Sidewalk Greenspace on New York's Upper West Side
I just killed a second Spotted Lantern Fly less than 24 hours after the first, so I’ve nailed its carcass to my garden gate as a warning to others.
(Well, that was my original plan, but I switched to tape because I don’t think a nail would’ve worked very well.)
Nominally, anyone can perform tree-bed care activities — such as cleaning, cultivating, watering, and planting — on any sidewalk in New York City.
However, it seems to be generally accepted etiquette that the people who live in a building have “first dibs” on the adjacent tree beds, and thus I am loathe to do much digging unless it’s clear that the people who live or work in that stretch have no interest in doing so.
In hopes of mustering some buy-in from my neighbors, I’ve posted letters in a couple of nearby building, inviting them to join me in planting daffodil bulbs in their tree beds.
I was very pleased to be able to pick up a large supply of free daffodil bulbs today for planting in the garden and around the neighborhood. They were provided by New Yorkers for Parks as part of the NYC Daffodil Project.
Their distribution site was in Union Square, where bags were set out for people who had registered online. I had missed the registration cut-off date and was relegated to the wait-list line for leftovers — but thankfully, this year they had expanded their program and had many thousands of extra bulbs, so I was able to get as many as I could carry.
Each of their shipping crates was estimated to hold about 550 bulbs, and conveniently fit into one of the large reusable grocery bags I had brought with me. After filling my jumbo shopping cart with three crates’ worth — a hundred pounds of bulbs — I bumped them down the stairs to the Q train and headed back uptown.
Now it’s time to tackle the next project — planting them all!
The first indications of autumn are cropping up in the garden, as the grapevine starts to show some fall color.
Over the last week, three different people have asked if there was a web site about the garden, or encouraged me to create one, so I’ve decided to take the leap.
It’ll take a while to fill the the site out with content, but over time I hope to accumulate some decent photos and interesting information about this little pocket garden.
Bloomingdale Garden is a tiny patch of green in public space on New York City’s Upper West Side. (The garden’s name pays homage to a traditional moniker for this area that dates back more than three hundred years.)
Located in containers and tree beds along the sidewalk of 219/217/215 West 106th Street, the garden only occupies about a hundred square feet, but provides a welcome splash of color to the neighborhood.
Scroll down for more photos and updates, or follow the garden on Bluesky.
My name is Matthew Cavalletto, and I’ve created this site to showcase the flora and fauna that make their home in and around my garden, and to answer some common questions asked by passers by. I’ll also share some notes about my experiences as a gardener, in hopes that this will encourage other people to create their own pocket gardens anywhere they can.
Thank you to local musician Vita Wallace for submitting her photograph of the garden to the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group’s “2020 Project,” a multimedia record of life in our community during the pandemic.
The gardens on, around, below, and above the stoops here are always fruitful and wildly wonderful. This year, the Black Lives Matter messages made them especially poignant.
Vita Wallace, July 14, 2020
