I didn’t expect to be taking garden photos when I visited my daughter in New York City, where she lives in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area – a “transitional” section of Brooklyn. But for years Brooklyn Botanic Garden has been sponsoring The Greenest Street in Brooklyn as a neighborhood beautification program and it’s inspiring. My camera phone at my side, I could not resist taking photos.
MacDonough Street signs – Greenest block in Brooklyn
These are tough conditions. Tiny to nonexistent lots, terrible soil, pollution, dogs, and careless kids do not deter a gardener in Brooklyn, and it proves to me the universal appeal of getting our hands dirty and caring for plants.
Just seeing these plants in these enough conditions tells us how tough they must be – and how trusting the gardeners must be.
This tiniest of lawns had got to be cut with scissors it seems to me.
And the way this bike is jauntily leaning against a fence seems like it could be a rural middle of America scene.
Some gardeners, without any actual front yard, use the stoop on the front steps for container gardening.
Along the streets, in the tiny bits of soil exposed for street trees not even big enough for a hellstrip, some gardeners have claimed the space, put up small fences to keep out the dogs, and along one street, I found a series of folksy signs praising the spirit of gardening.
Where Flowers Bloom- So Does Hope
Gardening My Kind of Therapy
To Be Happy For A Lifetime, Take Up Gardening
I think that about says it all.
Latest posts by Saxon Holt (see all)
- The Green New Deal - November 19, 2018
- Leaning Pine Arboretum - January 31, 2018
- Landscape Panoramas 2017 - January 12, 2018
