Red Hook’s creeper

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New York’s surrogate plants

As a California native, I grew up with an abundance of parks, hiking trails and large areas of nature within a short walking distance. That is why I was surprised that the artificial foliage and plants of New York have been catching my attention. The city’s greenery cannot compare with California’s vegetation, but I am interested in how urban dwellers find comfort and privacy in a bustling city where space is limited and its supply is competitive.

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Julius von Bismarck’s pressed plants

These suspended plants were seen on a recent trip to New York at Marlborough Contemporary. German artist Julius von Bismarck created this installation for the exhibit Good Weather. I found it humorous that the concrete column in the middle of the space could be mistaken for a tree trunk. If you look take a closer look, there are a few pressed chickens which I didn’t see until now. For those of you in New York, the show runs until tomorrow, May 20.

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Trees after Hurricane Sandy

The damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, as documented above by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, included flooding in the South Ferry subway station in lower Manhattan, home to the lovely tree installation by the Starn brothers we reported on four years ago. Back then, the station looked like this:

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New York blog tip: local ecologist

Photo courtesy of local ecologist.

local ecologist is a super-knowledgable urban ecology blog in New York, with whom Urban Plant Research has long been exchanging ideas and comments, and whom we are long overdue in recommending. From lovely photos and accurate IDs of local fruits and foliage (as in the picture above, of hawthorn) to investigations of urban space and architecture, local ecologist reports on a wide variety of subjects and is packed with in-depth information.

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LaGuardia Airport, NY: Bathroom plant research

Our roving plant reporter Phoebe Kuo, aka my sister, found a birthday bouquet yesterday while traveling through LaGuardia Airport in New York City late at night. Although she had just endured a late evening flight following a long day of work, our birthday girl was on the alert for urban plants and snagged this cell phone shot of the perfect pretzel pairing. Is Auntie Anne’s pretzels, a LaGuardia snack mainstay, offering urban plants in Big Gulp-sized cups? If so, you heard it here first.

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Manhattan: “Low line” underground park proposed

And now for something completely different… simply by proposing a new park, three New York entrepreneurs have made waves among Manhattanites, urban planners and architecture nerds. The reason: their want to put the park completely underground, in a defunct trolley station on the Lower East Side, which looks like this:

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Vieira de Leiria, Portugal: Giant kale

What could be behind this wall?

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Mons: Windowsill plant friends

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NY Parks Department now against foraging?

Edible plants (woodruff and bear’s garlic) spotted on a foraging tour in a Berlin park.

The New York Times chimed into our discussion on urban foraging this weekend with an article about the New York City Parks Department enforcing park rules about foraging: namely, that it is not allowed.

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