Morse

Meet Morse Jones. They're a groundhog (he/she, we don't know). Morse, for obvious reasons, and Jones, because since the pandemic's worst days, when Green-Wood's side gates first opened permanently to the community, we have been calling a family of groundhogs that emanates from a burrow nearby The Joneses. 

Morse is very pleased with the grass situation, currently. Nice and tender.

Morse has been sending SOS's into the ether, but we're not sure any help is coming.

Who said clouds were lonely?

A host. A host, I tell you! 

The daffodils have opened in Prospect Park.

Bud break

 

Cloudy days, but on Saturday we went for a long walk in the park (Prospect Park). A milestone walk, because, at five miles, door to door, it was the longest stroll for me since early December, when I began to take some serious foot pain seriously and had to simply stop. Walking. I don't know what injured the plantar fascia muscles, but it's been a steep and then very long and dauntingly gradual learning curve and recovery process. I mean, I had to join a gym! For cardio exercise that didn't involve weight-bearing. 

Blablabla. So this walk, albeit not at my usual pace, which is fast, was a test. It seemed to go A-OK. No pain the day after. It's mending.

Plus, there were pre-spring blossoms. Prunus x subhirtella always startles everyone by flowering in early winter, and then again in very early spring (which is less alarming). It's the first cherry blossom of the year, always. The fat, frilly Kanzan's are still about six weeks away.

Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) blossoms are about to erupt. In September their tart red fruits will be ripe.

Native spicebush  (Lindera benzoin) has fat round buds.

Hazel (species?) - the pollen-laden male catkins with the tiny red female flower above.

________________

Snowdrops

The snowdrops always surprise me. There's a patch of them in the northern reaches of Prospect Park (furthest from our local, southern end) that always blooms weeks ahead of anything else. And this really was the winter for snow, and real cold, at last.

The trees are many weeks away from leafing out, but buds on their bare are beginning to swell. the leaf litter below is thick, and the snowdrops lift brown leaves as they rise.

Even though I am drawn to native plants (wherever I - and they - may be), it's hard to dislike these small tokens of botanical life. And their emergence always makes me wonder what is happening, right now, in that narrow valley in the Catskills, where a wild, clean stream is rushing from the mountains, and a sunny slope is beginning to think about thawing.

It's the last day of dark afternoons (although even those have been growing brighter). Daylight Savings Time will give us sudden, Sunday sunlight, right past 6pm.

_______________________

Clouds of fleeceflower

On a hill at Green-Wood Cemetery is a monument dedicated to the 148,000 New York soldiers enlisted in the Revolutionary War. Often, when I walk here, I imagine what the ground under my feet looked like, and what the sounds may have been, then, because this is where battles were fought. 

But what drew me to the monument this day was the cloud of giant fleeceflowers in bloom at its base. They are closely related to highly invasive Japanese knotweed, but apparently behave much better. Persicaria polymorpha: statuesque, yet floofy. In peak bloom, now.

______________

New Summer Walks

Witnessed:

...the big blue of the beginning of Jamaica Bay, just off the tip of Breezy Point, Queens, New York City.

There are dunes, there is a wraparound beach. And on Sunday, there was clear water.

The giant pumpkin is an iron buoy, about four feet across.

The tide had been high, and was receding.

The dune grasses crest hills of sand that are part of the Gateway National Recreation Area - a federal preserve. The  preserve surrounds the gated human community of Breezy Point, where even the residential side roads each have their own barrier of a boom to keep them separate within their separation.

To access the point - whose barrier island mate, framing New York Harbor, is south, in New Jersey, at Sandy Hook - you can either walk along the beach for a couple of miles from a public access area, or drive and park, as long as you have a permit. We have a permit.  This is a birding hotspot. And we did spot hundreds of northern gannets, flocking like a snow shower against the backdrop of Coney Island as they dive-bombed the blue water for fish.

In the quiet dunes there were prints.

A tug left Jamaica Bay, drawing a barge. A cruise ship/floating petri dish sailed from New York Harbor. Thousands of souls, stacked, and ready for paradise.

And the outgoing tide, leaving fields of clam shells exposed.

In a hollow in the dunes were the signs of a gated community's party. A quick, casual, walking inventory counted 80 Bud Light cans. A bottle of Malibu rum, and a lot of hard tea.

Also an epipen and an abandoned toiletry bag containing an asthma inhaler.

We drove back out from this lovely beach, past the boom-sealed roads, the private security force's (sorry: Public Safety)'s headquarters, and wondered, as we have, so many times, about what makes this large country tick.

________________

Wild Walks, Classes, Stories

Low tide at Jones Beach

After five grey days the sun shone on us, and we pointed our noses towards the ocean. Jones Beach, on a skinny barrier island less than an hour northwest of home, has become a winter haven for us. And it's usually frigid. Sunday was relatively mild. Cold enough enough for layers, and gloves and hats, but balmy by most early January standards. 

