June 14, 2006
Random Acts of Kindness
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Every now and then as we travel though the city, we come upon little garden moments that make the day brighter. Sometimes it's hard to tell if we're looking at the hand of God- or at a little gift left by a Good Samaritan gardener. For instance, south-bound on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Riverdale just before exit 22 there is a chain link fence running for a few dozen feet beside the highway. The fence, which seems to be protecting an impenetrable thicket of weeds and shrubs, has been covered in a riot of clematis for a month. The show is winding down now, but it started with a huge light blue flowered variety draped extravagantly over the fence - which is why we first noticed it - and seems to be concluding with a smaller flowered dark blue-purple variety, perhaps Etoile de Violette. You can only see this display if you are driving by, in fact you can only really appreciate it if you are a passenger in a car driving by, but it's horticultural eye candy for the initiated.
Further south on the access road to Riverside Drive from 125th street and the West Side Highway, someone has planted an entire hillside with orange and red lilies. People don't plant lilies much any more. They are fatally attractive to deer, which makes them a poor choice in the suburbs, and somehow their stiffness doesn't work in mixed borders. But there is clearly a lily lover somewhere in Harlem because this hillside gets more vibrant every year.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2005
What's Blooming 6/14
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One of the prettiest flowering trees around and one of the last to bloom in the spring, is Syringa reticulata or Japanese tree lilac. It's a small tree of about 20 to 30 feet in height, and it has a 15 to 20 foot spread. The dark green leaves emerge early in the season, but the showy flower panicles wait until mid June to appear and then they smother the tree with fragrant creamy white blossoms.
There is a beautiful specimen in full glory right now in the South Garden of Central Park's Conservatory Garden. Although not as ubiquitous as the Bradford pear (What's blooming March), Japanese tree lilacs are being used more frequently in urban landscapes, as they make excellent street trees; not too big, and tolerant of polluted city conditions. This one on the right is in Washington Market Park in Tribeca.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2005
Roses
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Roses everywhere you look this week. Of course there are the magnificent displays at the Botanical Gardens and the UN where huge collections of perfect specimens are tastefully displayed, but for us, the best rose are in neighborhoods, and especially in community gardens. We have seen some memorable roses in our travels around the city; a luminous buff colored climber against a slate grey wall at The Backyard Garden in Red Hook, the seventy two rosebushes blazing from the Holy Rosary Community Garden at 117th street and Pleasant Avenue in Manhattan, and the red roses that climb over the iron archway gates of many of the city's community gardens. These last are especially evident in the gardens of the Lower East Side, but you can see them all over in community gardens of a certain vintage.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)