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Showing posts from May, 2013

A tree is felled in Manhattan

I knew two of the willow oaks were scheduled to be removed from the oak grove on Bleecker Street but I did not have a timeline. It was coincidence that I happened to be walking past the site when the tree company began its work. The video shows the felling of the westernmost of the two willow oaks slated for removal.

Species: Big-bracted dogwoods

Beautiful as they are, the showiest part of the flowers of our most popular landscape dogwoods are not true petals. Botanically speaking they are bracts. They protect the leaf and flower buds overwinter and possibly more...! Read my essay about misunderstanding the dogwood at Metropolitan Field Guide. Even more dogwood: Tracking population loss in Cornus florida since discovery of Discula destructiva, causal agent of dogwood anthracnose, in eastern North America Dogwood blossoms, PhillipsFarm, at Union Square Greenmarket Dogwood photograph art, Seattle, Kathleen Atkins on Etsy P.S. View an "understated and elegant" dogwood photographed by Tokyo Green Space.

Public Stairways: Angels Knoll, Los Angeles

Angels Knoll via Google Maps Angels Knoll is downtown Los Angeles was "made famous by the film 500 Days of Summer" though I did not recognize the park when I saw it for the first time in April.  Angels Knoll is composed of several components: the metro station, the newer Angels Knoll Plaza , the hillside park, and the historic funicular, Angels Flight , alongside which runs a stairway. Angels Flight, the "shortest railway in the world" at 298 feet, was opened in 1901 between Third and Hill Streets and Bunker Hill, dismantled in 1969 to accommodate the Bunker Hill Urban Renewal Project,  but restored and re-opened in 1996 though one-half block from its original location.  I highly recommend the experience.  You can follow the cars - Olivet and Sanai - on Twitter .  Now the stairway. Surprisingly there are no details about the stairway online.  The photograph above shows the northern section of the stairway, looking down from California Plaza.  The up

Urban gardener TLC kit

To appease my outdoor garden envy I created a TLC kit for the urban gardener.  When I lived in Boston, I had a plot in the Victory Gardens in Fenway and grew edible and ornamental plants.  I used the Felco hand pruner I acquired as a community forester in New Haven and soothed by chapped hands with Crabtree & Evelyn's Gardeners hand cream , a thoughtful gift from a friend.  The first time I used a hori-hori was in Berkeley; I was weeding a trail-side before re-planting it with California natives.  The Nisaku hori-hori digging tool shown above is one of several carried by Amazon.  The handsome hori-hori sold by Canoe is currently out of stock.  At the end of the final class of the Trees New York Citizen Pruner course I was presented with a big blue bucket.  The bucket is perfect for carrying your tools (hand pruner, pole saw, tree saw heads, gloves) as well as the vegetation you pruned.  The garden bucket caddy by Fiskar is an improvement as it keeps your tools separate

Floral Catalogue: Spring 2013

Beginning with the blossoming of the cherries I have been taken photographs of the trees (and some shrubs and herbaceous perennials) in my neighborhood. These hellebores are in a window box at 41 Bond Street. My first time seeing a tree lilac in New York; this one is on Grand Street in Brooklyn. We wrote a redbud profile last week. It's a viburnum! Viburnum prunifolium , or blackhaw, identified by ‏ @nygreenguy .

6 Landscape Books written by Mothers

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama suggested her book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America , as a Mother's Day gift to the audience at the Politics & Prose bookstore in D.C.   Her remarks sparked this post: books about landscapes - domestic, public, and private - written by mothers.  (All images via Amazon.com except where noted.) Last month I attended a lecture by Jamaica Kincaid about "Captain Bligh's Bounty" and learned that she very much dislikes the breadfruit. She's a humorous writer and speaker, too. One of my favorite books by her is My Garden (Book) . It's not an exaggeration to say that Central Park is known world-wide.  The Central Park Conservancy, too,  is widely admired (and critiqued).  Perhaps less known is the founder of the Central Park Conservancy: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.  Her accomplishments are impressive!  Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History rem

Wet weather discharge point, Grand Ferry Park

Wet weather discharge points are permitted combined sewer overflow locations . During rainfall and snowmelt events, the city's combined sewer system can become overloaded, releasing a mix of stormwater and untreated sewage into waterways. In this example, the mix would be released into the East River at Grand and River Streets in Brooklyn.  The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has prepared an CSO outfall map which is available here . You can help to reduce the volume of overflows by limiting the amount of wastewater released into the system before and during rainfall and snowmelt events. Dontflush.me posts "Code BROWN! Engage plan B: save water during possible sewer overflow" and other alerts to its website and Twitter . The dontflush.me project hardware and software were developed by Leif Percifeld. Learn more here . P.S. An interactive map by Climate Central of the 11 Billion Gallons of Sandy Sewage Overflow (HT Sustainable C

Species: Cercis canadensis

Cercis canadensis or Eastern redbud is an understory tree native to eastern North America. The small tree has two showy characteristics. It has "fluttering" heart-shaped leaves. The long stems (or pedicels) on which the leaves grow allow them to "flutter quite freely in even the smallest breeze" . The other dramatic feature of the Eastern redbud is the flower. The redbud is one of the first trees to flower in the spring. The flowers emerge before the leaves and almost cling to the branches and stems of the tree.  In some cases, the flowers emerge from the trunk itself! The photograph above shows three redbuds in bloom and each with a different colored flower (foreground to background): maroon, white, and lavender.  The flowers are edible, as are the seeds.  Top your dessert with the flowers . Pickle the buds .  The flowers, leaves, and seeds have wildlife value , too.  Birds eat the seeds, deer the leaves, and honeybees the nectar. Here are loo

NRDC LEED Platinum office building, Santa Monica

In the final post of three about the Sustainable Santa Monica tour, I will share several green features of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) office building, one of the first buildings in the U.S. to be rated LEED Version 2 Platinum . NRDC walks the talk!  The U.S. Green Building Council which administers the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program was "spearheaded" by NRDC senior scientist Robert K. Watson in 1994. The NRDC office building began its life as an acupuncture studio.  Wood beams from the former studio remain in the lobby which is named the David Family Environmental Action Center.  Material reuse can earn a building up to two points in the LEED Platinum v2.0 rating.  Construction waste management (up to two points) is also important: "98 percent of the waste materials generated during construction were reused or recycled."  The use of "rapidly renewable materials" provides one point.  The stairs in the bui

Stump Stories: Ladd and Bush Bank Building, Salem, Oregon

Image: Tree memorial, Ladd and Bush, Salem, Oregon, courtesy of Bonnie Hull ( source ) In downtown Salem, Oregon, three of five Zelkova trees at the Ladd and Bush Bank Building , currently housing a U.S. Bank branch, were removed by U.S. Bank after appealing the Shade Tree Advisory Committee's original "no removal" judgement.  Citizens demonstrated against the reversal of the "no removal" judgement and installed memorials when the trees were stumped. Image: Tree memorial, Ladd and Bush, Salem, Oregon, courtesy of Bonnie Hull ( source ) The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970. The five Zelkovas were planted in the early 1970s and removed before this year's Earth Day.  The three trees that were cut were almost 43 years old. Image: Tree memorial, Ladd and Bush, Salem, Oregon, courtesy of Bonnie Hull ( source ) The fate of the remaining two Zelkovas remains to be seen.  Brian Hines filed an appeal to save the remaining two Zelkovas   on April