Latest news with #urbanflora
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
These New Yorkers Are Touching Grass
Visuals by Krista Schlueter Text by Miya Lee This Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. sharp, a group of stylish, mostly 30-something New Yorkers gathered at the Hare Krishna Tree in the center of Tompkins Square Park. Despite a few complaints of hangovers, they had made it there on time for a plant and history tour of the park led by Olivia Rose, who handed out tote bags and forest green zines she had made for the occasion. Ms. Rose, 33, is an artist and designer from the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan. She founded the plant design studio Original Rose in 2017. Last August, she began hosting free guided walks around New York that explored both the city's history and its local plants. Ms. Rose hopes her walks will foster a more intimate relationship between New Yorkers and the overlooked vegetation that lives alongside them. ' I like to think about it as, like, you're just learning more about your neighbors,' she said. The walks attract artists, writers, designers, models, musicians — 'the scenesters of the world,' as Daniel Ohrem, a friend of Ms. Rose's who showed up on Sunday for his second plant walk, put Maldonado and Sarah Gaudio, a married couple who run the streetwear brand Brigade USA, brought their dog to Sunday's walk and said they both identified as '100 percent plant-blind.' 'You can be here for decades and not know the intricacies of what you're seeing on the street day to day, ' Ms. Gaudio said. After roughly 35 people assembled, Ms. Rose called for everyone's attention. With her hand pressed to the Hare Krishna Tree's trunk, she explained that it was a rare example of a mature American elm in New York City, planted around 1879. In 1966, the tree was where the spiritual leader Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his followers held a chanting ceremony that represented the birth of the Hare Krishna religion in the United States. 'I like to think that the trees hold in memory of all the things that have occurred,' Ms. Rose said. The crowd listened attentively as she went on to illuminate the many memories contained in the 10.5 acres of Tompkins Square was its use as a military parade ground, the various labor and antiwar protests, the concerts and drag festivals and the 1988 clash between protestors and police officers over issues including homelessness, gentrification and a 1 a.m. curfew. 'You can't ever bring this park down,' Ms. Rose said. 'The people come back. This is the people's park for a reason.' Next to the skate park on 10th Street, Ms. Rose pointed out a London plane, among the most common trees in New York City and one favored by the urban planner Robert Moses for its hardiness and adaptability. London planes are known for their flaky, camouflage-like bark and five-point leaves, which many believe inspired the leaf on the city's Parks Department logo. After stopping by two monuments — the Slocum Memorial Fountain, which commemorates the victims of a 1904 ferry fire, and the Temperance Fountain, installed in 1888 to encourage people to drink water instead of alcohol — the walk was coming to a close. The park had begun filling up with sunbathers, children and people doing tai chi. Under the Hare Krishna Tree, a band was setting up for a performance.'She ate, absolutely ate,' Lydia Burns commented to her girlfriend about Ms. Rose. Ms. Burns, a model and native New Yorker, was particularly delighted by the hand-drawn map in Ms. Rose's zine that identified the location and the species of every tree in the park. 'I've been wanting to come for weeks and weeks and weeks,' she said. 'I'm excited that the spring is happening and she's really activating the girls to touch some grass — literally — and get outside.' Produced by Tanner Curtis
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Plantwatch: Why dandelions should be left to grow in spring
Dandelions are often seen by gardeners as burly thugs, but they do have their benefits. The flowers are rich in nectar and pollen, feeding pollinating insects, which have suffered steep declines in recent years. Numbers of flying insects in the UK have fallen by 78% since 2004, according to a survey based on sampling vehicle number plates. As dandelions bloom early in spring, before many other flowers, they are a particularly valuable food for hungry pollinators, with dandelion nectar especially vital when early pollinators such as wild bees, honeybees and hoverflies emerge. Dandelion plants are particularly adept at thriving in urban places and can even grow in cracks in pavements, using a long, large taproot to tap into water and nutrients well below the ground surface. Urban dandelions grow bigger and better than those in the countryside, thriving in the warmer urban climate . Some species of dandelions can even tolerate the high levels of salt sprayed on roads in winter to help melt ice, and withstand roadside pollution from traffic. This month gardeners are encouraged with 'No Mow May' by the charity Plantlife to avoid mowing lawns and let weeds such as dandelions grow unmolested.
The Guardian
13-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: The simple joys of pavement plant-spotting
I'm a proud member of Happy (the Hitchin association of pavement plant yokels), so-called by my friend Phil, a fellow wildflower enthusiast. You'll find us roaming the town centre, scanning brick walls and peering into paving crevices on the hunt for the tenacious species that thrive in these oft-overlooked habitats. I had my pavement epiphany a couple of years ago outside the chemist on Hitchin high street when I saw a little lass bending down, scrutinising the paving stones. Her dad soon whisked her away and I went over to look. She'd noticed a community of self-seeded plants growing in a semicircular crack. The diversity of the miniature garden astonished me: mosses, meadow grass, goosegrass, common whitlowgrass, sow thistle, fleabane, and there, among the annual plants and perennial cigarette butts, a seedling with trilobed leaves – a Hitchin speciality – rue-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga tridactylites). Now it's early May and this three-fingered rock-breaker's tiny white flowers have opened in the sun, the foliage blushing redder the drier and sunnier its location. Looking closely, you can see sticky hairs lining the fleshy leaves and stems – but be prepared for funny looks if you lie prostrate on the pavement to examine this low-growing annual. Surprisingly for a plant that naturally grows on limestone cliffs and sand dunes, the first UK record was from Chancery Lane in 1597. Once rue-leaved saxifrage had infiltrated street cracks and wall crannies, it developed a reputation for urban persistence that seems to be borne out locally – I recently tracked down a record of 'rue-leaved sengreen or whitlow grass' (an old name) from May 1811 and an herbarium specimen collected from a wall in Hitchin in April 1841. One spring, thousands of plants appeared on the roof above the local Sally Army shop. This year though, the summit-scaler has reinvented itself as a river-rider, flowing along the bricked banks of the Hiz, pooling between treads and risers in the steps by the pond, leaving a ruddy flush in its wake. Yet hardly anyone sees it. If it weren't for the odd inquisitive youngster and a few Happy townsfolk, I'm sure rue-leaved saxifrage would go about its annual business unnoticed for many centuries to come. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
