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Showing posts from June, 2013

9 Picture Books about Camping

Summer is here!  It's the season for outdoor activities like camping, going to the beach, fishing, and more.  This post features nine stories about camping.  Stay tuned for future posts about other activities.  1. Arthur Goes to Camp , by Marc Brown We are reading this book a lot lately as there is a day camp goer in our household.  Arthur's reluctantly goes to sleep-away camp.  He runs away from camp after several discouraging experiences but coincidentally saves the day when he turns on his flashlight to light his way. 2. Just Me and My Dad , by Mercer Mayer This is a favorite book in our household, and the subject is about camping.  The book also makes a great Father's Day gift. 3. Stella and Roy Go Camping , by Ashley Wolff Young and older children will find this story engaging.  We have read this book in the library but have not borrowed it. 4. Bailey Goes Camping , by Kevin Henkes We are fans of Kevin Henkes' tender stories.  We have

Window Box Garden: Melissa Harrison

Window Box Gardens showcases other people's small gardens.  Gardeners share photographs and description of their gardens. Maybe we can hang window boxes off our window guards...! If you would like to see your garden here, please email us at info(at)localecology.org.   Today's garden belongs to Melissa Harrison, author of the novel Clay .  We interviewed Melissa about Clay here . It’s been a bumper year for my strawberries and I’ve no idea why. From two tiny troughs and a pot on a windowsill I’ve had bowl after bowl of perfectly ripe, sweet red fruit, and they’re showing no sign of slowing down yet. Most years we get enough to pick and eat one or two at a time as a treat, in passing; this year, suddenly, we have a glut. I live in a ground-floor garden flat in South London. It’s an Edwardian conversion with a pretty standard 60’ lawned city plot bounded by wooden fences and edged by shrubs. But it’s north facing, which means it’s really hard to get things to grow. Shade f

Field Trip: FDR Four Freedoms Park

Beautiful weather last Saturday lured us to the FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island.  We traveled by subway to 59th Street then by tram over the East River to the island.  The Roosevelt Island Tramway is located at 60th Street and 2nd Avenue in the unassuming Tram Plaza.  (You can use your Metrocard to pay the fare.)  When we disembarked on the island we didn't immediately head to the park. We strolled along the cherry walk which must be breathtaking in the spring.  We watched yachts leave wakes which broke against the rocky breakwater.  We saw a cormorant fishing and a duck swimming.  We observed ants while eating our packed lunch. At the end of the cherry walk is South Point Park which has three striking features: a hilly meadow, the stabilized shell of the former Smallpox Hospital, and the former Strecker Memorial Laboratory. Whenever we leave the city heading north I stare at the park from the FDR so I was very excited to see it up close. 

Before & After Green: Seoul's Cheonggyecheon Stream

Image: Frame house along Seikei-Sen (Cheonggyecheon), circa 1910-1945 via Wikimedia Commons ( source ) Cheonggyechon Stream in downtown Seoul was a free-flowing waterway before it was decked between 1958 and 1977 then topped with a freeway between 1967 and 1977. Image: Seoul elevated freeway and decking above Cheonggyecheon Stream, 2003 via LAF ( source ) Image: Cheonggyecheon Streambed restoration, June 24, 2005 via Erik Möller ( source ) The elevated freeway and concrete deck covering the Cheonggyechon Stream in downtown Seoul was removed in beginning in 2003.  The project was initiated by former Mayor Lee Myung-bak. The 5.8 km stream restoration and infrastructure project was completed in 2005. The photograph, above, was taken from a bridge, shown below, looking west. Resources: Cheonggyechon Stream Restoration Project Case Study [Landscape Architecture Foundation] Cheonggycheon [Wikipedia] Cheong Gye Cheon Restoration Project [ICLEI World Cong

Political ecology of urban trees in Turkey and elsewhere

Image: Gezi Park, Istanbul via Google Maps If you have been following the protests in Turkey, you know they were triggered by the government's reaction to citizen protests against constructing a mall on Gezi Park, a central greenspace in Istanbul vegetated with hundreds of sycamores. In a blog post titled "Gezi Park, Nearby Nature, and Democracy" , Naomi Sachs of Therapeutic Landscape Network asked, "Can you imagine a city without any parks?" Sachs observed that the protests in Turkey strongly point to "people’s need for green space." In the post, Sachs linked to Andy Revkin's "Urban Trees as Triggers, From Istanbul to Oregon" article in the New York Times. There, Revkin referenced the violent confrontation between people and police over the destruction of trees in downtown Eugene, Oregon on June 1, 1997.  He also linked to Carl Pope's about the Turkish protests. Popes asked, "What Is It About Trees?" and answer

Field Trip: Sprout Home Brooklyn

After cleaning the particulate matter from my window sills one day and coincidentally reading about Brooklyn Beer Shop's beer making kit for apartment dwellers, I had an aha moment. What if there was a window box garden kit for apartment dwellers vegetated with plants that cleaned the air? Clean Air Window Box Garden! I contacted Tibor Fuchs, past president of the Metropolitan New York Chapter of the Indoor Gardening Society of America, for indoor species recommendations and he graciously provided a reference. I spoke with a friend who suggested I read Design*Sponge 's interview with Tassy De Give , of Sprout Home Brooklyn .  I emailed De Give about creating a window box garden and she said to visit the garden center anytime. While I wasn't able to mock up an actual box garden on site, I was given a lot of information about clean air indoor plants.  Small clean air plants are featured below -- enjoy! Dracaena deremensis English ivy   Snake

Wild About: Ginkgo

Wild About is a celebration of the flora and fauna commonly found in our cities. Instead of fact sheets, this space will showcase books, art, music, societies, and whimsical objects about urban-adaptable plants and animals.  Wild About was inspired by the Animal Love series at Design*Sponge .  If you would like to see your favorite urban-oriented plant or animal featured, please email us at info(at)localecology.org. Ginkgo biloba is the inaugural species in the Wild About series.  The ginkgo is one of my favorite trees.  I used to keep a list of blocks planted with ginkgo in Boston.  I've never eaten the fruit or the nut; like the durian or the jackfruit, the ginkgo's highly pungent smell is a deterrent.  The female tree bears fruit and many cities have responded to complaints about the malodorous fruit by specifying only male ginkgo on their approved list of tree species.  Oh, and the fruit's pulp contains the allergen ginkgolic acid.  (By the way, the fruit is a pulp