Prospect: A Year in the Park

Semi-freddo

 

Last Sunday, the mid-January sun, already stronger, melted much of the snowcap on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A dark and rainy week followed, culminating in a dreaded inauguration; the timeless peace of the Japanese Garden is a good tonic.

So is the beauty of evergreens capped with white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Botanical trivia: the word glaucous (from the Latin glaucus, meaning "bluish-grey or green") describes the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, especially conifers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was terrible at conifer identification when I was a Garden Guide (docent) at the BBG years ago; it all has to do with needle shape, structure, etc. Sometimes I still just call them all "pine trees," which is unforgivable. Here, you identify this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's to a new era, on thin ice.

As it does each day

New Year's Day, 2017, 3 p.m., Prospect Park. The solstice is still palpable at the Peristyle.

 

 

Lakeside, the new landscape, is beautiful in winter, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas touches of red have yet to be bleached by January.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the ice, uncertain next steps are just part of the fun...for most of us, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

"The Round," by Stanley Kunitz. Copyright 1995.  

 

 

 

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Native glory

If you really, really need a walk in the woods, but can't drive up the Hudson, head for the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Pretend that the not-too-distant sound of Flatbush Avenue traffic is the rushing of a mountain stream. (This garden does have a stream, but not a rushing one.) Carefully curated for more than a century to reflect the real Northeast, this reliably uncrowded path was magnificent yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The names of our native trees are a kind of poetry. Scarlet oak. According to its tag, it ranges from Maine to Michigan, and as far south as Georgia and Mississippi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sugar maple, yes the kind that gives us pancake syrup, with spectacular rainbows within a single leaf.  It's the state tree, not just of Vermont, but of New York, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sassafras, with its mitten-shaped leaves and root-beer-scented bark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black tupelo, another ravishing red. Also called sour gum, an irony since it is prized for the honey bees make from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the fallen leaves of a tupelo tree provided gaudy camoflauge for the Blurry Bird of the Day, a reminder that this garden makes it worth your while to look both underfoot...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and overhead.

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A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

No, actually, I wouldn't*. Even human foragers don't want to munch English ivy, poison ivy, goutweed, and other invasive plants that have run riot in now-sunny areas of Prospect Park after hundreds of trees fell victim to Superstorm Sandy.

But goats? They'll be happy to help. The park has hired a gang of experienced weed-whackers from green-goats.com, the brainchild of former dairy goat farmers Ann and Larry Cihanek. Their team of power-mowers has already gone to work in Liberty State Park and Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, among other urban sites; this, however, is the first time that goats have come to the rescue in Brooklyn. And predictably, the media went mad.

 

 

At a press conference yesterday, park officials introduced members of the press to the eight goats who will work, in three teams, in fenced enclosures along the park's steeply hilly and overgrown eastern edge, as part of a multi-year woodlands restoration program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In small groups, journos were permitted into the enclosure, where they giggled and scrambled and generally fell victim to the curious charm that has made goats the current darlings of Instagram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not all members of the team were on message. One snoozed obliviously before the Opening Remarks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This guy, named Raptor, was more interested in nibbling bark than weeds. (For this reason, some young trees will get goat-guards.) Raptor is a breed called the La Mancha, bred for almost non-existent outer ears. This collegue more than made up for it with extravagantly lengthy ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographers called out pleadingly to the goats in paparazzi fashion, but while some had perfected "Blue Steel" and even "Magnum," others shrugged off the attention with goatish aplomb.

    

Few visitors petted the goats, although we were not forbidden to do so, perhaps because we were warned they might have rubbed their hairy flanks on poison ivy. Undeterred, I bonded with a perfectly charming goat named Skittles. I am a goat-whisperer! (Hint: If they are scratching their backs with their horns, scratch that spot for them.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needles to say, this being Brooklyn, concerns were voiced over the goats winding up as someone's dinner. Mr. Cihanek said he wasn't worried; the goats, he recounted, tend to bring out the protective best in people. The few who have escaped their enclosures have been rounded up and returned, often by folks from cultures fond of their culinary potential. Let's face it: People love these creatures, and not just because their four stomachs can handle 25% of their body weight in vegetation every day. The goats will remain in the park, says the Alliance, "until their work is done."

