Spring blooms in Washington Square Park

A (mostly) Wordless Wednesday contribution.

Follow Cathryn Swan's Washington Square Park Blog for hyper-local park news. For city-wide bloom information, view the 2011 Blooming map at New York Restoration Project (h/t Urban Omnibus), and finally, the NYU Garden Shop highlights a plant weekly; this week it is the Bleecker Street Kwanzan cherries (Prunus 'Kwanzan') which are covered with large, showy pink flowers.

Where in NYC? (Subway Series, No. 1)

Heading toward the exit at (blank) Street station, I noticed these amazing figures on the wall tiles of the station.  On looking at many and photographing several, I thought they would be a good subject for a blog post, specifically, the first in an occasional series about things seen in subway stations and other places in the city.

So, can you guess which subway station houses these figures?

Updated, 5/16/2011: The figures, part of a larger work titled "Carrying On" by Janet Zweig is located at the N/R Prince Street Station. Subway.org has a write-up of the frieze and you can view more figures at our Facebook page.

Even the pachysandra is blooming (GBBD)

Image: Not "my" pachysandra (image courtesy of Kurt Stüber via Wikimedia Commons)

I did not know that pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis) flowers.  "Almost insignificant from an ornamental perspective," notes OSU's Horticulture & Crop Science plant list website, but I was wowed.  In addition to these small terminal inflorescences, my NYC neighborhood offers cherry, Callery pear and magnolia blossoms as well as tulips, daffodils, and Camellia 'April Remembered' (Camellia japonica 'April Remembered').

Weak branch structure but gorgeous showy flowers!

And even more: flowers outside the Macy's Flower Show and sidewalk hydrangea gardens.

For more blooming posts on this 15th day of April, visit May Dreams Gardens.

English Elm in The Tree Year

Since learning about The Tree Year 2011 project from a Metropolitan Field Guide post, I have been contemplating which tree in my neighborhood to observe this year.  (The United Nations declared 2011 the International Year of Forests.)  Should record the blooming of the Callery pear we adopted as part of MillionTreesNYC?  The London planetrees I can see from our window?  The weeping willow in a nearby garden?  The English Elm in Washington Square Park?  Should I select a tree located outside of my neighborhood?

Last week after publishing a Marsh Madness entry on the Minetta Brook which included information about the English Elm, I settled on this elm.  Below are photographs from days 1 and 2 of observation.

Day 1 (March 31, 2011)

(the phone pictured is 4.5 inches long)

Day 2 (April 5, 2011)

How to: Sustainable parks and open spaces

Walking by the Center for Architecture gallery today I noticed that the High Performance Landscape Guidelines: 21st Century Parks for NYC exhibit had been removed. The landscape guidelines were prepared by the Fellows of the Design Trust for Public Space and landscape architecture and operations staff at the Parks & Recreation Department.

Fourteen percent or approximately 29,000 acres of NYC is parkland and the Guidelines were developed to transform these existing parks into sustainable ones as well as to design beautiful and ecologically-healthy new open spaces.  The parks -- new and renewed -- will comprise the city's green infrastructure; they will not only meet the recreational needs of an estimated 9.1 million residents by 2030, they will help the city to achieve the sustainability goals outlined in PlaNYC.


The manual is organized around "hundreds of best practices" or strategies to achieve these goals.  The manual also includes site inventory and analysis practices across different sites, from brownfields (ex: Concrete Plant Park) to playgrounds to parks over structures (ex: High Line), and importantly, best practices in design, construction, and maintenance and operations.

Soil, water, and vegetation are the primary natural resource components addressed in the Site Systems section of the Guidelines.  Of soils, the authors note,

Healthy soils are the foundation upon which sustainable parks are built. If soils are not prioritized as a critical resource worthy of care during design, construction, and maintenance cycles, parallel efforts to enhance the vegetative and water ecologies will be compromised.

Seventy percent of NYC's 45 inches of annual rainfall occurs in rain events of one inch or less. According to the manual, NYC's impermeability is "well beyond" 30% impermeability; at this level, "ecosystem functions [such as aquatic habitat diversity, water quality, and species habitat] are compromised." One of the principles of managing water is to capture stormwater (which I think includes snow melt) in parks versus the application of potable water.  (If you are interested in stormwater in NYC, check out the S.W.I.M. Coalition blog.)

Despite the urban-ness of NYC, the city's parks across its five boroughs support "23 distinct plant communities."  (The manual does not provide the "original" number of plant communities found across the city.)  These 23 plant communities, in layers (upper, middle, and lower story) provide ecosystem services and aesthetic values.

