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Showing posts from April, 2008

Photo du jour: London planetree, recently topped

The London planetree pictured below was recently topped, within the last two weeks. Topping is a poor pruning practice leading to structural and physiological problems. This does not look like pollarding and there are no overhead wires with which a full crown would have interfered. It is a large diameter planetree, apparently healthy; with a full crown, it would provide many psychosocial and ecosystem benefits. For a live look, the tree is located off Marin on Euclid.

Photo du jour: Nafta leaders plant an oak in New Orleans

Source: New York Times , Photo by Tom Hanson, The Canadian Press Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President George Bush, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon None of the men planted the oak on Lafayette Square; it was a ceremonial planting described by a reporter from The Times-Picayune as “hoist[ing] golden shovels to pitch dirt over a newly planted oak tree in recognition of Earth Day.” None of the media outlets reported who planted the tree (the Parks Department? an urban forestry NGO?) or the species of oak.

Berkeley's Earth Day Fair

Bicycle parking provided by Bicycle Friendly Berkeley Coalition. At a recent TALC Summit, East Bay Bicycle Coalition provided free valet parking. Zip Car was at the fair too with a Toyota Prius. The most recent Daily Planet article on moth spraying can be read here . Read about the Happy Forever Community Garden here . Farm Fresh to You produce delivery service. I would miss walking to the farmers’ market. Human powered climbing opportunity provided by Clif Bar, formerly of Berkeley, with SunPower in the background. Lawn sitters watch dance group. I did not find a tree group at the fair (I don’t think Berkeley has an NGO for sidewalk trees), but Spiral Gardens Nursery was selling apple and pear tree at the farmers’ market on Center Street.

Bird watch: Niches in my yard & notes on the hedgerow and mountain ash

Source: Ken Thomas, photographer Yesterday I told another person outside my household about the cedar waxwing that died after hitting one of the living room windows. Now I share the death with you. It was aweful: I heard a thud, I saw a small feather stuck on the window, and by the time I made it outside, the waxwing was literally taking its last breath. Cedar waxwings are no longer visiting the yard, at least not in the quantity they did in February when there were many, many berries on the tree I thought was a mountain ash, forgetting that ashes have compound leaves! The red-berried tree in my yard has simple leaves. Dr. Mike Wilcox (in Trees of the World ), writing about the mountain ash, notes that its also known as rowan. He describes the tree as follows: Something about its strongly ascending branches, its lacy foliage or the masses of its striking red berries has connected it with witchcraft from ancient times. It’s very name, rowan, is believed to be derived from the No

Photo du jour: Walter Hood's designs for Center Street

Open. Ramblas. Terraced. These are the forms of hybridity developed by Hood Design for the Center Street project. Details of the design are on display in the northern and northwest windows of Cody’s Books. (The photographs were taken at mid-day.) Will Berkeley residents choose open hybrid, ramblas hybrid, or terraced hybrid? What’s your choice? Note the creek element in the second section.

Hydra spigot duck

“It’s a ‘duck,’” said John of the spigot outside Hydra on Fourth Street. The architectural term “duck,” coined by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour in Learning from Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form , was new to me. The first duck was a duck; a duck-shaped building in Long Island built by a duck farmer. A duck is “any building shaped like its product,” according to a Newsday article reporting on the Long Island Big Duck. Technically, the Hydra building is not a duck. It is not shaped like a spigot or other bath product though the spigot alerts you to the fact that the store sells bath-related items. Interestingly, you can see a large yellow duckie through one of the windows (third window from the right). The Hydra spigot “duck” is one of the sites on this year’s Hidden Gems Tour. The tour will begin at San Pablo Park on Saturday, May 10 at 10 a.m.

Bird Watch: International Bird Day

Well, I thought today was International Bird Day. I found the holiday on the About.com Homeschooling website via a web search of bird holidays. I have not found reference to this holiday on any bird science or advocacy sites like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. What I did find on the USFWS website is reference to International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) which is celebrated in May, though I could not find a specific date. The Smithsonian National Zoological Park will celebrate IMBD from April 24 to May 1 while the Region 9 Forest Service will celebrate on May 17. Regardless of the existence of International Bird Day, today is as good as any other day to celebrate birds, in particular urban birds. Local ecology is a participant in the Urban Bird Studies program at Cornell. The five bird projects are PigeonWatch, Gulls Galore, Dove Detectives, Birds in the City, and Crows Count. Celebrate Urban Birds! focuses on sixteen, easily identifiable bird spec

Calendar: In honor of National Landscape Architecture Month

April 11 — 13 Changing Climates: Class, Culture & Politics in an Era of Global Warming California Studies Conference schedule [via Urban Alliance ] April 12, Saturday, 10 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. Daily Acts Sustainability Tour in San Francisco Daily Acts Tours website [via Urban Alliance ] April 13, Sunday, 1 - 5 p.m. Art in the Garden The Institute of Urban Homesteading website April 23, Wednesday, 1 -2 p.m. Three Centuries of Boston’s Great Public Spaces and Private Garden Squares UC Berkeley, 315A Wurster Hall ( information ) April 22 — 26 7th International Ecocity Conference Nob Hill Masonic Center, San Francisco ( information ) Through June A Passion for Plants: Botanical Paintings by Catherine M. Watters and her students SF Botanical Garden website Through September 21 Wildflowers of New England: Photographs by Edwin Hale Lincoln (1848–1938) de Young Museum website Through October 12 In Our Own Backyard: A Celebration of the East Bay Regional Parks Oa

Weekend headlines April 6, 2008

Transplant micro greens. Check. Plant organic Cherokee Purple tomato. Check. Plant Golden Bell sweet pepper. Check. Three small garden tasks but huge satisfaction from being outside with the sun at my back. Now I am back indoors to blog about recent headlines. In this weekend’s New York Times you can read about a 7,000 square foot North Stamford, Conn. house applying for LEED certification. The house is one of 24 houses on “74 partly wooded acres with a private lake.” Also in the Business section is a story about the Audubon Society’s new and smaller headquarters in Manhattan; the organization’s president is reported to have said that Audubon “went well beyond the criteria needed to be awarded the highest, or platinum, LEED certification.” The Times also reported on “a shift in the debate over global warming.” Economists and scientists are emphasizing the role of more efficient technology over emissions caps in cutting emissions long term. One of the more efficient technologies cit

Tree Walk: Capitol Park and surrounding streets

Easter Sunday found us in Sacramento for the “Treasures from Hearst Castle” exhibit at the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts. I heard of the exhibit on the March 12 broadcast of Forum with Michael Krasny. I especially wanted to see the five-foot replica of the castle’s tiled bath tub. Amanda Meeker, director of exhibitions at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts, listed this item as one of her favorites in the exhibit. I was disappointed; there was no tub. The replica was simply a swatch of colored tiles embedded in the floor of the exhibit area. Regardless, the artifacts from the castle are incredibly beautiful and diverse in design and origin. On the way to the museum, we walked through Capitol Park, the 40-acre grounds of the Sacramento Capitol. I noticed markers on the trees labeled with the words “Tree Tour” followed by a number. For example, the Canary Island date palm pictured above (right) is tree #61 on the tour. The Capitol was closed - it