Bloomingdale Garden – Page 3 – Sidewalk Greenspace on New York's Upper West Side

Sidewalk Tree Beds in the Times

The myriad benefits and occasional conflicts over the city’s sidewalk tree beds were the subject of an article in the New York Times this week:

In the Fight Over N.Y.C. Sidewalks, Tree Beds Are the Smallest Frontier

In a city with little private green space, tree beds on public streets have become coveted territory. But who gets to decide how they’re used?

Over 660,000 trees line the streets of New York City, and the beds around them take up more than 400 acres, according to a city estimate. While many people just walk by the rectangular openings in the sidewalk from which the trees spring — or, worse, use the spaces as trash cans and doggy litter boxes — others lay claim, unofficially, to these pocket-size patches of land.

As the weather warms, these caretakers swing into action…

Mr. Resler said neighbors have praised his miniature garden, but that he has also had to fish out beer cans and once felt compelled to speak to someone who was letting his pit bull jump over the tree guard and kick up dirt after it had relieved itself.

“This kind of thing lets you meet your neighbors, good and bad,” he said.

American Asters

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.

Fall Mums

Just as all of the other plants in our sidewalk garden are starting to die back, the mums are flowering.

Grandpa Ott

My favorite variety of morning glories continues to be the Bavarian “Grandpa Ott” with its deep purple blooms.

They do a great job of climbing the fence — or bamboo rods, or tall plants, or anything else they can find for support — and although their flowers don’t stay open for long, there are so many of them that they provide a constant stream of color for months throughout the late summer and into the fall.

Sweet Potato Vines

Someone left a sprouted sweet potato lying on the dirt in one of the garden planters this spring, so I dug it in just to the level of the surface and it’s been very happy, with four vines coming off of it, each six feet long and happily tangled in the fence trellis.

I’ll need to do some research to know how to over-winter it — do I just leave it in place and assume it will die back and resprout in the spring?

Summer’s End Update

There’s not a huge amount of floral color left this late in the season, but we still have a decent wall of green along the hundred feet of sidewalk frontage.

Remembrance of Grapes Past

This year’s crop of grapes is small, and won’t be ripe for at least another month, but I was reminded of what we have to look forward to by this photo of a prior year sent in by neighbors Roy and Mary — thanks for sharing!

Summer Kickoff

Summer is here and all of the plants have leafed out.

Sweet William Returns

The various clumps of dianthus growing along the fence seem to have generally survived the winter and are blooming again.

Spring Insects

Just as the plants are springing back into life, so are the insects that feed on them.

A number of the tiny elm trees espaliered into the fence have numerous leaves covered by tiny sack galls. Inside each is some type of insect, although I’m not certain whether they are aphids or mites. The result is somewhat unsightly, but reportedly doesn’t do significant damage to the plant.

More concerning is the invasive spotted lanterfly, which for the first time I have spotted in nymph form. The fact that these are black rather than red indicates they are a still at an early instar; they will turn red when they molt in a few weeks, and then assume their winged adult form later in the summer. They love to suck the sap from newly growing grapevines, and I’ll need to put some effort into limiting their population so they don’t do too much damage.