Posted in Berlin plants, Events, exhibitions, etc., Questions & discussion, tagged art, Berlin, dandelion, kiosk, Mitte, mural, neukölln, painted, photography, plants, quiz, subway, traffic island, Wedding on 8 June 2009 | 1 Comment »
Our quiz about plants near Berlin’s U8 subway line is officially over! The poster in the Bernauer Straße station came down last week and it’s time to announce a winner and reveal the answers to the quiz.
If you haven’t tried the quiz, you can still find it here – just for fun, no more prizes will be awarded. If you’re ready to see the answers, read on.
Posted in Brooklyn plants, Questions & discussion, tagged ailanthus, art, Brooklyn, cities, environment, nature, New York, photography, tree, tree of heaven, weeds on 7 June 2009 | 4 Comments »
Excited that the topic of discussion had turned to the tree of heaven, I went out yesterday to photograph (in the rain) my favorite specimen of ailanthus altissima so far: a couple of trees growing in a tiny city park that borders the Prospect Highway. Well, actually, describing them as “in” the park isn’t really correct because, typical of this strand of misfit tree, the trunks actually sprout from the ground just beyond the park fence, squished up between it and the wall of the highway! You can see them against the ivy-covered back of the park in the right half of the picture above.
Posted in Plants elsewhere in NYC, Questions & discussion, tagged article, Grünflächeamt, interview, job, New York, park, park ranger, people, question on 31 May 2009 | 1 Comment »
I liked today’s New York Times portrait of Adrian Benepe, the Parks and Recreation Commissioner for all of New York City. The piece focuses a lot on how he relates to the parks outside of work, reminding me of my asking park maintenance workers in Berlin whether they still visit the parks in their personal time.
It sounds like Mr. Benepe loves the parks to bits, but that for him, the line between being in the parks as a private citizen and as a professional is more than blurry. (more…)
Posted in From our contributors, Plants worldwide, Questions & discussion, tagged Buenos Aires, Frankfurt, houseplant, potted plant, steps, travel, window on 18 May 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yet more peculiar plants from other places, courtesy of a reader. My sister Phoebe is a frequent flier with an eye for odd details in the streets, including curious plants. Here are a few greens she spotted in Tokyo.
The picture above is from her recent trip to Buenos Aires. She writes:
This is the main street of the San Telmo district. On Calle Defensa, Euro-style mansions of the rich overlook a square where on Sundays there is a bustling antiques market.
Posted in Brooklyn plants, Questions & discussion, tagged art show, Brooklyn, community, event, exhibition, neighborhood, open source, participation on 5 May 2009 | 3 Comments »
On Sara’s block in Brooklyn, two of her neighbors have created a community-oriented art space called Open Source, mixing exhibitions, workshops for kids, potluck dinners and other participatory events. We very much like their idea of providing “a place for art in the midst of daily life.” So happily, they’ve invited us to present an Urban Plant Research exhibition this summer, August 15 – September 2. (more…)
Posted in Berlin plants, Questions & discussion, tagged animals, bear, Berlin, Knut, spring, tulips, zoo on 29 April 2009 | 6 Comments »
Last week Anke wrote, “Der Frühling ist so schnell. Man kommt nicht hinterher. Man muss genau gucken und sich sagen, das ist nur heute so. Und dann ein Foto machen.” (Spring is so fast. You can’t keep up. You have to take a good look and tell yourself, it’s only like this today. And then take a picture.) (more…)
Posted in Plants elsewhere in NYC, Projects from others, Questions & discussion, tagged city planning, farming, New York, urban farming on 23 April 2009 | 3 Comments »
Another note related to Earth Day and environmentalism: vertical farming! Farms may soon exist in the middle of Manhattan in the shape of skyscrapers. Watch the intriguing video on YouTube from Discovery-News.com:
Posted in Brooklyn plants, Questions & discussion, tagged art, Brooklyn, Earth Day, photography, plants, urban plant research on 22 April 2009 | 1 Comment »
On the occasion of Earth Day, I present to you a pot of hydrangeas I discovered in an empty storefront window while walking down 6th Ave. in Brooklyn. Please take a moment today to look around at our green neighbors, appreciate their beauty, and recognize how essential they are to our survival. (Of course, readers of Urban Plant Research are always doing this, right?!) Perhaps we can each make a promise to do one more environmentally friendly thing in our daily lives.
