Floral Catalogue: Spring 2013

Beginning with the blossoming of the cherries I have been taken photographs of the trees (and some shrubs and herbaceous perennials) in my neighborhood.

These hellebores are in a window box at 41 Bond Street.

My first time seeing a tree lilac in New York; this one is on Grand Street in Brooklyn.

We wrote a redbud profile last week.

It's a viburnum! Viburnum prunifolium, or blackhaw, identified by ‏@nygreenguy.

6 Landscape books written by mothers

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama suggested her book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, as a Mother's Day gift to the audience at the Politics & Prose bookstore in D.C.  Her remarks sparked this post: books about landscapes - domestic, public, and private - written by mothers.  (All images via Amazon.com except where noted.)

Last month I attended a lecture by Jamaica Kincaid about "Captain Bligh's Bounty" and learned that she very much dislikes the breadfruit. She's a humorous writer and speaker, too. One of my favorite books by her is My Garden (Book).

It's not an exaggeration to say that Central Park is known world-wide.  The Central Park Conservancy, too,  is widely admired (and critiqued).  Perhaps less known is the founder of the Central Park Conservancy: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.  Her accomplishments are impressive!  Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History reminds me of a course I took with a much-loved professor and I am very curious about The Forests and Wetlands of New York City.

Image: 555 Hudson Street, NYC, Jane Jacobs' former home

Jane Jacobs is renowned for her brilliant analysis, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, of the role of mixed uses, short blocks, building age diversity, and density in making a livable city.  The concepts "eyes on the street" and "sidewalk ballet" are familiar to many.  I daresay she made the built landscape of Greenwich Village famous.

The suburban garden is the focus of many of Dominique Browning's books.  I have not read Paths of Desire but I've read many of her editorials in the former House & Garden magazine and imagine that this book is packed with her lovely narrative style.

Finally, in a post about books written by mothers, we turn to schoolyards.  Sharon Gamson Danks visited 150 schools in 11 countries to develop guidelines for schools transitioning from grey to green schoolyards in Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation.  She chronicles the different lessons about wildlife, water and energy systems, and agriculture that a green schoolyard can teach. Furthermore, Danks looks at the important role of school-based green landscapes in different types of play.

This is a short list.  I welcome your suggestions!

Wet weather discharge point, Grand Ferry Park

Wet weather discharge points are permitted combined sewer overflow locations. During rainfall and snowmelt events, the city's combined sewer system can become overloaded, releasing a mix of stormwater and untreated sewage into waterways. In this example, the mix would be released into the East River at Grand and River Streets in Brooklyn. 

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has prepared an CSO outfall map which is available here.

You can help to reduce the volume of overflows by limiting the amount of wastewater released into the system before and during rainfall and snowmelt events. Dontflush.me posts "Code BROWN! Engage plan B: save water during possible sewer overflow" and other alerts to its website and Twitter. The dontflush.me project hardware and software were developed by Leif Percifeld. Learn more here.

P.S. An interactive map by Climate Central of the 11 Billion Gallons of Sandy Sewage Overflow (HT Sustainable Cities).

Species: Cercis canadensis

Cercis canadensis or Eastern redbud is an understory tree native to eastern North America. The small tree has two showy characteristics. It has "fluttering" heart-shaped leaves. The long stems (or pedicels) on which the leaves grow allow them to "flutter quite freely in even the smallest breeze".

The other dramatic feature of the Eastern redbud is the flower. The redbud is one of the first trees to flower in the spring. The flowers emerge before the leaves and almost cling to the branches and stems of the tree.  In some cases, the flowers emerge from the trunk itself!

The photograph above shows three redbuds in bloom and each with a different colored flower (foreground to background): maroon, white, and lavender.  The flowers are edible, as are the seeds.  Top your dessert with the flowers. Pickle the buds.  The flowers, leaves, and seeds have wildlife value, too.  Birds eat the seeds, deer the leaves, and honeybees the nectar.

Here are looks at the seedpods and the leaves.

Have you eaten any part of the redbud?

NRDC LEED Platinum office building, Santa Monica

In the final post of three about the Sustainable Santa Monica tour, I will share several green features of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) office building, one of the first buildings in the U.S. to be rated LEED Version 2 Platinum. NRDC walks the talk!  The U.S. Green Building Council which administers the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program was "spearheaded" by NRDC senior scientist Robert K. Watson in 1994.

