A school garden in summer can face some dire conditions, with students and staff fleeing the campuses of our local learning institutions at the hottest, driest time of year. As Bronx youth splash around the hydrants on their blocks, the peppers and cabbage they planted in spring try to withstand drought compete with the mugwort and crabgrass. Well, the JFK High School Environmental Club has just done something about that.
Earlier this season, Todd Forrest posted a blog entitled “Waiting for Hydrangeas”. He spoke of the cold spring we had where temperatures plummeted below freezing, destroying many hydrangea flower buds that were waiting to bloom this season.
While panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata) and smooth hydrangeas (Hydrangea arborescens) flower on new wood, the bigleaf, mophead, and lacecap hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) that we all adore, flower primarily on old wood with the flower buds forming the previous season.
The re-blooming or remontant type that flower on both old and new wood have, as predicted, fared very well. We have a large planting of Endless Summer® at the train station entrance of the Garden at the Moshulu Gate. It has been flowering beautifully for the past month with new flowers starting to form as older ones fade. The first year these hydrangeas were planted the flowering was sparse, but now that they have established a solid root system and settled in they are floriferous.
Wednesdays mean free grounds-only admission to the Garden, and of course the return of the NYBG Greenmarket. This week our specialty vendors are offering okra, purple basil, red amaranth, eggplants, cantaloupe, potatoes, and more! Just in time too, because we have really been working up an appetite reading the special menus that have been announced for our series of Family Dinners with Mario Batali’s Chefs. These visiting luminaries of Italian cuisine are using the freshly grown produce of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden to prepare some garden-to-table recipes that sound absolutely delicious.
Tickets are still available for those who would like to enjoy one of these special evenings of cooking demonstrations and activities for the whole family! For us amateur cooks, we have chosen a simple recipe that still makes the most of the Greenmarket’s bounty. Gazpacho, that Spanish staple of summer, can be a speedy and refreshing treat that would taste outstanding with the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers available today! Read on for the recipe.
There is no better place for guests to enjoy this special three-course, family-style menu than in the green seclusion of the Garden grounds on a cool summer evening. However, these Family Dinners are about more than just good food—though there will be plenty of that. Kids begin the evening with hands-on craft and gardening activities, followed by a cooking demonstration so families can see the custom menu come to life before tucking in to a delicious meal together. This MasterCard® Priceless event goes to support the Edible Academy initiative, so treat the family to a wonderful evening while contributing towards the Garden’s educational programming for children.
Tickets are sure to sell out, so book now. Read on for the full details about this Sunday’s special menu, and to get more information about the Edible Academy.
Instructor Daryl Beyers demonstrates how to resolve bound roots during a container gardening lesson.
On July 14, more than 60 eager Summer Intensives students came to the Garden to begin a move toward changing their careers, learning new skills, and pursuing their passions. The Intensives are designed to accelerate training and Certification in Gardening, Floral Design, Landscape Design, Botanical Art & Illustration, and Horticultural Therapy.
Students came from as near as the tri-state area and as far as Texas to get professional training from the Garden. Some students had prior experience in these fields of study, while others were newcomers looking for a new career. This year’s students were, overwhelmingly, all on a mission to positively change their lives and the lives of others.
There are other words that you can use to describe the piece of land between the street and the sidewalk—“tree park” or “meridian” are a couple of them—but of those synonyms, “hellstrip” is my favorite by far.
Thanks to Evelyn J. Hadden’s instructive book, Hellstrip Gardening, I can now use that term with aplomb. Where you or I might see a neglected, soil-filled curbside, Hadden sees colorful, even edible, planting opportunities. Her photo-rich book is organized into four parts, including inspirational curbside gardens around the country, the challenges of planting and maintaining these nontraditional spaces, suggestions for appropriate plants, and how to design and keep up with the needs of your new plot.
Hellstrip Gardening manages to combine the promises of community beautification and the psychological benefits of having nature close at hand with practical and clear-eyed advice. Hadden does not pretend that you will simply plant your hellstrip and it will be appreciated by all, remaining untouched by pedestrians, dogs, rodents, restrictive city or community laws, or road work. Instead, she outlines the realities of planting in semi-public or public spaces and how to approach this kind of gardening with reasonable expectations. Her refreshing and upbeat book is a good choice for anyone who is patient and looking for creative opportunities to establish beauty where others see blight.
Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise Between the Sidewalk and the Curb by Evelyn J. Hadden, Portland, Or.: Timber Press, 2014
