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 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
Park Management . . . Or Massacre?
West Village Wildflower Massacre! (photo taken 08 17 2012)
The small park located at the end of Horatio and Jane in the West Village has long been a rich source of wildflower species. Many of the photos I have taken picture flowers blooming along this specific stretch of green space. This came to an end when, on Thursday, August 16, a group of workers denuded every living thing from the area. They were careful to leave all of the litter behind.
Obviously, I have a very different view of park management from those who actually do supervise these spaces. Gone are marsh marigold, yellow thistle, garlic mustard, prostrate amaranth, Queen Anne’s lace, shepherd’s purse, peppercress, marestail, and mugwort. Rest in Peace, pretty plants.
– rPs 08 19 2012
Bloomsday 2012 . . .
Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) begins to show on Bloomsday 2012 (photo taken on 06 16 2012)
– rPs 06 16 2012
NYC Wildflower Week, May 12-20, 2012 . . .
Full Color: Jefferson Market Garden is in bloom in time for NYC Wildflower Week. (photo taken 05 12 2012)
NYC Wildflower Week celebrates its 5th anniversary this year. There will be over thirty free events on offer, open to the public, and spread across all five boroughs of the city. Related nature study, including regional animal species, will be on the program as well. A full listing of events can be found by following this link:
http://www.nycwildflowerweek.org/events.htm
New York City possesses 53,000 acres of open space and 778 native plant species (plus numerous flowering immigrants, many of which are featured here at WWV), so take some time to explore the urban outdoors and enjoy May’s wildflowers.
You never know where a city wildflower may grow: Water Parsnip (Sium suave) blooms beside a tree between 8th and 9th Avenues. (photo taken 05 12 2012)
– rPs 05 12 2012
Earth Day 42 . . .
The side courtyard of The First Presbyterian Church in New York City on 5th Avenue glows green during the first rainfall in weeks. (photo taken 04 22 2012)
Earth Day 42 can be called the day the rains came. At last! New York is reported to be nearly nine inches short of the average amount of precipitation expected for the region. Bluebird skies and dry, windy days have filled the winter and spring of 2012. Low water levels have brought up drought concerns on the news and on angling message boards. And then near midday on Earth Day, a nor’easter arrived, giving the city its first drink in several weeks.
This has been the first Earth Day in quite some time in which I was not out and about in nature, either fishing, cycling, or simply exploring. The rain kept me indoors except for a quick walk with my wife to Union Square where we dropped off recyclable items like batteries; a chore that, in hindsight, fit the theme of the day.
The green lining to the gray rain has been the quick invigoration of the trees and gardens throughout the city. While conscientious people around the globe celebrate the ecosphere of the earth, the planet itself, at least over this one populated corner, has returned the favor with its greatest gift: life-giving rain.
Happy Earth Day!
– rPs 04 22 2012
High Line Cuts Back and Expands . . .
Before:
(photo taken 03 09 2012)
After:
(photo taken 03 09 2012)
A sure sign of the urban spring has begun. The High Line started its annual spring cutback project. The winter song of the wind sounding through the park’s high grasses has been replaced by staff and volunteers pruning back shrubs and perennials for the new spring growing season.
Clusters of blooming Crocus vernus, now in full color, have been exposed in between the trimmed plants. The purple and white bouquets, spread randomly amongst the tans and browns of stems and trunks, can provide a lot of new still life opportunities for photographers.
As this cutback proceeds, the High Line announced its planned third expansion along the Rail Yards. This stretch around 30th Street and 10th Avenue would run east and west along a major real estate redevelopment leading to the Hudson River. The shift in orientation and new features such as a children’s area promise both challenges and rewards. A community input meeting held on Monday, March 12, in the Chelsea neighborhood took a solid first step in getting the final design right.
As for the cutback, the project plans to continue over the next month or so. Interested volunteers can visit the High Line’s “News” section for more information:
http://www.thehighline.org/news
The sign says it all:
(photo taken 03 09 2012)
– rPs 03 13 2012
Bloomsday 2011 . . .
Wild Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, blooms in Central Park on . . . Bloomsday, of course. (photo taken 06 16 2011)
Today, June 16th, is Bloomsday, the date into which all the Dublin world of the character Leopold Bloom was condensed in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce.
Last year I wrote an extensive essay that ties together all the threads of meaning this literary holiday holds for me as a writer. Here is the link for further reading:
http://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/06/16/bloomsday/
During my years in Philadelphia, I spent Bloomsday in and around the Rosenbach Museum & Library, which has the original handwritten manuscript of the novel in its extensive holdings. Every June 16th, rain or shine, the 2000 block of Delancey Place becomes a gentile gathering place for fans, and lovers, of the novel. There, on the Rosenbach’s stoop, the novel is read aloud with musical interludes culled from the text. Various celebrities, literary and otherwise, take turns reading passages from the big good book. I had the pleasure to do so on the 100th anniversary year, 2004. The placard placed in front of the microphone as I read my script listed me as:
ron P. swegman
Angler & Author
This moment in the literary limelight still makes me smile. Squeezed between Mister Mayor and Madame University President was this “Angler & Author” fellow who read the “Proteus” section of Ulysses with an ear for the complex cadence of Joyce’s prose. Who was he? Well, at that time, he was the author of the forthcoming collection of stories Philadelphia on the Fly.
This year, as a New Yorker, the ”work-in-progress” is Wildflowers of the West Village. I spent this Bloomsday to that end in Central Park. I first fly fished at Harlem Meer where the purple pickerel weed was in full flower. I next hiked through the North Woods, down through the heart of the park, around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, finishing up at Columbus Circle. Seven plus hours of shoe leather in total; kind of like Joyce’s own epic wanderer.
The star bloom on this day turned out to be Wild Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, a member of the family Ranunculaceae (Joyce would probably appreciate my generous use of the Latin). This pretty flower is a native perennial, fond of woodlands (where I found the plants I photographed), and one of the more delicate red wildflowers to be found near the cusp of spring and summer.
Happy Bloomsday . . .
- rPs 06 16 2011
Postscript: Visit the Rosenbach Museum & Library online here: http://www.rosenbach.org/