Posted in Berlin plants, Questions & discussion on 2 October 2008 | 2 Comments »
6 September 2008, 13:30.
Between Karl-Marx-Allee 103 and the entrance to U-Bahnhof Weberwiese.
I wrote earlier that I had looked at this big group of trees in front of my house and marvelled that they were all wearing identifiation tags, but there wasn’t enough light that day to get any good pictures of the inner trees in the bunch. Here are some new pictures.
Posted in Brooklyn plants, Questions & discussion on 6 September 2008 | 8 Comments »
Today around 1 o’clock I stepped out of my house on my way to the Y for a swim. I was immediately bathed in hot sunlight, wrapped in a big wind, and I instantly felt good, like it was summer the way summer should feel, though it is now September. (I later realized it must be because it is dry heat and reminds me of summer in California). Put in a good mood, I began looking about, smiling at the friendly plants in my neighborhood, and I had a thought that I should try an experiment: to smile at every single person who passed me on my 10-minute walk to the gym.
To some folks out there this might seem like an inane experiment – who doesn’t smile at people they pass by? On visits to my parents’ house in California, while walking the dog through the suburban neighborhood, I always make eye contact with, smile at, and even offer a “hi” to those I pass. But here in the city, even in Brooklyn, my plan was surprisingly difficult to carry out.
One, most people who pass you on the street don’t look at you. They note your existence through their peripheral vision so as not to walk into you, but that’s it. Two, when they do look at you, they usually have some sort of unwelcome or at least indifferent look on their face. With these people, after making eye contact, I found myself cowardly looking away as I smiled at them, as if it would break some kind of unspoken urban code to smile obviously and directly at them. Then there was a construction worker who watched me as I timidly half-smiled at him. He wasn’t one of the leerers, but that is one reason I have come into the habit of not making eye contact with people on the street – the abundance of men who will make random comments to you if you do. And then there was an old man who immediately stuffed a flier in my face when I made eye contact – yet another reason against doing so.
Maybe this says more about me than about the social codes of the city, but the people who I successfully smiled at were:
I saw just a few people smile back, but this is probably due to my inability to commit entirely to the experiment.
On my way back from the Y, I gave up my plan, as it seemed to be depressing me rather than reinforcing my happiness. I instead focused on my favorite plant sites, checking on them as I passed. Many of the virginia pepperweeds on 17th street are now skeletal – dried-up and wheat-colored, they have long lost their flowers, but still retain a certain elegance.
The marestails on the same street are also past maturity – their flowers have been replaced by tons of tiny, fuzzy seed-orbs, which suddenly fly off as they are caught by the wind.
I thought they looked beautiful there in the dappled afternoon sun, but I was not happy with my photographic attempts. Somehow the light wasn’t working with me, the wind was making everything come out blurry, and I was frustrated by all the cars parked along the street.
There was one spot where there wasn’t a car. I went over to it and was just setting up my picture when a driver spotted the parking space and began to back into it – and into my frame. Stunned at my misfortune, I stayed there squatting on the sidewalk, staring at the car and at the driver in the car. Then, giving up on my photo shoot, I got up as she got out of her car. As I turned away to head home, she looked at me and smiled.
 | pfebes on Big pear hug – to all ou… |
| pfebes on Berlin: ranunculus découp… |
| pfebes on Berlin: banana tree |
| pfebes on El Palmar: village plant … |
| pfebes on Berlin-Neukölln: Air plants at… |