The NRDC office building began its life as an acupuncture studio.  Wood beams from the former studio remain in the lobby which is named the David Family Environmental Action Center.  Material reuse can earn a building up to two points in the LEED Platinum v2.0 rating.  Construction waste management (up to two points) is also important: "98 percent of the waste materials generated during construction were reused or recycled."  The use of "rapidly renewable materials" provides one point.  The stairs in the building are made of poplar, a fast-growing, abundant species.

The building is located in the pedestrian friendly downtown.  Walkable sites can earn one point.  Although the building is flush with the lot line there are several access points to the outdoors.  One is the courtyard entry, pictured above.  Potable water is not used to irrigate the landscape.  Rainwater and recycled grey water, from showers and sinks, are used for irrigation and toilet flushing.  (Showers are provided -- a real catalyst to bike to work.) A complex water recycling system is located in the basement.  To make one gallon of water per minute requires 2,200 watts according to a sign posted in the basement.  The solar array on the roof provides 20% of the building's electricity.

The roof is another access point to the outdoors but it is more utilitarian than leisure space.  Another way to enjoy the outdoors is on the ocean-facing deck.  Providing occupants to "direct line of sight to the outdoor environment" only carries one point.  It's a beautifully made point here!  A cistern runs beneath the deck and captures rainwater which is fed into the water recycling system.  Water efficient landscaping -- reducing potable water use, using nonpotable water for irrigation, and planting vegetation that does not require permanant irrigation -- can earn a project up to four points.

The main meeting room is located off the deck and it is awash in natural light.  Four light wells provide natural light to the rest of the building but only three of the light wells have ventilation louvres.   Increased ventilation and daylight account for one point each.

There are lots of small details that make the building efficient and beautiful some of which are described above but there are two that might be easy to overlook.  One are the chairs in the conference room which are made from recycled seat belts.  The chairs are aesthetically and physiologically pleasing!  Look up to see the fan blades which were fashioned after airplane wings.  They use less energy to provide the same cooling as conventional fans. 

Descriptions of all the green elements of the building are available on the NRDC website. You can learn more about the LEED rating systems here.

Thank you to Kristin Center for a highly informative tour of the NRDC building.

Stump Stories: Ladd and Bush Bank Building, Salem, Oregon

Image: Tree memorial, Ladd and Bush, Salem, Oregon, courtesy of Bonnie Hull (source)

In downtown Salem, Oregon, three of five Zelkova trees at the Ladd and Bush Bank Building, currently housing a U.S. Bank branch, were removed by U.S. Bank after appealing the Shade Tree Advisory Committee's original "no removal" judgement.  Citizens demonstrated against the reversal of the "no removal" judgement and installed memorials when the trees were stumped.

Image: Tree memorial, Ladd and Bush, Salem, Oregon, courtesy of Bonnie Hull (source)

The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970. The five Zelkovas were planted in the early 1970s and removed before this year's Earth Day.  The three trees that were cut were almost 43 years old.

Image: Tree memorial, Ladd and Bush, Salem, Oregon, courtesy of Bonnie Hull (source)

The fate of the remaining two Zelkovas remains to be seen.  Brian Hines filed an appeal to save the remaining two Zelkovas  on April 22, 2013.  Watch this space for updates. In the meantime, you can follow HineSight.com or On The Way.

P.S. Have you read the 80 Wooster Street stump story?

Collection: Tree guides

In honor of Arbor Day, I am sharing part of my collection of over 20 tree guides covering New York, New England, the South, the Pacific Coast, and California as well as Madrid and the Castilla and Leon region of Spain.

Many of the books in my tree guide collection are shown in local ecologist books (via Amazon).

Books not listed with Amazon include Arboles Unicos de Castilla y Leon, by Cesar Herranz Beltran (shown above); Native Trees of the San Francisco Bay Region, by Woodbridge Metcalf; Trees of North America, by C. Frank Brockman; A Guide to the Trees, by Alice Lounsberry; Familiar Trees and Their Leaves, by F. Schuyler Mathews; and Guide to New Haven's Trees, by Urban Resources Initiative.

How are you celebrating Arbor Day?