NETTLES, REALLY?

How did I come to be eating an appetizer of wild nettle sformato with quail egg and morels last Saturday? I blame it all on the influence of Other Ellen, Zachos that is. She's been harassing me about foraging for almost as long as I've known her.
Granted when Ben and I were looking for the perfect restaurant to celebrate a BIG anniversary, we headed right to the Union Square Cafe. And granted that the chef there is known to walk the half block from the Cafe to the famous Union Square Greenmarket for special local products to feature on his menu, printed daily.

A walk through the Greenmarket made us anticipate our special lunch even more.

I blame EZ for my menu choice because having dug and composted hundreds of bushels of nettles and purslane on my flower & herb farm, I would normally want to have nothing more with these horrible weeds. But I trust USC completely and maybe I even trust EZ a little*.
Using the chopped leaves of the nettle, the sformato is like a custard with the full rich flavor of a spinachy green; in combination with the morels and quail egg it's perfect.

* She's written a fascinating new book Backyard Foraging, Storey Pub. 2013, that the New York Times reviewer called "extremely appealing", though no nettles appear in it.

MY HIGH LINE

Collage on canvas, photos, acrylic, pressed leaves © ellen spector platt, all rights reserved.

Not The High Line Park, but my collage version made from 37 images I captured during 15 visits in different seasons starting in 2009. I select, print on plain acid free paper and cut out features that I want to include.
Starting with more images than I think I need I lay out the picture, below in its first approximation.

Then add more images,

including a man stooping down on the right, photographing hydrangea and tracks leading into the picture enhancing the  perspective. Nothing is glued yet.

Move the man to the left, add a boy to the right, more Liatris on the left.

Dab the canvas with blue acrylic paint using a dry paper towel. Glue down the skyline starting from the top overlapping as I go, then the rest of the images. Note below, both the boy and the man have been edited out. This skyline is my own, reconfigured from buildings I see from this fabulous walkway. The flowers I include don't all bloom simultaneously.

I add pressed leaves of Northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium) because they grow on The High Line. These come from my own garden of course. In the lower third, I add more images coated in acrylic gel medium crushed into 3D elements. See what I mean in the finished piece at the top.

FOUR FREEDOMS PARK

Take the tram at 59th & 2nd. Ave for an astounding ride over the East River to Roosevelt Island, then a 25 cent bus ride or a 3/4 mile walk to the new park at the southern tip of the Island. The 59th St. bridge parallels the tramway.

 Designed by famed architect Louis I. Kahn in 1973 to honor FDR and never built, it was finally constructed starting in 2010 and opened as a NY State Historical park last fall. At the time of planning Nelson Rockefeller was Governor, John Lindsey was Mayor, this plot of land was called Welfare Island, and NYC was heading for bankruptcy.
As you approach the park, you pass the ruin of a small pox hospital which may be preserved as a visitor center.

A park ranger explained that Kahn not only designed the space but chose the trees, copper beeches against the facade of the hospital, and two allees of lindens flanking a simple lawn.

 As you enter the park, the vista is toward the narrow island tip, the apex of a triangle, pointing to a grand bust of F.D.R. and thence to the Atlantic Ocean and Europe, which Roosevelt helped to save during WWII.

 To the right is the general assembly of the UN that the President helped to form. On the back of the monument is inscribed part of the Four Freedoms speech from 1939.

 The park is simple and direct, wholly satisfying. What Kahn obviously knew and I didn't realize is that because of the vanishing perspective, when you turn around to walk back to the entrance, the lawn seems no longer triangular but rectangular, an optical illusion. I didn't even see it until I came home and looked at my images.

Though I'm no longer a fan of perfect lawns, this park was designed 40 years ago when such lawns were the ideal, so I'm more forgiving.
On Memorial Day 2013, Vietnam Vet Ben Platt joined U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney right, and Singer/Composer Carole King in laying a wreath at the monument. Amazingly, the wreath was formed of all fresh, undyed flowers and foliage, so I didn't have to run up and start discarding offending materials.

 

The park is free and open to the public  from 9am to 7pm 6 days a week, closed Tues. Learn more.

COLOR CLASH

In this year of impatiens blight, gardeners are finding other annuals for summer color. Have I gone too far? In the four treewells in front of my building I planted New Guinea impatiens which are not affected by the downy mildew. They're big, bold, more expensive than the stricken Impatiens walleriana. The shocking fuchsia color drew me in. But wait, I already have purple and orange pansies there, planted to augment red tulips and yellow daffodils now long gone.

And I also bought coral/pink rieger begonias because I liked them. What a hodge-podge.

Three species, four colors. The green of the ripening bulb foliage separates them a little and gives the eye a respite from my impudence. What will happen when the foliage dies off and the pansies wilt in summer heat?  For once I'm not trying to control every detail and I love the accidental outcome.

Notice the top middle of this picture. The streets department has sprayed instructions in orange paint by the curb. How kind of of them to augment my raucous color scheme.

HELP!

This weeping cut-leaf Japanese maple has resided happily on my roof garden for five years. For the first time it's leafing only in some spots.
It used to look like this...

Now many spots are bare, some grey, dead-looking branches, some tantalizingly reddish.

 I'm sure it's because someone turned off the master water supply to the drip irrigation system last summer and I noticed it only when this tree started to shed leaves. I know I'll get grief from some building residents who think a tree is the same as a sofa; if it looks messy, throw it out.
Any ideas on what to do for the tree ????? HELP!!!!

TRUE URBAN GARDEN

If you live, work or drive on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you already have a love/hate relationship with the 2nd Ave. Subway. Groundbreaking for the project started six years ago; the completion date keeps moving back, as residents and businesses contend with noise, dirt, dislocation and customers who stay away in droves.
As we walked down Second last Sat. morning taking the torturous path around construction walls, I was charmed by this sight.

Firenze, making the best of a bad situation, is growing a garden on the chain-link construction fence, just on the other side of the sidewalk in front of their restaurant. The entrance itself is flanked by larger, showy containers of annuals.

The next evening found me at a table for two enjoying a delightful chicken with artichokes in saffron sauce with impeccably fresh vegetables while my BFF devoured a pasta special. Reasonable prices, attentive service, interesting menu choices, noise level that actually allows you to hold a conversation, charming atmosphere, all are worthy of a second visit. I went originally because of the flowers, but will return for the food. 1594 2nd Ave between 82nd & 83rd.

All praise to Manuel Caisaguano, the owner of Firenze who designed and planted this urban garden.

But note that between my first view on Sat. morning (three pictures avove this) and my visit the following eve, the top row of plants were changed from dwarf conifers to more annuals. I'll have to solve this mystery.

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...