The woodlands restoration, funded by post-Sandy grant money from the National Parks Service via New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, goes beyond goats. According to the Prospect Park Alliance, historic preservation work will happen sometime in the future in the (sadly neglected) Vale of Cashmere (whose leaky pond, right, is now a mucky swamp) and also atop Lookout Hill, whose trees were decimated by Sandy.

In the meantime, there are goats!

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey

A kiddley divey too, Wooden shoe!"

Foraging at Dead Horse Bay

Does that sound faintly menacing? It's marvelous. On the first Saturday in May, a cool gray one, I signed up with the doyenne of urban gourmet foraging, Marie Viljoen, for a spring forage walk along seaside paths across Flatbush Avenue from Floyd Bennett Field. I love this wild fringe of Brooklyn, and I knew that strange things awaited us down on the beach. Our small group gathered, bags in hand, to pick nature's neglected salad greens (invasives only, nothing scarce or endangered) under Marie's sharp eye.

 

Marie is that gorgeous girl in school, the total original with the seemingly effortless style, but so incredibly nice you can't hate her for it. Tall, ginger, erudite about botany and with a sharp sense of humor, she could be a lifestyle guru (just see her blog 66 Square Feet (Plus)) if she were just less intelligent, quirky, and nuanced. She introduced us to the mysteries of pokeweed, whose young shoots are relished by Southerners (and, in this case, a South African), but whose mature plant parts and berries are toxic.

 

 

 

We gathered lots of tender garlic mustard tips; this pesky weed made a delicious, broccoli-di-rape-like green for my pasta that night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dead nettles--edible despite their dreary name--rose above a fairy-forest of violets and other wildflowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young milkweed--or maybe it's dogbane, a poisonous look-alike. They both have milky sap, but only milkweed has hollow stems. Butterflies eat it, too, so Marie recommends only foraging it in areas where it is plentiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we headed toward the water, I nibbled the bases of phragmites (didn't care for them) and some resinous immature bayberries (delicious). Marie uses bayberry leaves like bay leaves, infusing gin or vodka with them, and the buds like capers. We emerged onto Dead Horse Bay, with the Marine Parkway Bridge rising in the distance. At our feet: sea rocket, a salt-loving little green with the kick of wasabi.

 

 

 

 

 

Also at our feet: the surreal washed-up detritus that has made Dead Horse Bay a famous mecca for beachcombers and bottle collectors. The currents turn up an unceasing harvest of glass, ceramic, shoe soles, and other urban imperishables, along with the occasional horse bones--remnants of its past (as a home for glue factories and slaughterhouses) reflected in its memorable name. I've been here before, and it's always fun to watch the incredulity of a first-timer at this dystopian harvest.

Some of the bottles are clearly recognizable, and as you toss them back you wonder, Whose nighttable did that Noxema sit on, and when? What family, after a pancake breakfast in some other decade, consigned that maple syrup bottle to a watery limbo? And, is "Miracle Power" strong enough to overcome the evil of an ancient crushed dollhead?

  

Next, we climbed up a low bluff, where Marie laid out a superb picnic: Vietnamese spring rolls, translucent wraps around bouquets of spring nibbles; pokeweed-sprout finger sandwiches; and a refreshing homemade cordial brewed from various natural elixirs gathered on her walks. And a buttery loaf cake scented with almond-y mahleb, or cherry pits. Coots and geese provided background music, along with the surf. Nearby, nestled in a dune, I found a little art installation that some previous visitor had left behind.

 

 

 

As we headed back, we found a big mushroom that Marie saved to identify later. (You don't guess with mushrooms.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I caught my Blurry Bird of the Day, a redwinged blackbird, harbinger of spring in all places marshy and reedy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we headed back up to Flatbush Avenue and ordinary life, having feasted on the foraging fringe of Brooklyn.

 

For a deep dive into Marie's beautiful matrix of New York, food, plants, life and beauty, you can buy her book 66 Square Feet: A Delicious Life, One Woman, One Terrace, 92 Recipes. And for her take on this walk, including her gorgeous photos, go here.

