« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »
May 30, 2006
LaGuardia Corner Gardens
 |
On Saturday June 4th, stop by LaGuardia Corner Gardens and join the community gardeners as they celebrate their 25th anniversary of making the busy corner of Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place a whole lot more beautiful and liveable. Enjoy music and refreshments from 4-8pm, and, although the giant peony pictured at right has just finished blooming, there are now masses of roses to enjoy. Rain date: June 11.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2006
The Color Purple
|
|
Is purple or mauve a particularly fashionable color this year? May is generally a purple month. The pale purple Wisteria has just bloomed, it comes in pink and white as well, but mauve is the default color. NYC has some amazing wisteria, not only draped over stately landmarks like the pergola at the Conservatory Garden or the Osbourne Terrace at BBG, but eating townhouses from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village! In the fight between man and nature, wisteria often wins.
It is also lilac season. Although the common lilacs have finished blooming, their peak was the first week of May this year, the little leafs continue the cycle. Lilac "Miss Kim" and Lilac meyeri, Palibin although not as well known, are both exceptionally fragrant, and still blooming in parks.
In addition to these old stanbys, this year we have noticed a craze, a wave, of giant Alliums. Alliums of course, are onions and it's the purple flowered ornamental ones we're talking about here, not garlic, leeks, or scallions. Purple spheres are hovering over plantings from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Used to be that Alliums were quite recherche, and knowledgeable gardeners would include a few in their annual bulb order, and the following spring, less knowledgeable gardeners would exclaim at the sight of softball size flowers held up by a single slender 3-5 foot stem. Well, you know a plant has arrived when it is the featured spring planting around Columbus Circle. John Scheepers' bulb catalogue offers 29 different varieties of ornamental Allium, they come in white, greenish white and all shades of purple. There is clearly an Allium for every occasion, but the purple balls have become ubiquitous.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
WEEDS!
 |
 |
What's blooming in May along with a brilliant tulip display, the early perennials and the first annuals, is a healthy crop of Weeds. Two particularly ubiquitous varieties are all over our park woodlands, Garlic Mustard and Celandine Poppies. Although if you are pulling them up they are both thugs, one, the Garlic Mustard, is an invasive species, and univerally condemned as a threat to our environment, the other, the Celandine Poppy, is a native woodland plant that "self sows and naturalizes readily". The old saw that a weed is just a plant you don't want is proved once again.
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is a European import. It is a biennial, rosettes of heart shaped leaves appear to be followed in year two by the small white flower atop a tall (2 to 3-1/2ft.) stem. We have never found it particularly fussy, but its preferred habitat is moist, shaded soil and disturbed areas. Blooming in May and June, it can rapidly take over a woodland or field, out-competing both natives and introduced species. The seed, which is copious, can remain viable for up to 5 years, so the goal should be to remove the plant before it sets seed. Annoyingly deer, which can be relied upon to eat any number of desirable species, are not fond of Garlic Mustard. Luckily it does pull up quite easily especially when it is young.
The Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a very different case. It has an attractive yellow flower and lobbed blue green foliage. Garden in the Woods, the magnificent woodland created by the New England Wildflower Society in Framingham MA, sells it in its nursery- with no disclaimer or warning. It spreads very easily and looks sad and weedy the minute it stops blooming, not to mention the fact that it has a knack for infesting many areas where its color or habit is wrong- wrong- wrong. Remember, when you are struggling to pull it out of your garden or woodland, and the fat, brittle, orange root has broken off in your hands and stained them deep orange, that this is not a weed, it is a precious native wild flower.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2006
Columbus Circle
 |
Columbus Circle has won its designers, Olin Partners of Philadelphia, an ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) design award. Each year the ASLA chooses thirty or so projects to honor, and there is usually a New York City site somewhere in the mix. Last year Tom Balsley's Capital Plaza was one of the winners.
In its citation of the project the jury said, "Finally, a traffic island worth the effort," and went on to say that Columbus Circle "animates the urban landscape." The jury was reaching. The best thing about Columbus Circle is that it is FINALLY FINISHED, after years of construction and inconvenience. We yearn for more contemporary approaches to landscape design in the city, but this traffic island is considerably less appealing than Herald or Greeley Squares, where the turn of the century Beaux Arts aura has been considerably enhanced by the 34rth Street Partnership's abundant planting.
The newly configured Columbus Circle does not really invite you to bring a book at lunchtime and smell the flowers. The concentric rings of planting, fountain jets, and seating, do provide shelter from the traffic, but they are not enough of a buffer to make the center of the circle an agreeable place to sit. Olin Partners' description of the project refers to it as "a place to pause and refresh in the midst of a busy neighborhood." Perhaps as you struggle across the busy intersection laden with goods from Whole Foods (located in the basement of the AOL Time Warner building across from the circle) it might be a good place to readjust your grocery bags--but anyone with half a brain would trot across the street to Central Park if they really wanted to "pause and refresh." The planting, which is described as "providing concentric rings of beauty," is workmanlike and sensible--but we wouldn't call collars of liriope and cotoneaster "concentric rings of beauty."
Columbus Circle does come alive at night. The slim band of neon light on the exterior of the fountain is very effective as you wiz around the intersection. Lighting was one of the designers' main area of concern and they have done a good job. The lighting is perfectly adequate for safety, but atmospheric enough to make the circle seem glamourous, especially when the panoramic windows of Jazz at Lincoln Center, overlooking the circle, are filled with the silhouettes of Jazz greats in concert.
Link: ASLA
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)