The Center for Architecture's exhibit presented the Guidelines in two ways: (1) by scale and (2) by the type of site.  A small scale site is Pearly Gates Park in the Bronx (0.66 acres); a large one is Fort Totten Park in Queens (60.39 acres); and a landscape site is the Bronx River Watershed (the Bronx River Parkway is 205.65 acres).

Eight case studies were made, one from each site category: Ecological Restoration of Pennsylvania and Fountain Landfills (Brownfield and Recovered Sites), Bronx River Tidal Marsh Vegetation Restorations (Restoration Areas ), Hugo Neu Metal Management Recycling Facility Stormwater Capture System (Waterfronts), Canarsie Park (Passive Landscape Areas), Calvert Vaux Park (Active Recreation Areas), Printers Park and Hester Street Playground (Playgrounds), Worldwide Plaza Queens Plaza (Pocket Parks & Plazas), and Five Borough Green Roofs (Planting Over Structures).

One of my favorite boards from the exhibit was the one that discussed the role of street trees in the sustainable city.  The undervaluing of street trees is acknowledged as is the difference in value between a large, mature tree versus a smaller, newer tree.  (We have written about this difference here.)  For example, the larger tree "removes almost 70 times more air pollution" though demographic information like species and size are not provided.  If every potential street tree planting area were planted, then the city's street tree canopy would, according to the display, capture 1.2 trillion gallons of stormwater, save 425 tons of air pollution (cooler air means less energy produced to artificially reduce ambient temperature), absorb 370 tons of air pollution, and increase property values by $72 million.  USDA Forest Service researchers published assessments of the city's street trees and urban forest in 2007.  The Parks & Recreation Department conducted a street tree census in 2005-2006 (population: 592,130 street trees) and previously in 1995-1996.  More information about the City's trees can be found at the MillionTreesNYC website.

5 Things I Liked about Savannah

A second trip to Savannah reinforced several things that I liked during my first trip; all features that constitute a well-designed city.

1. Alleys

The backside of this lovely city is not shabby. Alleys can serve multiple functions: garage access, municipal services access, secondary pedestrian route, and recreation. (In Chicago, green alleys are one strategy to manage stormwater runoff.)  Does anyone know the origin of the alley in Savannah?

2. Big Trees

Approximately 27 years ago, "Savannah had an aging urban forest where more trees were cut down than replaced" and "there were no tree protection ordinances for new development." The Savannah Tree Foundation has transformed the way urban forestry is practiced in Chatham County through "direct action and awareness." Now, Savannah’s Park & Tree Department "plants one third more trees than it removes each year" and "most local governments in Chatham County have established tree protection ordinances." 3. Gates

You can take an organized tour of the city's gates and gardens or you can just discover them as you go.

4. Historic preservation

Image: Habersham Hall (SCAD)

SCAD's Habersham Hall previously housed the Chatham County Jail. In 1980, the university acquired the building and the jail cells were removed from the Exotic Revival building which is thought to have been constructed in approximately 1887.

5. Sidewalk gardens, squares, and parks

Sidewalk gardens lined almost every street I walked in Savannah. It's more accurate to say I strolled; leisurely wandering from this plant to that one, from one garden to the next.

Image: Forsyth Park

I did not photograph any of the city's 24 squares. Forsyth Park is not a square and was privately owned until 1851 when it was given to the city (Phebe S. Goodman, The garden squares of Boston, 2003). Founder General James Oglethorpe plan of Savannah (1770) was designed with six squares. Oglethorpe's ward system was expanded to accommodate the city's expansion including the development of additional squares: six in the 1790s and 12 between 1801 and 1851. Three squares (Ellis (1733), Liberty (1799), and Elbert (1801)), coincidentally one from each time period, were destroyed in the 20th century.  Fortunately, Ellis Square was rebuilt in 2010 when the parking garage that replaced it was demolished in 2005.

Did you enjoy this post? Read 5 Things I Liked about Munich.  Also consider More than 36 hours in Toronto, Part 1 and Tree Walk: More than 36 hours in Toronto, part 2.

Festival of the Trees #58

Welcome to the 58th Festival of the Trees! I am pleased to host for the third time. Thank you to all the contributors and a special thanks for Arati, Dave, and Jade.

I received contributions about "Arbor Day celebrations and other real-world tree festivals" worldwide, homages to trees from the personal to the communal, at the neighborhood scale to that of nations. Let's start in North America and branch out from there.

