The Yard on May 20, 2011

These pictures were taken out in the yard on Friday May 20th--the day before the Neighborhood Festival. There are two sets of pictures. One set of the new raised vegetable beds and one set of the trees.

THE RAISED VEGETABLE BEDS:

THE TREES: They are HUGE!

Watering by Snowmelt

I was thinking about Bard Yard this weekend as temperatures in the 40s melted a good portion of the 20 inches we got in last week's snowstorm. I imagined that the runoff produced by the melting snow was doing our trees some good. When I stopped by on Monday afternoon the weather was freezing again, but as you can see from the pictures there is still a good supply of snow waiting to melt into another watering session.

Our Trees Need Watering

I heard on the news Wednesday morning that NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and the Parks Department had put out an announcement to New Yorkers to help out by watering trees in front of their businesses and residences. I'm assuming that this announcement was spurred on by the heat and shortage of rainfall this month. In looking for this announcement on the internet I also found out that MillionTreesNYC has a tree stewardship training where you can get tools and earn a permit to work on street trees. (I think high school students who need them can also earn credits.)One of our willow trees from last year. I wonder how it's doing today?

Today I'm going to follow fellow BHSEC garden committee member Sonia's dedicated lead by going in to water the trees. Wish me luck as it'll be the first time I've gone since the new automatic sprinkler system was put in. (I hope I don't mess it up!) Both Sonia and Kristie report that the trees in the yard really need extra water and some of the trees are not getting the maximum benefit from the sprinkler system so they need even more. I noticed a smattering of trees with yellow leaves when I peeked in from the sidewalk early this week. According to Trees New York, an urban forestry organization, in hot weather trees need 15-20 gallons of water a week.

I also just spotted a post on Garden Rant about gator bags being misused to mulch, not water trees in Washington D.C. Our garden committee has many experts so I know we wouldn't make this mistake, but since I'm not an gardening expert it was interesting for me to learn that you have to be careful about how you mulch trees. Trapping mulch up against the bark can encourage disease--good to know! I also like this blog in general so I thought I would share the post here and on our blogroll.

By the way if anyone out there would like to donate some TREEGATOR bags to BHSEC...THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!

Big Week at Bard

There was lot going on at BHSEC this week. First, Ray Peterson announced his retirement. I heard, through my daughter, that the students gave him a huge round of applause when he announced this to them on Tuesday. They are very sad about his leaving. The Gardening Committee has a lot to thank him for (besides his school leadership). If not for him the "Bard Yard" would not look as good as it does now, or as gorgeous as it is bound to be later this spring and summer.

Second it was Parent-teacher conference week. It was my last one at Bard and I enjoyed visiting with teachers and other parents in the hallways. I saw Kristi and Susan and they both mentioned the new growth they observed in the garden.


Kristi mentioned seeing buds on the trees. Great news--they survived the winter!


And the bulbs are sprouting and flowering.


It looks like three different types of bulbs are coming up here.

The plants in this pot survived the winter too.

The moon is visible in this picture (it was about 3 in the afternoon). Can anyone out there identify trees by shape?

The Trees Have Been Planted

The trees are all in. This picture was taken last Saturday while the gardeners were still working. It's taken some teamwork and planning, but it all seems to come off without a hitch thanks to all involved.

Near the end of the planning stage, on October 21, the Bard Garden Committee met with the student group, the ECO Club. You can see where they laid out masking tape to show where the trees would eventually go.

One week later members of the ECO Club started to move the plants away from the areas where the digging and tree planting would occur.


I took these photos from Mangin Street, outside the chain link fence. You can see a number of the new trees far away on the other side of the yard.

I think the gardeners thought I was a crazy lady taking photos of them. These shots are not that picturesque and they knew it.



Looks nice! I love that the baby's breath is thriving on the stone slope next to the trees.

A parting shot of one of the chrysanthemums that were still blooming on Saturday.

Our Trees

I didn't need to water on Monday due to that crazy storm we had on Sunday, but I went to clean up and dead head the flowers. The plants looked lush--all with moist soil, but the tree with the wind chime in it had blown over again and, weirdly, the red cedar (I think this is what it is) out in the middle of the yard by the benches was really dry and its needles were falling out.

Trees have been on the gardening committee members' minds because of the plan for the New York Restoration Project to plant 30 trees in the Bard yard. Yay! (The work will begin for those trees in mid-August I hear.) So this week I decided to take pictures of the trees that we already have in the garden—some of them purchased and others salvaged—to show how much they’ve grown since April. All, but the cedar I mentioned before, seem to be thriving and content in their current planters and placement in the garden.




This spruce tree seems to be thriving and the cherry next to it is getting tall and lanky. It’s so tall that I couldn’t get it all in one shot.

But what does it mean when a tree starts growing little baby trees from the bottom of it’s trunk at the roots?

This is the tree with the wind chime (that gets blown over). I think this tree was being thrown out somewhere in Brooklyn and Sonia nabbed it. You can see that it’s going to bloom soon.

I call this a juniper bush, but maybe it’s a red cedar. It's loaded with hundreds of large juicy juniper berries. I wish I could make a juniper berry pie.

Is this called a curly willow? Anyone know?

Here's another one.

Japanese maple #1

Japanese maple #2

This is the red cedar (I think that's what it is--also has scattered juniper berries) that's all dried out. Sonia and I agree that the soil isn't absorbing water. Sonia thinks it might be because it's rootbound.

Here's a closeup of the holly tree which is over 5 feet tall.

With all the rain we've had this week and is forecast to come I guess the garden will be lush again the next time I visit.
That's all for now.

Changes

hi all
fun to see, scrolling down the blog, how the garden has grown from april to july...wonder what it will look like after the 30 trees from the New York Restoration Project are planted.
Ok, we couldn't get those cement planters. They were way too heavy, even the movers couldn't handle them.
Next, with the gift of the 30 trees, I guess we'll have to make a new garden plan or blueprint. Hopefully, Rebecca will do us the honor again...we probably only need to change the position of the planter boxes. And we have to keep the snow clearing paths clear...So far the plan calls for 10-13 trees in what was a playground area...(where the locked up climbing equipment is) and the rest of the trees lining up along e. houston and mangin streets...the trees will be staggered...not exactly in one line. The benefit to this is that it forms a thicker barrier against the noisy e. houston st. The negative is that it continues the long lines of the garden which we had discussed breaking up with planters...
So I guess we need to think about all this.The garden is looking good...we've been very lucky this summer with all this rain...

I still haven't heard back from GreenThumb about our grant application...seems like awhile...
more later...
sonia