The Elizabeth Street garden is located in lower Manhattan in an area with extremely little green. It was established in 1990 by the gallery owner Allan Reiver on an abandoned lot. The garden has since evolved into a vibrant space full of plants and sculptures that is beloved by residents, visitors and quite a number of celebrities.
In 2012, the city decided to develop the lot. As soon as this became known, neighbors and local business owners came together to resist such plans and to work towards making the garden a permanent park. During the following years, a non-profit organization (ESG) was formed, donations were collected, rallies and protests were organized. The city countered by planning to build apartments for seniors on the lot, thereby pitting the need for affordable housing against the need for green space. Supporters of the garden always insisted that there were other sites for such housing.
More than a decade and several law suits later, it appears that the city has given in. Alternative sites for affordable senior housing were identified, which would support three times as many apartments as the planned building on Elizabeth Street. If this works out, it will be a win-win situation for everybody.
Let us hope that this is a new beginning. Let us hope that the officials begin to re-think the use of land not covered in concrete and stone. As temperatures soar into the high 90s this week, it is ever more obvious how important the green oases in the city are for the well-being of all of us.
Yesterday, we held our traditional June Garden Party. As for all previous events this year, the weather looked rather iffy with thunderstorms in the forecast. Also, the previous days were so unseasonably cool that we feared we would need a warm sweater. But it all worked out beautifully: The fog lifted, the temperature warmed up quite a bit, and a light rain only came when we were already packing up.
The Party started with a short general meeting. First, we discussed a few items of usual garden business, including an update on our delicate water system (which is holding up nicely).
Then, to our surprise, the mayoral candidate Jim Walden paid us a visit. Jim Walden is running as an independent in the upcoming election. He is a lawyer and a big champion for community gardens. In 2013, Jim had been part of the team that supported our garden in the lawsuit against the NYU expansion plan, which threatened our very existence. The lawsuit was not successful, but hey, we are still here! And Jim is still advocating for better protection of all community gardens.
Above on the left, our chair Ellen talks about composting, and on the right, Jim Walden explains his program to protect green spaces in NYC.
After this official part, it was time for the potluck party. As always, the food was varied and delicious.
It is really nice when so many gardeners get together in the garden instead of on Zoom like during most of our other meetings.
Finally a photo of a plant that looks particularly stunning right now: Acanthus mollis or bear’s breeches. The plant originates from the Mediterranean and is best known for its leaves, which feature prominently at corinthian capitals. Here are the flowers.
Every year on the day of the summer solstice, people gather to make and listen to music for “Make Music”, an event that happens all around the world in 120 countries and over 1000 cites, including New York.
We have been participating at “Make Music New York” for many years, and our favorite band, the Nevermind Orchestra will be playing again this year in the afternoon from 4 to 6pm.
We are excited that this year, a second musician, the Jazz Saxophonist Ras Burnett, will also pay in our garden from noon to 1 pm.
Let’s hope for good weather. The 21st is a Saturday and we had a lot of rain on weekends lately. However, the musicians of the Nevermind Orchestra are known to not be deterred by a little rain. They played in our garden under the umbrellas before.
This year, the Weather Gods are smiling at our plants but not at GreenThumb events. This weekend was “Open Garden Day”, two days of fun events at all community gardens in the city. And it rained – again. Saturday was completely wet, Sunday was surprisingly cold and misty with just a few dry stretches. LaGuardia Corner Garden had prepared a little bug-themed crafts workshop. We wanted to make origami butterflies with our visitors. But paper and rain do not go together very well. As Johannes observed correctly: this was no weather for butterflies. We had to have to save this activity for a different day.
The plants, however, liked the rain. Tomatoes, basil and marigolds would prefer it a little warmer, but summer heat will come soon enough. At the moment, Clematis are the stars.
The flowers of a bush clematis
And let us not forget the bell-flowers, the campanulas. We are so lucky to have all of this beauty at out fingertips.
This week was the National GrowTogether Conference, a meeting of community gardeners from all over the country. It was organized by the NYC ParksGreenThumb in partnership with the American Community Gardening Association and the Denver Urban Gardens’ Urban Garden Project. This was the first time the GrowTogether conference went national, took place in June and not in early Spring, and went on over several days. This year’s theme was “Seeds of Resilience”.
Saturday was the day that I could attend, and I had a great time. The day started with a keynote talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the Potawatomi botanist, ecologist, and writer most gardeners know from at least one of her wonderful books: “Braiding Sweetgras: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants“. Who has not read this book should pick up a copy. In her talk, Robin spoke about our relationship with the land and how the land gives to us freely. These gifts, we can gratefully accept, but we have the responsibility to give back. Here is what she thinks we need to do:
Robin talked about climate change and the engineering efforts to sequester carbon into the ground. She reminded us that plants have been doing this since the beginning of time: take CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into organic matter, much of which is in the ground (the roots!). All of this happens with solar energy only. Robin is a scientist, and she knows that plants can’t solve our climate crisis on their own. We people have to help in many ways. Robin’s response to some politician’s call to get even more oil out of the ground is this:
The keynote talk received standing ovations and was followed by panel discussions and many workshops, including a meditation workshop by our own Eileen Ain.
It was hard to pick a workshop from the many offers, so I decided to just have fun and go into a room where Don Boekelheide from Charlotte, NC made music with us. For an hour, we sang garden- and gardening- related songs. These were a fun mix of children’s songs, songs by famous songwriters (e.g. Arlo and Woody Guthrie and Sally Rogers), a British protest song from the 17th century, other songs in English like “The Garden Song” and songs in Spanish. The “Canción de Jardinera” from the Argentinian songwriter Maria Elena Walsh has a lovely verse:
Merenme, soy feliz En nuestro jardines crecen Verduras y amigos los dos Con amor y el compost
(More on compost later)
Look at me, I’m happy In our gardens grow Veggies and friends both With love and compost
Singing together is always a lot of fun, and so is making things. During the next workshop, I and many others learned from Sofia van Leeuwen how to make cordage from Yucca filamentosa leaves and the outer layer of the stalks of perennial hibiscus.
Not bad, right? This string is strong and much nicer than the plastic-encased wire that we often use to tie up our plants!
While we gardeners were sitting inside, our gardens got some nice rain. And LaGuardia Corner Garden also got compost! The department of sanitation had organized a compost give-back event at our garden during which neighbors and gardeners could get one or more large bags of compost. We thank all New Yorkers for throwing their food scraps into the brown bins and not into the trash. That is one small thing we can all do to give back to the land and combat climate change.
One of the first butterflies of the season appeared in the garden on Friday.