Image: Coast live oak, Oakland, California

From Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, Honor Woodard shares a personal celebration of the live oaks on the island. Another celebration took place in Georgia. Rebecca of Rebecca in the Woods looks up a tree cavity to discover what's inside a hollow tree while Dave of via negativa poetically presents the physiology behind tree knots.  Crystal M. Trulove had a magical experience planting trees in her Portland, Oregon neighborhood with Friends of Trees and at the end of the day her daughter told her, "Wow, Mom, you’re in a really good mood."  Rebecca of A Year With the Trees exclaimed, "What a beautiful March we are having," at sighting red maple, red bud, serviceberry, and dogwood flowers at various locations in Asheville.  Jade's a tree planter, too.  At Brainripples, she chronicles the planting of five birches and ten spruces at her homestead last month.  I love that No. 15 was planted "Just Because: because there is simply no such thing as 'too many trees.'"  Dave at Fidalgo Island Crossings shared a two-hour session of arboreal therapy in Heart Lake in the Anacortes Community Forest Lands in Washington.

Image: Birches, San Francisco

A perennial favorite, the Peeling Back the Bark blog, honored the 40th anniversary of the successful Apollo 14 mission and the seeds of the loblolly pine, sycamore, sweet gum, redwood, and Douglas fir brought to the moon and back by astronaut Stuart Roosa. Another tree anniversary is that of the 1957 Caldecott Medal winner A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry and illustrated by Marc Simont.  An excerpt from the 1957timecapsule blog:

Simont and Udry extol the beauty of leaves, the fun of jumping in a great pile of them, and the warmth of a big bonfire in the fall. Trees provide a wonderful climb, a place to lean a bike, shade and protection from the wind, a home for birds, a limb to hang a swing or flower basket, or the ideal spot for a picnic. And, if you plant a tree, you’ll have the year-after-year pleasure of watching it grow. You may inspire others to plant their own trees, too.

Image: Sign, Cleveland

Going further back, to 1920, Dave at Shorpy posted a photograph of an Arbor Day tree planting in Washington, D.C. that occurred on April 15, 1920. (The website has a great collection of tree photographs that can be viewed here.) A celebration of early spring in the north is maple sugaring and several entries bring us into the thick of things. Peter Huoppi videotaped mechanical and manual sugaring methods in Connecticut. Emily and Chris wrote about tapping 19 trees on their Fiddlehead Creek Farm and Native Plant Nursery in New York. And over at Not Dabbling in Normal, Susy Morris provides a "brush up on [our] sugaring skills."

Image: Sukkah, New York City

Cherry trees are blooming in San Diego and the blossoms on the University of California campus were photographed by Annie on Natural Treasure. Overseas, almonds are blooming, too. The Jewish New Year for Trees or Tu B'Shat and coincides with the blossoming of the almond tree. View the almond trees on the Gilboa Hills at OyVaGoy.  (Our entry hails from 2010; it is about the 12 sukkahs displayed in Union Square Park, entries in the Sukkah City: NYC 2010 competition.  The structures were constructed primarily from paper, wood, and flowers.)

While some stroll or sit under the trees, others run. Arati at Trees, Plants & more entered the IISc (Indian Institute of Science) 10K Run to see "[t]rees everywhere, lining most of the paths we ran through." From experiencing trees with many to only one other, Ash of treeblog and his father visited their four grey alders (Alnus incana) planted "out in the wild." (Sorry to hear about No. 4.)  Pip Howard at europeantrees published an exchange about the landscape of Stoke Gabriel, the location of two lime trees that Pip is following for the Tree Year 2011 project. (Learn more about the project here.)

Image: Cherry trees, New York City

I would be remiss if I did not mention the blossom season in Japan. Tokyo Green Space blogger Jared Braiterman has several posts about Japan's current blossom season: a plum bonsai, quince and white bush, and white magnolia.  And the famous cherry blossom (sakura) viewing (o-hanami) celebrations.  Blossoms have opened in several locations but the best viewing times begin early next week according to the schedule posted at japan-guide.com.  However, news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal have reported cancellations for trips to Japan.  Accounts of prior cherry blossom seasons in Japan can be read at Human Flower Project (HFP): Under the Cherry Blossoms by Masashi Yamaguchi and Predicting Sakura by Julie Ardery, editor of HFP. In the U.S. you can participate in cherry blossom viewings in Portland (Oregon) at Sakura Sunday (via Yuki's Origami Blog), in Washington, D.C. at the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and in San Francisco at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival.

I wanted to end with Suzanne's odes to catkins.  At Spirit Whispers, she examines the beauty of the catkin -- in gorgeous photography -- of the alder and the poplar. She describes the development of the catkin as "well worth the wait"! Suzanne will host Festival of the Trees #59. Please send your contributions to suziscribbles [at] yahoo.co.uk by April 29. The theme? How do trees inspire you?

Festival of the Trees #1 through #57 can be accessed from the official Festival of the Trees website.