Sidewalk Greenspace on New York's Upper West Side
I spent a few hours out with volunteers from the nascent 109th Street block association and then with the Columbus Amsterdam BID, planting flowering bulbs in the tree beds on four blocks just around the corner from us to bring up a little color in the spring.
The giant alliums have put up their starbursts of flowers in our sidewalk treebeds — mostly purple, plus this one even-larger white specimen. These bulbs were planted a few years ago and seem quite happy to come back every spring.
The daffodils I planted in the giant barrel on the corner of 105th Street have made a small but decent showing this spring.
After cleaning out some litter, I spent a few minutes digging in a couple dozen sunflower seeds in the open spaces in hopes of having another big display later in the summer.
With our weather pattern shifting from daytime high temperatures in the 40s a few weeks ago to now 50s and even 60s, the perennials in our sidewalk garden have woken up and kicked into gear. The crocuses were the first to bloom, followed a week or so later by the daffodils and now hyacinths.
I love the way the globes of these alliums intersect and overlap, like adjacent spherical pyrotechnic bursts.
The daffodils have been in bloom for two weeks and show no sign of stopping.
One of the earliest blooms on our block.
The hyacinth flowers from this spring have all died back, leaving stalks of seedpods that are turning translucent and releasing their little black seeds.
That’s no moon — it’s a giant purple allium!
Squills, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips — nearly all of the flowering bulbs have emerged to put on a show.
