Sidewalk Greenspace on New York's Upper West Side
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.
The daffodils have been in bloom for two weeks and show no sign of stopping.
Squills, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips — nearly all of the flowering bulbs have emerged to put on a show.
Our daffodils are still going strong.
The daffodils I planted last autumn are starting to bloom.
How is this my life? Planting daffodil bulbs at night, in the rain.
Total of ten sidewalk treebeds successfully planted tonight, with between one and four dozen daffodil bulbs each, plus a sprinkling of wildflower seeds from a field in the Hudson Valley that we visited this summer. Thank goodness I’m almost done with the autumn planting!
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!