Urban pest

Rural and suburban gardeners contend with a range of pests- from fungus to insects to rodents to birds to small mammals. These are not unknown to the urban gardener, but the most virulent walk on two legs.

Three honey locust trees on Houston St at West Broadway are under attack. They have twice been discovered with salt dumped at the base of the trees. Limbs are being hacked down. The middle tree below was just fine one sunny, wind-free day, and the next had a bough hanging limply. It's hard to understand what is going on, except to surmise that the billboard space behind the trees is worth more unobstructed.



My street planter has also suffered a few indignities since its planting. It appears to make a nice place to sit and enjoy a cigarette, and leave said cigarette behind. Someone smashed the window of a car parked next to it. Most recently, one plant was mowed down. In close inspection, it appears to have been an animal as some of the leaves appeared nibbled.






None of this comes as a surprise, as would have been the case had I not been warned of urban pests by several of my garden well wishers. Like the rural and suburban gardnener facing his pests, you learn what you can and go on.

Perspective

I've been focused on details like these purple fritillaria at Shakespeare's Garden in Central Park.



I've also been noticing things that I used to miss because of my little boy. He's infatuated with birds, so now I see them everywhere I look.



Details, so delicate and charming, have held me entranced, until last night as I walked past Washington Square Park at dusk. I had this sudden shift to taking it all in. It felt lighter, and easier. It was a release, reminding me that I don't need to micro-manage the details of my life and can just accept what is and what may be.


(picture actually this morning)

Spring Sprang Sprung

The fruit trees and magnolias are snowing white and pink; even the tallest trees have started leafing out. And flowers, flowers everywhere. All of this is better seen than said.

The education of a gardener

Gardeners are made via experimentation and tutelage. I've had the benefit of four NYC gardens in which to try my hand, plus the advice and help of my dear Aunt Cynthia Van Hazinga who lives in Greenwich Village and phone consultations with my father, John Van Hazinga, mad gardener of Hillsborough New Hampshire.

My first New York garden was a wonderful rooftop in a rental at Eight Avenue and Jane Street. I had the space and enough sun for about a half a dozen herbs and some vegetables, in addition to some wonderful vines (clematis and morning glories) breaking up a boring white wall. In the tally of wins and loses, the spring lettuces were outstanding but only a few ripe tomatoes were harvested from four sizable tomato plants.



My second garden is a very shady balcony at my current West Broadway apartment. There is something about the constraints of such a garden that make any successes so rewarding. Last year's highlight was morning glories climbing up strings in the one part that gets some afternoon sun (I can thank Cynthia for this wonderful idea). In the photo, there are some unsuccessful flowers in the large containers and happy hostas and ferns in the smaller, with the very beginning of the morning glory experiment. This garden has been neglected so far this year, although last year's hostas and ferns have started coming back on their own.



My third garden, using a generous definition of what is a garden, are two windowboxes facing West Broadway and thus getting some good east light. My first act of gardening this year was to stuff them with spring bulbs, which I have to admit are now in need of a mercy killing.



My newest garden is the raised bed in front of my coop building that Aunt Cynthia and I planted yesterday. Her enthusiasm for my little street garden matches my own. She had two roses to contribute (sent to her from a grower- she's a garden writer), and we set off together to Dimitri's Garden Center in the Bronx to buy perennials to fill out the rest of the space. It is early in the season, so when the garden of my imagination met with the available plants, I chose expediency over perfection, and we toted home 10 bags of topsoil, a few types of rudbeckia (daisies), and a purple and green clover-like ground cover. Some annuals would be nice as we wait for these to get going.



So many gardens, so much for for the gardener to do- some which will get done, some which won't, some which will be successful, some which won't. Lots of opportunities for education of this gardener.

The carpenter's daughter has no tools

A garden must start with some dirt. I had access to a 4'x5' patch of dirt in front of my coop building, but the soil was so impacted and rock-filled that not even weeds found it hospitable. So what's a carpenter's daughter to do but build a raised bed, right?

Tool 1: Hand saw. I went to the lumbar store to buy six 4x4s, a few dozen 6" nails, and brackets and screws. All straightforward but they couldn't cut treated wood for me. So, let's add a hand saw. "How will you get these boards home"? "I thought I'd carry them one by one. It is only 2 blocks.". "Leave some ID and borrow a hand truck".

Tool 2: Circular saw. The men loaded the boards on the hand truck. I was, just barely, able to budge it. One of the men found this as amusing as I did, and helped me home. As we walked down West Broadway in Soho on a Saturday afternoon amongst the Europeans with their high class dollars, I had time to contemplate my hand saw and these massive boards. I upgraded to a circular saw when returning the hand truck. I did wait until the tourists had thinned to use it, cutting the boards Monday morning, with a bright orange extension cord running across the sidewalk.

Tool 3: Drill. I managed to dig out a rubble of rocks with a garden spade so I could sink the bottom row of boards in to the earth a bit, and thus fortify my garden against wayward parallel parkers. A full size shovel would have been nice, but it was a nice day and I had my obstinance to keep me company. First row of boards now in place, I started drilling holes in which to sink the nails that would hold it all together. My rechargable 9V drill was dead after 5 holes, and I had 27 more to drill. Back to the store for a better drill.

Tool 4: Hammer. My hammar, like my drill, was not up to the job at hand. The head and shaft parted ways on nail #2. I was able to finish the job with one borrowed from a neighbor. However, it seems in particular poor taste for a carpenter's daughter to not have a hammar- I'll be back at the lumbar store tomorrow.

Without further ado, here is my raised bed, my $30,250k garden ($1500 a square foot for Soho real estate, $250 for tools and supplies). So at last, time get going with the planting.

Courtesans

I've blooming trees on the brain these days (and been watching too much of The Tudors). Magnolias, overwhelming in their intoxicating blooms and scent, seem at home in the Parisian court. Then there are the more delicate trees, flowers smaller and set amongst glowing pale green leaves. These, the English court.




And now that we've gone to England, walking down West 10th Street reminded me of walks in London on side streets southeast of Hyde Park. Ah, to have neighbors with gardens like these!

Focus

I certainly find myself seduced by the flowering trees and great bulbs that you can find up and down most blocks in the city these days. However, there was something quite magical about the less brilliant but serene and contemplative west garden at the Cloisters yesterday. Less food for the ego; more space to just be and smile at nature emerging slowly from slumber.

Check out the soft glow from the buds of this espalier pear tree.



These lenten roses have a hard time competing for my attention next to the tulips in Washington Square Park, but here their soft colors and downcast heads make sense.



And what's not to love about hen and chicks in a pot.

Few people know how to take a walk

Emerson says to take a walk requires "endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” Luckily for me, my daily walk to the park with my son gives me much nature to enjoy, with a string of gardens stretching from Houston to Washington Square Park along La Guardia Place, but only covers four blocks so the endurance required is modest.

As spring has progressed from the earliest crocuses to the profusion of daffodils that came in to bloom this week, I've become inspired to capture the beauty of New York City gardening.

First comes the Time Capsule filled the natural plants of New York. With limited help from gardeners, the Time Capsule is slowly coming alive. These purple irises look so enchanting on this largely gray hill.



La Guardia Community Garden to the north has many eager hands at work and has burst forth with tulips and irises and even early season roses.



Next is a sea of ivy and mature trees stretching from Bleecker to West 3rd, currently punctuated with bursts of daffodils.



Which brings us to Washington Square Park. She's not quite herself this year, with much of the park under construction, yet there is still plenty to see including glowing forsythia bushes along the north side.



and these gorgeous cherry trees in bud.