9 gifts for local ecologists

Our first, we think, holiday gift list. The list is features three books, a CD, a jersey, a birdhouse, a hand pruner, a free map, and items from the Therapeutic Landscapes Network store. Why nine suggestions? Because it's 2009.

• 3feetplease bicycle jersey (via WalkBikeCT via Design New Haven)
• The carboard, water-repellent foldable birdhouse by Mxyplyzyk (via the Dec. 10th Home section of the New York Times)



Source: The Felco Store
• Trained citizen pruner? We really like the original Felco 2 pruner (we have at least two).



Courtesy of Ellen Zachos, Acme Plant Stuff and Garden Bytes from the Big Apple
• The "Green Up Time" CD by Ellen Zachos is available through Acme Plant Stuff
• Washington Square Park (NYC) free Sustainable Lunch Map, developed by Eat Well Guide and courtesy of the NYC Food & Climate Summit



Courtesy of Naomi Sachs, Therapeutic Landscapes Network
• Therapeutic Landscapes Network mug, tote, clothing, etc. at the TLN Store
• Living Modern: A Biography of Greenwood Common by Waverly B. Lowell

Architect William Wurster envisioned Greenwood Common as a development that combined an idealistic sense of community with a modernist aesthetic and an awareness of regional traditions. Utilizing the Berekeley Design Archives this book details the eight distinct homes designed between 1952 and 1957, by seven significant California architects, that harmonize effortlessly with each other and with their location. The Common's landscape, along with four gardens designed by Lawrence Halprin, captured what had become the mid-century ideal of indoor-outdoor living.



Source: Random House
• Flora Mirabilis: An Illustrated Time Line of Botanical Exploration, Discovery & Delight by Catherine Herbert Howell, a National Geographic Society book

  A sumptuous showcase of superb illustrations paired with fascinating stories of botanical exploration and trade through the ages, this book will be an evergreen delight. A collaboration between National Geographic and the world-renowned Missouri Botanical Garden, this book blossoms with legend and lore as it culls the most engrossing mysteries and adventures of plant exploration, science, and discovery and garlands them with astonishingly beautiful illustrations. The pages are abloom with the rich details and engaging allure of beloved flowers, stunning gardens, ancient trees, medicinal herbs, and valuable plants of all varieties from around the world. Unique "plant profiles" chronicle the especially remarkable roles each plant has played in matters of economics, politics, and taste.

• Public Produce: Filling the Sidewalks with Fruit Trees by Darrin Nordahl (the book is available at Amazon.com or you can try your local bookshop)

Call for a tree story: East Village tree basin

We photographed this East Village tree basin a few months ago and have not figured out its story. Can you provide us with one? Inspiration: Looks like a new sidewalk was installed.

Tree Walk: Unter den Linden

We are pleased to bring a guest post about Berlin's famous lindens from an anonymous contributor.

Original linden allee, Berlin, 1691, Source: Wikipedia

I was thinking of you because of the beautiful street Unter den Linden or Under the linden trees. I am sure you must have studied it but really must be the perfect example of a street tree. Each tree is numbered. The little tags are white and nailed into the tree. Each tree in the entire city is in fact numbered, creating a nice sense of order-very necessary in Deutschland. All districts of the city have their own trees and budget for maintaining them. The guide was saying that if a man got drunk he could tell his wife to pick him up under tree number 47. And the other day the guide overheard police officers saying an accident had happened at tree number 7. The linden trees are not growing too well and the city wanted to replace them so they could have ones that would grow better. But the Berliners are 'quite sentitive' and cannot let go of the originals.

About the Ginkgo biloba

A friend's dad is on sabbatical in Manhattan. He's an art professor at a liberal arts college in Ohio. The Ginkgo is one of his favorite trees; I noticed several ginkgo-themed drawings tacked unto to the wall in his office. At a recent dinner, he told me that he had noticed that the Ginkgo is a common street tree in the city. He wanted to know why this was the case. Also, he wanted to know about the tree's reproductive strategy; he had heard that there are separate male and female trees. Here's what I told him.

Ginkgo, Berkeley-Oakland border

In my estimation, the most common street trees in NYC - in no particular order - are London planetree, Ginkgo, honeylocust, maple (red or Norway), and oak (red or pin). I missed one; the Callery pear! Learn more about the city's street tree population in the Parks Department's 2005-2006 Street Tree Census.

The Ginkgo is a great street tree because it is hardy; it tolerates well the various limitations of the urban environment. Also, it is a long-lived, albeit slow-growing, species. Arthur Plotnik writes,

By the 1900s, ginkgoes had shown urban planters their ability to survive pests, drought, storms, ice, city soils, and some pollution. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's favorite tree, it made its way into city landscapes across North American, as happy in southeastern Canada as in New Orleans.

Ginkgo male catkins

The fruit of the female ginkgo has a bad reputation. When bruised, the smell is malodorous. The Ginkgo is dioecious; male catkins and female flowers are on separate trees. Monoecious species have both male and female organs on the same plant. Although the fruit's smell leaves something to be desired, the leaves and nut are highly desired. The former for medicinal purposes and the latter for culinary purposes. A web search revealed that the Ginkgo biloba extract or GBE is taken from the leaves. The nuts were featured in an Gourmet.com article titled Gathering ginkgo nuts in New York.

Ginkgo fruits

From Sara Crosby's Gourmet.com article:

Instead—egged on by the conviction that the elderly Asian ginkgo fruit gatherers who had originally motivated me had to be on to something worthwhile—I started in on four days of ginkgo nut experiments. Based on a recipe from the grill cook at Masa, I boiled them in a tiny bit of salted water and put them on a salad. I roasted them with maple syrup. I roasted them in the shell, and then served them with a little bit of salt. But nothing was working: They had a gummy texture, and their rich, nutty flavor was curbed by a quick bitterness. Then, using my Cajun husband’s motto that all things taste good fried, I egg-washed them, rolled them in flour, salt, and pepper, and threw them in hot oil. My husband and I watched them immediately turn a brilliant, beautiful jade-green color under their light layers of fry. I beamed. I felt like I’d just harvested my first backyard zucchini crop or caught my first fish from a nearby river. Even before we popped the little fried pips into our mouths and tasted the perfectly charming balance of nature’s nuttiness and searing hot oil, we knew we’d done it—we’d amped up our already ridiculous game of seasonal and local eating. And so, naturally, we stood there chomping away in our tiny urban kitchen and started working the fried ginkgo nuts into our Friday night dinner party menu.

By the way, the Ginkgo's fruits are ready for picking in the fall, but a tree might not flower until it is 20 years old (UConn Plant Database; Wisconsin Master Gardener Program)!

Trees above and below

Vegetated roof and sidewalks, Commerce Street, NYC