Sidewalk Greenspace on New York's Upper West Side
I held off on growing roses for a long time, on the grounds that they were a cliche — but then a few years I finally got one and it was such a pleasant addition that I’ve finally gotten over myself and now there’s a handful of specimens in the garden, including this one yellow example.
The grapevines have begun forming their flower buds, and with a bit of luck by the end of August this will be a little cluster of American fox grapes.
As if to measure up to its scarlet cousin currently blooming ten feet away, this pink clover has popped up in another of our containers.
(I think this pink one is Trifolium pratense, while the scarlet is T. incarnatum, but that’s just a guess.)
I scattered a bunch of crimson clover seed a while ago as a nitrogen-fixing ground cover, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how pretty the flowers are.
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.
Thanks to our neighbor Anne who donated a pint of seeds harvested in her own garden last season from pollinator-friendly flowering plants: yarrow, coreopsis, echinacea, joe pye weed, black eyed susan, and sage.
These have been scattered into planters and tree beds throughout the garden and I expect to see some of them later this summer, with others remaining dormant and cropping up in subsequent years.
Thanks again, Anne!
Our violets are not shrinking — in fact, they’ve fully established themselves in one corner of our sidewalk treebeds and come back in full force every year — although admittedly you do have to slow down and look in order to notice their blooms.
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.
This six-foot-tall mini-thicket of late-blooming asters is providing another lovely spot of color in our garden despite the recent cold snap — I almost cut them back in November and I’m so glad I waited!
I don’t know which variety of asters this is, but I have my fingers crossed that it’s one of the rhizomatous perennial species and will return again next year.
