I Was Trying

but it's such a delicate wisp of a thing and the wind was blowing and the sun felt like a weapon.

How could you not?

On The Green Roof at Brooklyn Botanic

Oh man. I've been waiting to get on this one ever since my interview with New York Green Roofs. Today was finally the day. What can I say? If I hadn't heard the stories about the unforgiving weather, the incredible number of plants and the months of hard work throughout the install of this green roof on BBG's new visitor center, I might have thought the amazing grassy landscape before me just arose through pure magic.

They say every job has its perks. But how many do you think give you the opportunity to fall fast and hard for a grass and to revel in the blooms of June?

Today we climbed a ladder to the roof so we could weed out some tough plants and plant some others, and I got to admire the results of last fall's labor.

Think Small

                                                  Sedum alba blooms on a greenroof in Union Square

It's a big city. This is a tiny piece of it.

It's Not Really All About Flowers

Or is it?

For some things, it most definitely is. I spent the day on a rooftop in the Bronx, weeding out the troublesome ones and admiring others, with the song of a mockingbird, these sweet sedum flowers and the pollinators for company. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Pulchellum?

I think it's Sedum pulchellum. It's pretty in pink, or according to this source, as its name indicates, it sits beautiful. (In this particular case up high in the skyline of Manhattan.)

It's high time for a real camera. There are tiny lives to capture in bloom and this cameraphone ain't cutting it. So far, the greatest thrill of working in these unique spaces up in the skyline is that they are alive.

Some Things We Pull

An interesting little stretch on a multi-level greenroof maintenance yesterday, weeding outside of a terrace where someone gardens. This was the only patch on seven different levels where there was what looks like flax, a mustard, and a very dwarfed flowering cilantro instead of the weeds found on all the other levels.

More Pea Family Flowers in May

Baptisia in May

Are you tired of them yet? I know I'm not. I skipped peas as a food crop in the vegetable garden this year. When it was like 80 degrees in March I figured it wouldn't be a good year for them and just sowed some to fix a little nitrogen in the soil and turn in. But maybe I'll just let those few vines grow anyway, just to see those sweet flowers and harvest a bowl or two to eat.

And So We Meet Again

Last year, in May in the sand at Plumb Beach. This year atop a greenroof in Brooklyn. I could be mistaken, but I think it's you, Blue Toadflax, a sweet and delicate native wildflower. If turns out you're just some sweet weed, it won't make a difference to me the next time we meet. I'm sure I will still be enchanted.

Juxtapositioned

First look up and see the blue sky echoed in the windows of tall buildings and then look down to see where busy hands and trowels have just been. And while these two things, the skycrapers and the terrace, green with newly planted grasses and perennials, seem perhaps entirely at odds and of two different worlds, they are both really these modern, completely fabricated and fantastic creations. They are these ecosystems in the skyline, one filled workers and the business of the life of man in the city, the other a miniature manmade prairie. Perhaps in a way they could even be compared to the complicated systems only recently discovered that exist and carry out all the business of living up high in the canopy of old growth forests.

All This Needs is Some Animal Figurines

and I'd believe it was one of those wee terrariums that are so popular now and not a test plot up on a roof in the Bronx. But perhaps what's really needed are some matchbook cars for taking a cruise around the rocky terrain.

Waiting on a Bloom

I know the trend in plant breeding is towards repeating bloomers, but there's something sweet about waiting on a bloom and seeing it and enjoying in it's own time. And I love seeing something from the vegetable garden up on the greenroof. Chives are a triple threat. Talk about form and function and a willingness to thrive in a tough environment, this plant has got it all.

Baptisia Seed Pods in April

I'm a sucker for plants in the pea family (do you think they call the family fabaceae because it's so fab?) and a sucker for plants with pretty seed pods, so I'm doubly done in by our native Baptisia australis. Those rattling seed pods still looked beautiful standing stiffly after the winter before they were cut down this afternoon.

The Roof or The Reef?

This roof in the Bronx isn't so much green as it is hued in the most amazing colors. There were purples and blues as well as these screaming oranges and reds and most things in between. Something about those sedums makes them look like they'd be comfortable living their lives in the sea off some tropical island, yet these plants are quite happy growing in quite the opposite environment, where it's dry and between gravel.  Do I have room in my life for some new favorites?

Up On the Roof

I started a new job over here. It's a great opportunity to learn more about green roofs from some pretty cool people and to participate in one of the more sustainable and worthwhile things happening in the world of plants today. As an added bonus though, its also kind of fun to be working in the kinds of places that almost make you forget entirely where you are. With my head down weeding today and hand raking out plant debris, a lot of the time I forgot that I wasn't actually standing on the ground. That's a pretty good trick for a completely fabricated environment on a rooftop several stories up above street level. It's like an alternate reality.

It's What You See That Matters

It ain't Provence, but it will do. Lavender on a rooftop in Manhattan this June.

Finally, A Bee

and of course, I had to wonder, is it a fly? Lately it seems everytime I look at something dipping into a flower, it turns out to be a fly. I'm trying to figure out what type of native pollinating bee is pictured above. Right now, I think it's a Leafcutter, possibly in the genus Megachile. I did see some very neatly chewed holes nearby. Perhaps a cozy nest has been built on a rooftop in Manhattan.

The Sunny Day

that followed yesterday's rain seemed all the more bright. And the light of the morning on a rooftop garden in Manhattan made some crabapple blooms that lost their petals and young Kousa Dogwood leaves seem magical. I took four different subway trips today, one cab uptown and two schleps in a van, but in the moments not spent coming and going at work, there were plants and the sunshine.

What's Blooming

Wisteria, dreamy, on a Manhattan rooftop. My view while cutting out some dead ivy leaves and weeding in the cracks of the pavement. Not a bad vision to start the work week with.





















And that pink dogwood a few blocks from home. Last year this tree bloomed about two weeks earlier in April. It's Dogwood time again in Brooklyn.

Flowers Vs. The City Skyline

As awe-inspiring as this city's skyline is, recognizable round the world, rhododendron flowers win this round, at least in my book. And that's kind of humbling if you think about it.

Red Ivy on a Manhattan Rooftop

Otherwordly, in more ways than one. Too many ways to count for this tired gal. It was like autumn color in the woods, but in a minimal landscape with the Manhattan skyline as the forest on an unseasonably warm late winter morning.