Spring Park News: Goats and crafts and GOATS?!

Stuff happenin' in Prospect Park this spring: The "minds behind Smorgasborg and Brooklyn Flea," those uber-drivers of all things hipster and gentrified, are bringing a crafts market ("curated," of course) to Grand Army Plaza, according to the Prospect Park Alliance: "Beginning Sunday, May 8, and continuing every Sunday through October, Grand Army Plaza will host a variety of local artisans, makers and designers." Hey, don't overlook the delightful little free-range Saturday artisans' market that has spontaneously generated near the Greenmarket, which I profiled here (the faces and offerings have changed but there are always a few nice booths worth looking at). 

 

Photo: Julie Larsen-Maher/Prospect Park Alliance

And then...there are going to be goats.

Yes, goats. Again, the Alliance:

"Throughout the Park, storms like Hurricane Sandy have felled or damaged over 500 trees, enabling invasive plants to thrive and further harm the natural ecosystem. In the Park's Northeast Perimeter, where over 50 trees were damaged or destroyed, goats will be working alongside Prospect Park Alliance staff to restore the woodlands. The goats will eat these invasive weeds so that the Alliance can plant new native trees and plants next spring to beautify the landscape and bolster natural habitat for birds, and ensure the Park is more resilient against future storms."

Photo: GreenGoats.com

According to this account in today's New York Times, the eight goats (from goat-deployment experts Green Goats have been hired by the Alliance for the season for $15,000 to feast away on pesky vegetation like poison ivy, which they relish, in the Vale of Cashmere. (Will that make them Cashmere goats? Just a little goat-herding humor there.) That per-goat salary is more than my honor student is likely to make on a summer job; maybe I should teach her to munch invasive plants.

No one seems to have addressed the potential peril to urban goats, even in an "enclosure"; I fear for their misuse for meat or even intimate companionship in this notoriously secluded locale. (They have done their weed-whacking thing in Liberty State Park, but this appears to be their Brooklyn debut.) The park, however, does have a robust history of ruminants, including the Long Meadow's herd of sheep (said to have had an excess of Brooklyn attitude). I wish our Brooklyn goats much luck, hope to meet them at a wool-centric "Bleat and Greet" event on May 22, and look forward to bringing you more news of their progress against botanical entropy.

All kidding aside, these Green Goat folks, from the Rhinebeck/Red Hook area, are tough and tender-hearted innovators, whose herd was tragically lost in a barn fire last year; I'm happy to know Brooklyn will be a part of their resurgence:

After the thaw

I didn't get to the park on the day it went above 75 degrees F a week before St. Patrick's Day. I was stuck inside working. But the next day, still warm, showed evidence of jump-starts everywhere over by Lakeside. Snowdrops made little bouquets near the bust of Mozart in the Concert grove.

 

I almost mistook this fragrant witch hazel for forsythia. Witch hazel is happy to bloom in January, but apparently even happier in March.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The turtles are out. If we get a terrible cold snap, how will they get back into the mud?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teeny plants forced their way out from the new granite hardscaping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on the rink, skaters in t-shirts sloshed through a rippling slick of meltwater.

BBG Discovery Garden Redux: No place to hide

It was with some trepidation that I visited the new Discovery Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden late in August. The Children's Garden farm--where my tiny daughter leaned over a plot of seeds in "KinderGardeners"--was unchanged, a tangle of crops worthy of Beatrix Potter with the charming cottage at its heart. But the dear little Discovery Garden that used to be at the Flatbush Avenue/Empire Boulevard entrance has been wiped away for a spacious new entry, and a whole new Discovery Garden created.

 

As a former BBG docent ("garden guide"), I still feel a fierce proprietary interest in its every development. I was very underwhelmed by the much-heralded new Visitors' Center, a sprawling vanity project that manages to incorporate every LEED-certified trend while seeming utterly unconnected to the Garden's historic vibe (and, mysteriously, facing the parking lot with a vast swath of blindingly white concrete). I had high hopes for the new Discovery Garden, but it didn't thrill me, frankly.