It was empty. That's why we like it. And we thought we might spot a snowy owl...

Aside from the marring tire tracks on the empty sand, we saw about 12 other people in three hours. Two fishermen, four walkers, and a balance of birders, some alone, some in pairs, most with scopes, some with long lenses. We had binoculars and a long lens, too, so we fit right in. An elderly photographer walking out from the dunes conferred with us. Had we seen anything? Sea ducks on the water, I said, But I'm not sure what they are. Razorbills, he suggested in a Middle European accent: Vot I have been looking for. I wasn't sure. I've seen razorbills in our bird book and these were different. And I knew I'd seen one in Maine... He told us to watch for snow buntings. You can see zem ven zey take off, he advised. We didn't see them, but later we did spot his elusive razorbill, bobbing neatly for fish.

The water was smooth. No swells, no waves, barely a ripple. The tide was very low, and for an hour after we arrived its motion was suspended. Scanning the sea I could still see the birds sitting on it miles out, disappearing smoothly as they hunted. The perspective was extraordinary. I have never seen such still water.

After walking to the rocky arm at the end of the beach we sat and spooned up our hot soup. A flock of dunlin that had been resting on the rocks erupted suddenly, and began the wheeling, shifting choreography that is a murmuration. They broke apart into smaller shapes and blended again, split, and shifted, like nothing real. As we were filming them I noticed a larger bird diving into their flock - a raptor, and probably what set them off in the first place. It flew away, empty-taloned.

As we walked back two seals raised their wet heads to look at us from the smooth water, then sank again as silently. A flash of foam and one reappeared with a flapping silver fish beneath its whiskers.

And then two of the seabirds came close to shore, hunting in the steep drop-off right at the water's foaming edge. They were loons. Overwintering off our shoreline. One had something skinny sticking up out of its tail feathers - a fishing line? But it was too rigid, more like a quill, and it didn't seem to be bothering the bird, whose movements were sleek and swift. Only at home, his photos viewed on a big screen, did the Frenchman say with some disbelief: It's an antenna! It was. That loon was hooked up to a satellite. 

New weather had moved in, blending sea and horizon, smudging air and earth, mixing the light.

There had been no snowy owl, but this will be remembered as an extraordinary day,  experienced on the edge of a city teeming with millions and millions of people, in one of the most populated regions on the planet.

Doesn't look like it, does it?

______________

My Books

Serena Bass's Garden

Serena Bass's garden in Brooklyn begins on the sidewalk. I didn't know that, the first time I visited, almost exactly a year ago, on a sticky summer evening. I had parked several doors down but began smiling when I saw the pots overflowing with flowers and shrubs. I knew I was close.

On a recent visit the sidewalk pots included lilies, a serviceberry tree, echinacea, grasses, sedums, clematis, honeysuckle, boxwood and ivy.

These vivid flowers on three-foot stems intrigued me. Dahlias? I queried, hesitantly. "I loathe Dahlias. They're Helio-somethings," countered Serena, who speaks only botanical Latin. They turned out to be Heliopsis, and quite new to me. But no longer.

The front garden - sidewalk and stoop - is drenched in warm colors and there is a strong petunia presence.

Few people know how to deploy coleus this effectively.

Don't you just want to lick those black petunias?

And that's just the front. 

You'll find my story about Serena Bass's gardens on Gardenista, with lots more pictures, including the cool blue inner sanctum. Plus cats.

Also, her cookbook is wonderful. I knew I had to buy it after having supper that steamy summer night last year. It is very funny, too. Laugh-out-loud funny. It's called Serena, Food and Stories (Stewart, Tabori and Chang).

______________

My Gardenista Stories

Spring's best trees

Umbrella magnolia are in bloom.

Historic Green-Wood Cemetery is an accredited arboretum and home to some of the oldest and most beautiful trees in New York City. Our proximity to this beautiful, huge green space was not something we appreciated when we signed the lease on our current apartment. We lucked out. Although Prospect Park is also very close by, Green-Wood's tranquility is quite different. It is quiet, clean, and its grass is the best for lying upside-down on.

I wrote about (some of) Green-Wood's trees in spring for Gardenista. 

_______________

June 16th, Alley Pond Park Walk

#18thStreetPollinators - nothing to see, here

I feel like a cat who has just covered up a smelly thing in their litterbox and has dusted off their paws and wants nothing more to do with it. What, that? That wasn't me?! 

But here goes.

Two Wednesdays ago I ignored all the things I should have been doing and went to my friend Hannah's house in Park Slope to dig up plants. She was moving, packing up, and going on a big adventure, and had invited me to take anything in her garden (above) that might appeal to me. I was thrilled, and told her about the park on 18th Street and the plants it needed, and she said I was welcome to them. (For the backstory, visit these links for the #18thStreetPollinator garden, Parts One and Two.)

