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Showing posts from June, 2011

Broadcasting tree care and benefits information

Image: Tree Nutrition/Benefits Label, Urban Natural Resources Institute ( source ) Nonprofits and municipalities have developed numerous ways to broadcast tree care and benefits information to residents. In this post, we highlight several paper and web-based methods of getting the word out about tree stewardship and environmental services. You are probably familiar with nutrition labels on packaged foods.  Now, the Urban Natural Resources Institute (UNRI) has developed an urban  Tree Nutrition/Benefits Label .  UNRI in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, UMass Amherst and the Town of Amherst created labels showing the ecosystem benefits produced by trees.  The project was implemented at the Amherst Sustainability Festival in 2010.  Forty trees were surveyed using software developed by Casey Trees, and urban forestry nonprofit in Washington, D.C. Each label is bar-coded to "attract" the attention of passers-by.  (These bar codes ar

Under Cape Cod Waters by Ethan Daniels

Image: Under Cape Cod Waters cover ( source ) Many years ago we spent time in Cape Cod and the Islands.  In preparation for the trip - and this is something we do for all our trips - we read several books about the place.  Our list included The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter, The Wedding by Dorothy West, and The Outermost House by Henry Weston.  If we were making that trip today, I would add Under Cape Cod Waters by Ethan Daniels.  We won a copy of the book in contest sponsored by Union Park Press in April contest. Under Cape Cod Waters is a large format book.  Daniels's photography is spectacular and a conventional book format would have diminished his photographs.  How did he manage the close-ups that abound in the book?  I am more of a terrestrial person than an aquatic one but the concepts Daniels's addresses in the book are easy to grasp.  He is a scientist, but he writes like a novelist.   I do not have any photographs to share here but check o

Our most abundant and widespread dove

Although the pigeon is in the Dove family and is also known as the rock dove ( Columba livia ), this post is not about that city bird.  Rather it is about the mourning dove or Zenaida macroura .  The Field Guide to the Birds of North America (1987, Third Edition) is the source of the quote that titles this essay.  The Mourning Dove's most distinctive field mark is its "pointed tail bordered with large white spots" writes Peterson in A Field Guide to Western Birds (1961).  Otherwise is habitat and nest are ordinary.  "Farmland, towns, open woods, mesquite, coastal scrub, grassland, and desert" lists Peterson.  The Cornell Lab of Ornithology lists "open country, scattered trees, woodland edges, ... [and] woodlots during winter."  Its nest is not much to speak of according to Peterson's description: "[a] flimsy twig platform in tree, shrub, cactus, or on the ground."  We thought the nest we saw in a nearby garden had been vandalised b

Public Produce by Darrin Nordahl

We have been foraging the ripe Juneberries in our neighborhood.  The birds have been eaten the berries, too.  Also, the Juneberry or Amelanchier spp. provides an understated beauty to the streets and pathways it lines.  Contrast our story with the one presented by Darrin Nordahl on page two of Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture (2009): Perhaps we were caught unawares because, even in our nation's capital, where more than three-thousand iconic cherry trees have become one of the city's premier tourist attractions, we are accustomed to plants in the urban environment providing simple aesthetics, rather than whole nourishment.  The Kwanzan cherry, the specific variety that makes up the bulk of the cherry trees in East Potomac Park, is a fruitless cultivar.  The Yoshino cherry--the principal cultivar that encircles the Tidal Basin and punctuates the Washington Monument grounds--does produce fruit, though it is stony and unpalatable to all but birds.  There is no denying

Woolly Pockets in Washington Square Park

Another reason to love Washington Square Park is the Woolly Pocket planters in the renovated playground.  (The latter is the subject of a future post.)  I think the Woolly product used in the playground is a School Garden and not a Wally.  Woolly Pocket also makes the Meadow and Islands.  A web search revealed that City-as Farmer planted tomato, okra, carrot, and other vegetables on Sunday, May 15, 2011.  I wonder who will care for this garden?  Who is allowed to harvest the produce? This is not the first use of a Woolly Pocket product in a park.  wrote about the garden installed at William F. Passannante Ballfield at Houston and Sixth Avenue during the summer of 2010. Have you read our post about the filming of a Sesame Street segment in the park?

Bird Watch: Top 10 methods for studying birds

Mourning dove in nest Writing for BirdScope (Vol. 25, 2), Laura Erickson listed the "top ten technologies for studying birds" as: 1. Field guides and binoculars 2. Numbered leg bands 3. Cameras 4. Microphones and recorders 5. Radio and satellite transmitters 6. Radar 7. Spectrograms 8. DNA analysis 9. Telecommunications 10. Autonomous recording units or ARUs Red-tailed hawk (male, Bobby) on cross atop Judson Memorial Church (See the Washington Square Park Blog via Urban Hawks blog for a map of Bobby's "haunts" ) We have used several of these technologies: field guides and binoculars (#1), cameras (#3), and telecommunications (#9). Most recently, we have been following the "hawk cam" of the red-tailed hawks nesting on the Bobst Library on West 4th Street. The New York Times published an excellent hawk resource list on June 3.  When we photographs birds or nests, we verify our sightings with field guides or with online re

Sesame Street in Washington Square Park

There are so many reasons we love our neighborhood Washington Square Park.  The filming of a Sesame Street segment this morning is one of them!  *Spoiler alert* Murray Monster and Rosita counted to five in Spanish (Rosita teaches Spanish words) and cookies popped out of a hat.

Chelsea Flower Show 2011 gardens

We did not attend the Chelsea Flower Show but we know someone who did and she shared photographs of seven of the 17 gardens at the flower show (thank you).  The descriptions below are taken from the BBC - Chelsea Flower Show 2011 website. The Irish Sky Garden by Diarmuid Gavin won a Gold medal & the RHS People's Choice Award. Beneath the suspended pod, which is covered in living grass, a myriad of dark pools reflect what's happening above. Large hornbeams point up to the sky and soft mounds of box and pine create cloud-like shapes amongst the pools. A ribbon of rusted steel cuts across the pools leading you up to the sky garden. Once aboard and up in the sky there are views of the showground which have never been seen before. The list of plants include: Miscanthus sinensis Photinia x fraseri 'Red Robin' - Christmas berry 'Red Robin' Carpinus betulus - hornbeam Buxus sempervirens - box Argyranthemum frutescens - marguerite Lavandula angusti

Hideo Sasaki's Garden in Washington Square Village

Bosquet of crabapples (original to the design) Japanese maples (later addition) Landscape architect Hideo Sasaki's interdisciplinary approach to landscape design was well known and regarded.  The work of Sasaki and his firm "display[ed] exceptional harmony of architecture, landscape architecture and art," writes The Cultural Landscape Foundation.  Sasaki's studies at UC Berkeley in the 1940s were interrupted by an internment at the Poston War Relocation Center during World War II.  He later completed his landscape architecture studies at the University of Illinois and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  Sasaki completed significant projects in the U.S. and one of his most famous landscapes in New York City is Greenacre Park.  Lists of his projects can be found here and here .  (The Sasaki firm now operates as Sasaki Associates, Inc.) Trellis replaced in spring 2011; new bench Sasaki designed another landscape in the city: the modernist 1.5 acre Garden