This Was Last Week and Today

There are mums in a little bottle that were harvested last week at the community garden. In the wake that follows Hurricane Sandy, there are no worries about my own garden because it is a thing that can always be rebuilt, just as it builds itself anew every year. After the storm there is only the searching for news about what has been destroyed elsewhere and what survives, the finding out how family and friends are doing, who has power and who doesn't.

 Last week there were many moments of incredible beauty and warmth. The loveliness of this sweet marigold in the last light of the day in Martha's garden and Amsonia up in the skyline of midtown Manhattan.

Today in the aftermath of this insane storm it is gray, our street quiet and unscathed, but inside on the computer screen in the news the images are entirely the opposite.

Up In The SkyLine as The Season Gives Way

 What I've found this year is that the green roofs aren't so unlike any other garden in that there is the enjoyment of the subtle shifts from day to day or week to week and the slow slipping between the seasons.

It's autumn up in the sky, or on the living roofs as Brooklyn Botonic calls them quite aptly and autumn is always a good time to pay attention to plants wherever you find them.

The Flowers That Didn't Make it in the House (For Jane)

They are still up on the roof and there are some in a coffee shop nearby. Thanks to Jane though for reminding me to pay attention again. The days are getting shorter and the anemones bloom.

Back to Life

back to reality as the song goes. I spend my days watching plants, weeding and paying some mind to visitors and this is enough for me now.

On Landscape

The new "landscape" as seen from atop Brooklyn Botanic's greenroof

“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.”

Annie Dillard, Pilgram at Tinker Creek



The path of a leaf miner

On The Living Roof at Brooklyn Botanic

I learned today from Geraldine, our intern from overseas, that much of the focus on greenroofs in her home city of Zurich which has mandated laws for flat roofs, is on habitat and biodiversity. The thinking is that part of what it means to "green" a city is that there is an attempt made to replace some of what has been lost to urbanization.

Because When the Going Gets Tough

the really tough are only just getting going. Think you could survive two gnarly New York City summer heat waves with no supplemental water up on a green roof in the Bronx? I know I couldn't. I barely made it through just this afternoon intact and it wasn't nearly as hot up on that roof as it must have been last week in the baking sun.

I tried counting the bees today and I tried not to sweat. I failed at both.

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?

In The Skyline With Agastache and A Bee

I'm just pulling weeds, quite happily, 17 stories up in the New York City skyline with some Agastache and a bee and I am almost never bored at work. That last part is the most beautiful thing.

On The Sketch Hunter

"He moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook, a box of oils with a few small panels, the fit of his pocket or on his drawing pad. Like any hunter he hits or misses. He is looking for what he loves, he tries to capture it. It's found anywhere, everywhere. Those who are not hunters do not see these things. The hunter is learning to see and to understand--to enjoy."

Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Joe likes to say I draw at about a fifth grade level. This is probably a correct assessment. I cannot sketch, but I think I understand what Henri means about hunting and wanting to capture something that has already captured you.

Pervious or Impervious? (Are you)

I don't know if the pavement is permeable (almost anywhere else I'd wager no), but I do know the green roof is, and every time lately I'm in the Bronx and at this site, it seems it pours. (I knew that impervious was a word, but I didn't know that pervious was. Huh.)

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.

The Tenses

                                                                                         The Past

                                                                                   The Future

                                                                        and here in the moment

In gardening, it seems time is not linear and you can experience it all in a day. This was a little bit of one of my days at work weeding this week.

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.

Small Things Count

1. A moment in the sun with a tiny shiny bloom
2. The total amount of weeds you can manage to pull on one rainy day in comparison to the number you've left behind or the ones just waiting to sprout in the spots where you've cleared
3. A rain drop caught and captured by a green roof

It's all right to live a small life and pay attention to the small things that make up a day. The raindrops are finally falling again this week in New York city as they do in multitudes together loud enough sometimes to wake you.