 

 

 

It's...very educational, I guess, and far better designed for large groups, laid out as a series of environmental habitats. I'll bet they all "align to Common Core standards." The boardwalk-like paths and rope bridges are fun to explore, and I liked this nest with some building materials in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But everywhere there are signs urging you to be a Young Scientist, suggesting questions and experiments like an earnest progressive textbook. This "meadow" seemed more man-made than meadow-like to me. In the Poconos as a kid, I'd wander in meadows for hours on end--they were wild, lush, untracked, humming with life. Wonderful places to dream and do nothing--not even science. Are kids still allowed to just dream in meadows?

 

 

 

 

The pond feature needed some work; I highly approve of investigating pond scum, but at least at this early juncture, the pond seemed without much (at least of the macroscopic variety) to investigate. No fish, frogs or turtles, for sure. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a variety of bug-houses but a warning not to disturb the bugs (good for not getting sued by kids who forgot their Epi-Pen, but not much fun), and a station for adding to the Curiosity Collection, whose display jars were sealed shut. As a kid, my chief private game was something I called "nesting," which consisted of collecting just this sort of thing--but for a fantasy winter survival cottage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silky, irresistible treasures like these bursting milkweed pods--it will be hard to balance the "hands-on" thing while keeping kids from "harvesting." The whole project, while state-of-the-art in its eco-friendly zeal, was somehow dispiriting. You could get lost in the old kids' exploration area, amid towering hedges and sunflowers; you could stand at a table full of pine cones and, well, mess with pine cones, with no one asking you to sort, hypothesize, or analyze. It was flowery and messy, full of beauty and a bit mysterious.

 

 

 

I guess that's not on the Common Core. Neither is rolling down hills, but the only two kids I saw really enjoying themselves were doing just that.

Petalheads

"Rose Night" is our favorite members' event at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. An evening of endless setting sun...gin cocktails and a vaguely Gatsby vibe...and a dreamscape of roses.

 

There was a band playing Bertie Woosterish tunes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and folks making efforts at roseate style statements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fancy hats were a theme. Some came from out of the closet...

 

 

...while others were concocted on the spot. Father's Day hint: It's a good dad indeed who wears the hat.

My friend's grandmother used to say: There's a thin line between an outfit and a get-up. But in the Cranford Rose Garden, with flowers gotten up everywhere, you can get away with a lot.

 

 

 

Let's face it, the roses are the stars of this show. Anyone who knows only the sad, cold, fragrance-free missiles of an FTD bouquet should be prepared to faint with ecstasy upon meeting the Old Roses...heady perfume bombs with petals so lush they look like a kid drew their finger through whipped cream. (Rosarians call this "quartering," I believe.)

 

 

 

 

Lavender...one of the most elusive rose colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many shades of cream and gold can you imagine? Not enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This lascivious chamber of secrets is named, for some reason, "Jude the Obscure."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Climbers on chains!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These gardeners paint with flowers.

 

We left as the sun sank behind the climbers. Twenty years ago, a week from my due date at the cusp of summer, I knew I'd always associate the longest days and the roses with the coming of beautiful new life. I still do.

 

Sakura MacSelfie

We skipped the crowds for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Sakura Matsuri festival, but the cherry blossoms (at least those trees already blooming after this laggardly spring) were only slightly less mobbed last Tuesday, when the breeze was balmy and the admission was free. Hanami, the traditional contemplation of transient blooms, seemed to have undergone a profound transition this year, happening mostly through handheld screens of every size and description.

 

This bloomer on the Cherry Esplanade was surrounded with two kinds of buzz: pollinators, and photo-op seekers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young or older, no one can resist posing in front of the foamy mounds of flowers.

 


This lovely Instagrammer wore a chic jacket in a complementary shade of creamy raspberry.

 

But some folks did seem a bit preoccupied with the whole selfie thing...

...including users of the rapidly proliferating "selfie sticks."

 

Over in the pavilion of the Japanese Garden, it came as a relief to see someone taking a picture with a good "old-fashioned" camera...or better yet, just gazing at the beauty through a pair of young eyes.