The Columbus-Amsterdam BID, which coordinates neighborhood-improvement efforts along those avenues, arranged for a bulk delivery of mulch from the city’s Parks Department, and asked for volunteers to help apply it to neighborhood treebeds.
Continue reading “Neighborhood Treebed Mulching”Category: Civic Engagement
Mulchfest!
Every December, many of the city’s residents bring home a small conifer for the winter holidays — and then discard them in early January.
Mulchfest is part of the city’s adaptation to this cycle: deploying large chipper trucks at numerous locations around the city, where people can bring their trees to be chipped, and optionally take home a bag of the resulting material to be used as mulch.
While most people just leave their tree, or perhaps take home a small bag of pine chips, there doesn’t seem to be any real limit to how much mulch you’re allowed to take, so I’ve learned to bring a shopping cart and a stack of empty tote bags, so I can bring home enough for a dozen sidewalk treebeds around the neighborhood.
The mix of pine needles, twigs, and chips will slowly break down over the coming year to provide a stream of supplemental nutrients to the soil, as well as improving moisture absorption and retention and building soil health.
Licensed Citizen Pruner
I was pleased to receive notice that I had passed the exam for a Citizen Pruner License, giving me authority to do minor pruning and related care for New York City’s street trees.
New Yorkers are so blasé that I expect in practice I could do nearly any sort of arboreal work without ever being asked to show my license, but if the situation ever arises, I will be ready!