If only I could undo it.

Hannah lent me her garden clogs. It was muddy. I dug while a cardinal sang.

Very little had emerged, yet, but investigative digging revealed three intriguing mystery plants from a Brooklyn Botanic Garden sale. They had succulent white roots and were making lipstick-pink shoots. I found and dug up the dormant rootstocks of Japanese anemones and astilbe, which were carefully arranged in milk crates that Hannah gave me. The hostas of summer could not be located in mid-March. One crate was devoted to ferns. As I worked a procession of people from a Buy Nothing group perused some stellar free stuff in the apartment. 

As nearby church bells rang noon I pruned back unruly raspberry canes and dug them up with chunks of earth attached to their roots. A loose-limbed and very prickly rambling rose followed. Hannah said its flowers were white. I imagined them in bloom in early summer, and raspberries making fruit for visitors to the park. 

Along with plants donated by the Gowanus Nursery and by Alyse, a neighbor and Instagram friend, this collection would actually create a sense of structure for the plantless park around the corner from where we live. Flowers for pollinators and people. 

When everything was ready I fetched and double-parked the car Brooklyn-style, loaded up, and drove the plants to 18th Street. (Sorry about the plastic trash bags, but that rose really was very prickly.)

At the park I planted the liatris, iris, and lily bulbs that I bought a few days before. I tried not to disturb the alliums that had set the whole thing in motion, and which had already rooted. I placed, and planted, the rest. (My tools were a newly-acquired Fiskars spade and trowel; my terrace-gardening is minimalist: just a fierce Japanese hori, essentially useless in the deep, wood chip mulch, here.) 

The white rose - with a clematis at it feet - and raspberries were planted in the sunniest corner (above) closest to the roaring, exhaust-smelly Fort Hamilton Parkway. Lilies, liatris, alliums, fescues were hidden here, too. I intended planting icy-yellow sunflowers once our last frost-date was a memory (anyone need fancy sunflower seeds)? 

I was done just after 5pm. Tired and sore but pleased. I could see it all in my late May mind's eye. Now the space had shape, albeit incognito until warmer weather. An ideal time to plant, and a solid, essential day of rain to follow.

The next day, around Thursday, noon, I walked by to see how it was all doing in the promised rain. 

I noticed some black trash bags on the sidewalk. Then I saw an unusually deep depression where some of the liatris bulbs had been planted. Something was missing.

I walked quickly into the space and saw at once that Hannah's rose was gone. So were the raspberry canes. The clematis, the astilbe. The 'Eden' rose donated by my friend Michele, from the Gowanus Nursery. All the Heuchera nurtured by Alyse.

Everything.

But the #18thStreetPollinators sign was still there. 

I felt hollow. I looked at the row of houses facing the park. What had they seen?

At home I refunded the three kind people who had donated money (the Donate button had only gone live the day before). 

The next day I wrote to the plant donors. It was the only time I cried. And since then I have tried not to think about it at all. 

So what happened? 

Either: Someone had been watching. And moved in immediately. Or: The NYC Parks Department came by - either scheduled or due to a complaint -  and the workers removed every well-considered plant. This is the most likely scenario. (Except...the bulbs?)

I knew I was guerilla gardening, and I knew it was a risk. That was why I had the sign made. So anyone could go online with the hashtag to find out more. Fingers crossed. Stupid fingers.

So what now? 

It's simple. I quit. Whoever did it, whether through the vandalism of indifference, or through malice, or greed, won.  

Trying to define what flattened me, it is a combination of the destroyed potential, and quite simply, the plants. Just ripped out. I am at a loss.

I know why I did this: to make a beautiful space in a barren piece of land - a wasted, precious park. And, as Russia was invading Ukraine, this seemed a positive thing and a way to channel my own sense of helplessness. But I feel very stupid, and so very bad for the givers of plants. 

As an epitaph, here is what was planted. Possibly some of the bulbs made it.

 Gowanus Nursery:

1 'Eden' rose

2 Hypericum (St. John's-wort)

4 asters

6 fescues (still there, in disguise)

2 yellowroot (these were actually still there, invisible?)

Neighbor Alyse:

Lots of Heuchera

3 Phlox (woodland, I think)

2 hardy geraniums

1 mountain mint

1 sedum-ish perennial

Hannah:

About 14 New York ferns 

2 Christmas ferns

6 Japanese anemones

8-ish Astilbe

3 mystery plants just beginning to produce bright pink shoots

1 rambling white rose

1 clematis

10-ish raspberries 

Me:

8 Lilium henryi

30 Alliums

40 Dutch Iris

60 Liatris 

Thank you. And I am sorry.