PHOTO CLASS:TREES OF CENTRAL PARK

No better way to spend a perfect spring day than in Central Park with a camera, a fine photo instructor and an enthusiastic class mate. We started at the Tavern-on-the-Green, now under total restoration but scheduled to reopen as a restaurant fall, '13, and meandered North and East from there, stopping at whatever trees caught our attention.
When I shoot in NYC I love to incorporate urban and pastoral elements.

This maple in flower sparkled, but the Leafsnap ap on my Iphone couldn't decide whether it was a Norway, silver or Japanese maple among other options. Some help!

 Early morning, sundown and overcast days may give you the best colors with fewers reflections, but sometimes life happens in midday sunshine.

A close-up is one way to avoid glare. This bark image will surely emerge in one of my collages.

We couldn't decide whether this specimen was late in leafing or dead. And yes, the sky was really that color.

The duck cooperated by swimming right into the reflection of the small crabapple.

Instructor Rich P. has Central Park birds well trained for his students to capture.

Outdoors at the Boathouse Cafe, with a table to act as my tripod, these spring colors.

Crabapples everywhere as I walk home schlepping camera gear. Forsythia is fading, magnolias have shed their petals, next up for bloom, crape myrtle.
To learn more about the photo classes offered by Rich Pomerantz, visit...

THEN AND NOW

Then. ( 2/25/08) Remember what snow looked like back in the day?
Now, or at least last Sunday in the Conservatory Garden, Central Park.
(Click on any photo to enlarge)

The two allees of flowering crab apple trees at peak bloom.
As a girl, this is what I thought Fairyland looked like.Tired of crabapples in bloom? Admire the bulb display. Next fall I must order 300 grape hyacinth to startle the larger bulbs in my tree wells .
Head north to the Harlem Meer, and see who's sunning themselves...and

NEW USDA ZONE MAP

Conservatory Garden, Central Park, NYC, Jan. 30
I used to garden in NE Pennsylvania where I had my Flower and Herb farm. It was in Horticultural Zone 5B at the time, showing that the average daily low temperature was-15 to -5 F. The new USDA horticultural Zone map published last week shows that that area of the coal region is now in Zone 6B.
When I moved to NYC, I was in Zone 6B. Now I garden in zone 7B according to the new USDA map. The data on which the map is based comes from 8,000 weather stations across the U.S. and shows that average low temps have shifted about 5 degrees upward since 1990. In practical terms it means that plants you once coveted for your garden may now be hardy; plants once on the hardiness borderline for your garden will probably now survive. Click here to see the new zone map.
The last map was released by the USDA in 1990; the new one is online and interactive. Once you go to the site and enter the captcha letters which are case sensitive, enter your zip code for a zone reading that takes into account altitude, winds, and other factors.
MicroclimatesWhat the map can never take into account are your microclimates, warmer or colder spots in your own garden. I garden in NYC on a windy roof top so what is that zone? I compensate for the wind by placing a precious crimson bark maple near a south-facing brick wall where it will be protected.
When I visited the Conservatory Garden in Central Park yesterday, I walked down the flight of 18 steps from street level at 5th Ave. to a nice sunken, protected bowl. Clumps of crocus leaves are nicely formed, the daffodil foliage has sprouted and the quince bushes have started to bloom. On my street, only 28 city blocks but a world away, these bulbs are still hidden underground and the quince buds are hardly swollen.
On a garden tour of San Antonio TX ten years ago I was startled to learn that the famous River Walk meandering through the downtown was a whole Zone warmer than the sidewalk at street level, a one 'story' above.
So read the new map, pay attention, then evaluate your own space and take whatever risks you want.
It's a Wrap
If your climate is really too cold for your tree you can always wrap it to keep warm like this one on York Ave.

I'm confused. And I'm not the only one.

Last week in Central Park:

Some plants think it's August.

Some think it's September.


At least one thinks it's May.


But the one I'm really worried about is this little beauty.


What are they going to do come next March?

Hurry up!

Spring is late this year. I realize that sentence isn't technically correct because the first day of spring was still the first day of spring, just like always. But apparently the plants and temperatures in NYC haven't been looking at the calendar.

I'd like to appear all patient and serene and say, "Dude, it is what it is," (Of course it is what it is, what the h#&% else could it be!?) but this is not my way. As a compulsive planner, planter, and forager, I need to know what's coming up when!

Every year for the last several, Leda and I have made our annual Japanese knotweed harvest in Central Park this same week. We turn that knotweed into wine, soup, jam, pie, compote, or stir fry. It's a plentiful wild edible, so invasive, in fact, that we assume any park ranger we encounter will have the good sense to thank us rather than write us a ticket.


