Urban Gardening Blog
Using Newspaper as Mulch
BBG staff made good use of old issues of the Daily News in the Fragrance and Shakespeare gardens this week. Newspaper makes an excellent, weed-suppressing mulch material, and BBG horticulturists have been using it in different parts of the garden for several years. In addition to inhibiting weeds, it can also be used to
New Native Flora Garden Grows Local
When it comes to living and eating more sustainably, we’ve all heard, “Go local.” Brooklyn Botanic Garden will embody this edict when the Native Flora Garden expansion opens later this spring. The one-acre expansion features more than 150 plant species that evoke rapidly disappearing wild ecosystems in New Jersey,
Mindful Gardening: Protecting Your Trees
More than a month after superstorm Sandy, New Yorkers are still addressing the extensive damage to the city’s trees. Fallen trees blocked streets, limbs lay scattered on roofs and cars, root balls had pulled apart sidewalks—we saw just how vulnerable these giant plants can be during storms. Now seems like a good
Gardening Like Our Life Depends on It
What makes New Yorkers so able to bounce back from disaster? Community horticulturists know: We live in relationship, not isolation. Brooklyn gardeners collaborate and learn to respect each other, though it’s not always easy, as well as Mother Nature. A survey of 70 flood-zone community gardens in the GreenBridge
Much Ado About Mulch
Spring is a terrific time of year to remove salt-sprayed, winter-worn mulch and treat your street tree to a fresh dressing. And Hurricane Sandy left Brooklyn with an abundant surplus of wood chips to use. For small quantities of free mulch, shovel as many bags as you can take from Green-Wood Cemetery. Enter at 25th Street
Look, Up in the Sky!
Living roofs have been sprouting up all over New York City lately—on luxury apartment buildings, public housing units, schools, office towers, and at BBG, of course! Some are park-like retreats, others look more like windswept prairies, some even support thriving vegetable farms. BBG's latest handbook, Green Roofs and
