NYC Wildflower Week . . .
Eastern Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) blooms in a tree pit near Greenwich Street. (photo taken 05 2013)
The sixth annual NYC Wildflower Week has begun and runs between May 11th and 19th. Click on the link under the blogroll to view the various activities and events scheduled to celebrate the authentic green New York . . .
– rPs 05 12 2013
Earth Day 2013 . . .
Trillium grandiflorum blooming in Manhattan (photo taken 04 21 2013)
The last two days have presented me with a lot of opportunities to photograph wildflowers, including blooming white trillium; a living gem of early spring. I also found the less appealing chance to pick up and dispose of the loose plastic trash that has come to plague outdoor spaces over the last three decades.
My person Earth Day appeal is DON’T LITTER, PLEASE. The outdoors is not a resource to use or consume, it is a charge to keep . . . clean.
This Earth Day in New York was the opposite of last year’s washout. The weather was clear, bright, and windy; nice enough for me to take a day trip to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The day contained an entire story I plan to post later in the week. Until then -
Happy Earth Day . . .
- rPs 04 22 2013
Happy (3rd) Anniversary . . .
The view that inspired Wildflowers of the West Village – three years on . . . (photo taken 03 22 2013)
The scene at the base of the tree was brown and bare today. Had this state of affairs been the case three years ago, Wildflowers of the West Village might not have bloomed into the blog it is today. I hope the blue Siberian squill that grew there three years ago shall return at the close of this extended cold spell.
Until then, Happy 3rd Anniversary, Wildflowers of the West Village!
– rPs 03 22 2013
Postscript: You can compare the view above with the original photo from three years ago, which can be found in the “Welcome” section here: http://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/category/welcome/
The First Day of Spring . . .
The first courtyard flower of the year beat the first day of spring by a few days. (photo taken 03 17 2013)
The Vernal Equinox began in New York City today at 7:02 a.m. Snow fell just two days ago and temperatures for the week are to average ten degrees cooler than what the meteorologists state is normal for this time of year. Still, our courtyard had become decorated with a few scattered patches of pastel color, nestled like Easter eggs in the brown leaf litter from the previous autumn.
Spring is here . . .
– rPs 03 20 2013
Before the Snow . . .
Life, as in its daily living and responsibilities, has intervened between me and my heretofore regular forays into the urban natural world. I have been devoting more time to earning a living, which by its very nature prevents me from experiencing the city’s wilder life fully and freely, even though it continues to exist off the grid, figuratively, whilst on the grid, literally, of Manhattan.
My wife did take a rare personal day this past Thursday, so I did as well. After some mutual fun and adventure, I set off alone to enjoy the last hour of light before nightfall. I wandered down to Hudson River Park where I was rewarded with solitude, as a cold rain and wind had arrived, the vanguard of what may have turned out to be the final snowfall on this side of the year.
Inclement weather is the secret ingredient to a solitary outing in the city, and this one provided me with the opportunity to walk upon the compact damp tundra of the park’s grass and assume some of the odder observational poses of the nature lover – extended bends of the knees and stretches of the neck – without public embarrassment.
There was much to see. The steady rain had coaxed a lot of life from the slumbering ground of the winter season. Rich, pastel green patches of lichens covered many of the tree trunks and onion grass had sprouted around their bases. Along the edge of one small rise of ground I also found what I was most searching for – the first full blooms of the year; a patch of white feral croci of the family Iridaceae.
First flowers of 2013: feral Croci. (photo taken 03 07 2013)
A few yards farther on, I found a single small Common Groundsel, Senecio vulgaris, in flower.
Common Groundsel at the base of a tree. (photo taken 03 07 2013)
Near the end of my little hike, and the available natural light, I walked along a thicket of hedges and found one more hardy variety, a confident sign of spring: the Common Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, huddled at the base of some bushes.
Common Snowdrop in the bush. (photo taken 03 07 2013)
I had only my smartphone available for photos on this brief, damp, and dimly lit outing, so the quality herein is not up to my usual standard, but the idea hopefully has been conveyed . . .
Once again there are wildflowers in the West Village.
– rPs 03 09 2013
February’s Foliage . . .
Onion Grass (genus Allium) provides a small splash of color near Eighth Avenue. (photo taken 02 26 2013)
The second month of the year has taken the “cold” portion of the phrase “long, cold winter” to an extreme: snow, some; wind, more; and cold, constant. This state of the air has locked the West Village and the rest of the region in hibernation. White, grey, and brown remain the dominant colors found in the parks and gardens of New York.
Absent this year are the blooming snowdrops and common chickweed often found in abundance along the mid-Atlantic during the latter half of the winter season. The only wild plant that has weathered the weather appears to be Onion Grass (genus Allium), which, as I reported way back in 2010, remains ensconced along the cobbled walls of Reggie Fitzgerald Triangle at the intersection of West Fourth and Eighth Avenues. The sight of this great piece of green sustains the fundamentally optimistic nature of my urban naturalist’s mood. I realize that the time and temperatures for the spring bloom should arrive by the end of March.
– rPs 02 27 2013
The New Year: A Shuffling of the Cards . . .
Climate change, as I have perceived it, can best be described by me in this way: Picture a pack of standard playing cards divided into the four separate suits. Now shuffle the pack just once or twice. The integrity of the pack remains mostly intact, but there are a few cards of one suit or another blended into all of the rest. So it seems with the once stable four seasons. The prevailing weather patterns of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter have been shuffled a bit so that we may see a week of eighty degree days during the middle of March, snow on a flowering May garden, a stretch of chilly rainy days in late June, and snow again; this time frosting the bright turning leaves of October.
January 2013 began cool and damp in New York City. Thick fog and rain segued into sunny days reaching into the low fifties. From the start, a small cluster of daffodil bulbs sprouted in our rear courtyard garden, grew to nearly half a foot in height, until subfreezing temperatures and snow arrived near month’s end. I documented this progress in the following photos . . .
New Year in the Rain. (photo taken 01 02 2013)
Taking off! (photo taken 01 12 2012
At its Peak. (photo taken 01 21 2012)
After the Snow. (photo taken 01 27 2012)
The climatic cards have certainly been shuffled so far this year. Perhaps there is a joker in the deck!
– rPs 01 29 2012