This year Gary joined us and we headed into the park to find slim pickins indeed. We wandered for a while, deciding the plants were about a week behind normal. Yes, we could have picked, but it would have taken much longer to harvest the necessary amount. And this was clandestine activity, better accomplished swiftly and under cover. So instead, we postponed, as urban hunter-gatherers can afford to do.

We sat on a sunny log in the middle of The Ramble and shared a liter of knotweed wine (it seemed appropriate) from a seltzer bottle, discussing the vagaries of Mother Nature's calendar. Gary observed that odd years seem to have later springs than even years; I'll have to go back and check my journals.

4.11.11

4.14.10

One of the great joys of foraging is picking (and eating) what's immediately available at any given moment. It's no great hardship to adjust your schedule, especially if you can still feed yourself from a well stocked pantry. But when you're trying to schedule photo shoots for a foraging book, that's a little different.

I'll chalk it up to experience and head back into the woods next week, always ready to give Mother Nature another chance. Patience, Grasshopper.

Solitary Celebration

There are times when you feel like you're the only person in the world. It doesn't happen often in NYC, but last week, on Monday morning, I ventured across the park. I tell my clients that plants take no holidays. Yes, it was Presidents' Day, but what is that to a Ming Aralia?

So I trudged across the park, through slush, over ice, and tended the orchids and the herbs and the jasmine. Peered out the front window and down into the park.

Then bundled up two Cattleya orchids that had finished blooming and tucked them inside my coat for the walk back home. The furnace that is my metabolism kept them warm until we reached the east side.

One last smile, thanks to a Central Park snow sculptor.

No, not that one...this one:

BIG BAMBOO

Sunday at 9:30 a.m. I ran through the amazing hallways of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and up the last flight of stairs to savor in solitude the new exhibit created by twin brothers Doug and Mike Starn. Of course there were three guards, one guide and the security chief, but I was almost alone for about ten minutes. The construction is made of some 5000 bamboo poles secured by miles of nylon rock climbing ropes in varying colors and thicknesses. Three different species of bamboo grown in Georgia and South Carolina are part of the form. A team of rock climbers installed the first section rising 30 feet off the roof, overlooking the greenery of Central Park and the skyline of Central Park South. They lashed the culms together in a seemingly haphazard way, though I'm told that there is a grand plan with drawings and everything. Visitors will witness the evolving incarnations of Big Bambú as it is augmented throughout the spring, summer, ultimately reaching 50 feet high and wide. (above, more poles for the next phase)
After agreeing to a long
list of conditions and
registering in advance,
visitors can stride with
a guide up through the
heights of the structure.
The guide's talk drifted
down to the terrace
below as I admired one
of my favorite parts of
the roof garden, the
old wisteria vines,
now in full bloom amidst
the bamboo stanchions.









The Met web site says that the exhibition shows the "cresting wave that bridges realms of sculpture, architecture, and performance. Set against Central Park and its urban backdrop, Big Bambú will suggest the complexity and energy of an ever-changing living organism".

My fascination stems from the plant itself, this quickly renewable resource now used in flooring, table ware, and even fabrics. In China, scaffolding is made of bamboo because it's strong, cheap and readily available.
Bamboo is also colorful and beautiful and excellent as a living screen. I'm growing black bamboo in containers on my rooftop. Some clematis dropped in (apparently from seed blown from a neighboring container, and are now climbing up the culms. But more about that another day.

bad behavior in Central Park

We're having HOT weather here..hot for April anyway. The first flush of spring brings the hordes into Central Park, most of them happily enjoying the flowers, the rental bikes, the luscious spring air.

Then there were the two kids (one boy, one girl), maybe 6 years old, who thought it might be nice to kick a tree. A noble plane tree that never hurt them in any way. Hard kicking followed by poking with pointy sticks, picking and prying at the bark, lifting off pieces and throwing them away. Why?

But more importantly, why were these two 6 years olds allowed to behave so badly when their two mothers were a mere 5 feet away? They must have been having a VERY important conversation, since they didn't seem to notice the arbor abuse going on right under their noses.

(Pardon the blur, I was zooming. And yes, I realize they don't look like bad people. But arbor abuse speaks for itself.)

I stopped, incredulous. I thought. I weighed my options. I yelled across the park drive, "Hey!" No response. (And my voice carries, ask anyone.) I thought again. I walked across the drive. I addressed the children, "You have GOT to stop doing that." They stopped immediately. Then I addressed the mothers, "PLEASE do NOT let your kids DO that to the TREES!"

They looked at me and murmured, "Ok." Were they mortified by the bad behavior of their offspring? More likely they were afraid the crazy tree lady was going to do them bodily harm. Which I wasn't. But ladies, if tending one child is more than you can handle, hire a babysitter. Or leave the kids at home. They're putting a cramp in my spring style.