Monday, April 25, 2011

Thinking About Native Plants

We're on a search to learn more about native plants and how to get them back in and invasive plants out.

This looks interesting:

Gardening with New York City Native Plants
City of New York, Parks & Recreation

What else do we need to read?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

What it might have looked like, complete with ferry-boat landing

Sunday, March 3rd, 2011

We raked and bagged a lot of leaves, picked up trash, and cleared away sticks and branches this past week-end. All of the bulbs seem to have survived the late frost - most of the daffodils are in bloom or about to be, and we're watching to see what appears next.  We've taken to walking by the garden on the way to school each (or almost each) morning, so we see the daily changes.  It is always full of birds, mostly robins, in the morning.  The fact that the garden is being cared for seem to have eliminated most of the messes left by dogs, which is nice.

The Grant Monument Association

The Grant Monument Association has a very nice website full of information on the tomb, its history, and efforts to preserve it.  Have a look at Grant's Tomb.

The Grant Monument Association publishes a semi-annual newsletter that can be viewed and printed from the links below:

Sunday, March 27, 2011

A beginning and Spring cleaning

So.  For two years we volunteered with the Riverside Park Fund working a couple of hours here and there on weekends up and down the Park from the 90's up to the Manhattanville Viaduct.  For most of that time we lived on 115th St. subletting a Columbia University faculty apartment.  In the Summer of 2010 we moved to Tiemann Place. We worked several times with the wonderful group maintaining the garden at the Western end of Tiemann when we were offered responsibility for the garden on the Eastern (Morningside) side of Grant's Tomb.  The space had been neglected for some time. We spend some hours in the Fall of 2010 pulling stuff out, cutting stuff back, cleaning up, and planting bulbs.  Loot at the picture above, behind the mosaic to see the jungle we have to beat into submission.

in February and March we picked up a lot of trash and branches downed from the Plane trees this winter, and today we raked up leaves.

The snow drops are done, the crocuses suffered from the late snow and cold weather, but the daffodils and tulips are looking good, and the snowy wet winter should be good for the garden,  Shrubs and trees are beginning to bud and we will soon see what the garden looks like in leaf and flower.