Mark Levy has come onboard, bringing his history of commitment to the neighborhood and experience as a community organizer and environmental educator. He has also kindly offered to host this meeting at his home. Thanks Mark!

We will form committees geared toward specific activities and service projects, establish leadership roles, and set some new goals for 2008. To give you an idea of what’s in store, here are some of the proposed committees:

• RECYCLING/WASTE REDUCTION
Focusing on recycling education and promotion, as well as other methods of reducing waste in our homes and businesses, from composting to blocking unwanted fliers.

• SUSTAINABLE GARDENING
Sharing knowledge and resources on sustainable approaches to all forms of urban gardening, from yard landscaping to street tree pits to organic farming. We will also be actively involved in the new neighborhood community garden.

• TRANSPORTATION/LIVABLE STREETS
Working with Transportation Alternatives and other Livable Streets advocates, we will bring a local perspective to the citywide discussion of such issues as traffic calming, congestion pricing, public transportation improvements, and infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.

• ENERGY EFFICIENCY/ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND FUELS
Let’s talk about how to save money by using less energy in our homes and businesses, and how to incorporate alternative energy sources such as biofuels and solar power into the landscape.

• LOCAL BUSINESS OUTREACH
Helping neighborhood businesses to adopt sustainability practices that improve their “Triple Bottom Line”: People, Planet, and Profit.

• LOCAL SCHOOLS OUTREACH
Implementing environmental education and practices in our local schools.

Hope to see you there!