Places

January 24, 2007

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The 6th Street and Ave B Community Garden, NYC

I recently returned from a short trip to New York City. This was a purely personal trip so despite the cold I did what I love best, wandering the streets with my camera. My favourite part of the city is The Lower East Side, The East Village, and Alphabet City areas. This upper part of this area also happens to be the birthplace of the modern community and guerilla gardening here in North America. There are several imaginative and beautiful gardens scattered amongst the buildings that were born in the late 70′s and early 80′s out of the community’s desire to turn dangerous, abandoned waste spaces into safe and useful community spaces for the neighborhood. While locals and organizers have had to arduously fight against rising real estate value and gentrification to keep the gardens alive, a few have been granted park status by the city and remain in place. If you ever get a chance to visit New York I highly recommend getting a peek at some of the gardens. You can use this searchable map to locate and map out all of the gardens in the area.

website chronicles its history

shows

6th and Ave B Garden

Eddie’s Sculpture at the 6th and B Garden. This sculpture has created a lot of controversy. I was surprised to see it was still there just a few days ago.

Unfortunately, the gardens were all closed for the winter but I still managed to take a few pictures by poking my lens through fences.

I was also fortunate enough to visit many of these gardens as a part of my book launch back in May 2005. You can see more pictures from that trip here.

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December 21, 2006

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Serenity Now: Portland’s Japanese Garden

As promised, here are a few images from my Feb 2006 trip to the Japanese Garden in Portland Oregon. I defy you to feel Holiday angst while browsing these images. I may need to print one out wall-sized and hang it directly behind my computer.

I’m sorry I waited so many months to say something about my visit to this wonderful garden because my feeling for the place isn’t up at the surface. However orderly, misty, and calm comes to mind. I enjoy visiting a garden like this in part because the contrast between my own gardening practice and a garden like this is so extreme and direct. I can’t help but be in awe of such constrained tidiness. It is not the kind of constraint that makes the muscles in a certain rear area tense up, but the kind of restraint that freaks you out with its intelligence and sense of purpose. There’s a feeling that places like this carry that make me hyper-aware of my behaviour.

Stay calm. Be quiet. Walk slowly. Don’t break anything. Good thing I am showered and wearing clean underwear.

I wanted to run around and express my excitment as I usually do when I’m surrounded by new plants and landscapes, making me feel like a keyed up kid in church who’s got to stay quiet for a whole fifty-nine more minutes. And despite the twitchiness and the certainty I would stumble on a smooth rock and knock over a 300 year old bonsai, I was surprised that despite our frenzied tourist rush I did become calm, and filled with The Deep Thoughts.

I am amazed by this staking technique.

Moss and lichens everywhere. It’s adds another level of interest to leafless trees.

The Sand and Stone Garden

I took this one while resting on a bench inside a pagoda. Sitting here made me wish we had a garden like this in Toronto that I could visit and sit in quietly for hours on end. Alas we had things to see and places to go which is kind of contrary to the contemplativeness of the Japanese Garden.

I love the sleek stones against the mossy green ground.

More moss. More GREEN.

I tried to be quiet but this camera shutter lands with a deep “thud.” I think I may have upset this vistitor’s solitude. Sorry dude. Leave a comment

July 29, 2006

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California Giants

I’m currently in Northern California for the Blogher Conference. I’ve been to these parts once before but the massiveness of the plants, most especially the invasives really stand out this time.

Monster Nasturtiums

I assumed this patch of renegade nasturtiums was a random fluke. Until I turned the corner. And the next one. And the next. And then I saw the hillside covered in nasturtium flowers of every colour with leaves the size of dinner plates. No one warned me that here in California nasturtiums will have you for breakfast.

Radish

This is what happens when radishes roam free — all plant no radish. At least the flowers are tasty.

Fennel

I will admit that I did notice the fennel last time. It’s hard not to since the stuff is everywhere! First I came upon this fennel forest and then I noticed….

Blackberries

…BLACKBERRIES! I proceeded to gorge myself on the ripest of which there were many. And by many I mean enough to keep the multitudes bloated on blackberry pie. There have been past discussions on the forums describing the impenetrable invasiveness of blackberries in the North West. I want you all to know that I get it now. For real.

Jade

You have to see how jade grows in Southern Ontario to understand why this scene is such a marvel. Our sad little plants live in sad little pots on window ledges where they remain sad, and little for decades.

Geraniums

I have to admit that it was a 1997 trip to San Francisco that first inched geraniums off of my hit list. Until that point I was only familar with the pathetic little annuals peddled through school fundraisers and shotgun planted into every maple leaf motifed public garden across Ontario. These twisty, tangled sculptures are a whole lot more interesting.

Rosemary

The first thing I would do with a garden in this climate is grow a HUGE rosemary bush. Even the snails that eat the rosemary bushes are cool.

Aeoniums rate high on my list of favourite succulents so to find one this beautiful and in bloom no-less was a huge thrill.

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May 23, 2006

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Free Fence Idea

I came across this low fence made of tree prunings while walking through Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. It’s very simply constructed and relies on the v-shape where one branch joins another rather than fussing with string and wire. Mind you this wouldn’t survive five minutes on my block but seems like a viable design on a quiet side street.

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April 27, 2006

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The Modern Alchemist

Guest post by Renee Garner

Words like hyperaccumulator and phytoremediation sound like something straight out of a 1960s Sci-Fi movie and hardly verbs describing gardens. But when the conceptual, and socially minded artist Mel Chin creates a garden, you get these lengthy words among others.

Mel Chin is a Texas born artist now living in North Carolina; and when he plants, he plants for good. In 1990 Chin began working with the United Stated Department of Agriculture’s senior scientist, Rufus Chaney, to plan, sculpt and garden Pig’s Eye Landfill in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Together they assessed hyperaccumulator plants, which absorb heavy metals through their root systems and store them during the growth process. The heavy metals in this case are zinc and cadmium, and the project is called “Revival Field”, not “Revive James Hetfield.” The ultimate transformation occurs through phytoremediation, or the transference of the metal laden dirt to ore quality metals (harvested through the plants for reuse) and revived, healthy soil.

The Minnesota test site lasted 3 years, and while the trial run was productive, the soil was still somewhat polluted, and not yet reusable. A second garden was planted in Palmerton, Pennsylvania and another has been installed in Stuttgart, Germany. Ongoing tests are run for productivity, as other plants are researched for affective levels of metal accumulation.

Apparently, Chin always knew the plants were up to something.

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