If you’re a resident of the concrete jungle, you might be surprised to learn that you share your home with some 1,300 plant species that have been native New Yorkers far longer than any of the city’s human inhabitants, having thrived through thousands of steamy summers and snowy winters here.

But what’s more surprising is that, second to new construction and development, the biggest threat to the livelihood of the city’s native plants are the numerous non-native invasive species. …

Gotham Gardeners: Go Native!
Science & the City, April 24, 2006, New York Academy of Sciences

June 24, 1997 waiting for F train to work, ~9:45am

Planting is meditation.
Weeding is meditation.
Watering is meditation.
There is spirit
In leaves
In insects
In soil.
Gardening is prayer.

I just saw a male Magnolia Warbler (additional link) in our neighbor’s apple tree early this evening, just before dusk. He was darting around the tips of the branches. He looked like he was foraging for insects among the leaves.

Because he was at the ends of the branches, instead of the interior, and because I was watching him from our upstairs back porch, I was just a few feet away. I got several good looks at all sides of him, so I’m confident of the identification.

I’ve seen them before, at our old place in Park Slope. This is the first I’ve seen one at our new house. They’re beautiful birds.

[Transcribed from notebook]

Native Roses

• R. carolina, Pasture Rose
• R. palustris, Swamp Rose
• R. setigera, Prairie Rose, Climbing Rose
• R. virginiana, Wild Rose
• R. blanda, Meadow Rose
• R. acicularis, Prickly Rose

Old Roses

• “American Beauty”
• “General Jack”
• “Pierre Notting”
• “Reine des Violettes”
• “Baronne Prevost”

[Transcribed from notebook. Summary of gardening work done over a long weekend.]

• Dug bed in backyard to left of maple, along wooden fence. Worked in coir/cocoa fiber, HollyTone, Hydrogel. X-planted Royal Fern + Ostrich Fern.
• TODO: X-Plant [to this same area under the maple]:
• Iris cristata
• Dryopteris marginalis
• Phlox stolonifera
• Planted Old House Gardens Dahlia “Union Jack” & Tuberose in Guy Wolff pots purchased last year.
• X-planted from front yard to South border:
• Campanula
• Coreopsis
• X-planted from pots to South border:
• Jerusalem artichoke
• Iris sibirica
• Baptisia?
• Planted seeds in South border:
• Nicotiana (various)
• Clary Sage
• Planted in vine bed:
• Moonvine (last weekend)
• Scarlet runner bean

[Text transcribed and sketch scanned from notebook.]

A photo of two heirloom Tulip varieties blooming in the front yard. On the left is the orange “Generaal de Wet”, introduced in 1904. On the right is the REALLY red “Couleur Cardinal”, introduced in 1845. Both are from Old House Gardens, “America’s only mail-order source devoted entirely to heirloom bulbs.”
Photo Taken: April 21, 2006

It’s our first full Spring in our house, in our neighborhood. Trees have been in flower for months now, it seems. Dogwoods are in bloom now. And we’re just coming into the riot of forsythia and azalea.

There were the first snowdrops, the first crocus, the first signs of irreversible Spring. In our front garden, eranthis, crocus, and now, still, the longest-blooming tulips I’ve ever seen, heirloom/antique bulbs all.

As always, my understanding of what the gardens want and need has evolved over the past year. Here’s my current plan:

• Front: heirloom/antique garden, all plants available 1905 or earlier
• North: Shady path
• South: “wild” garden, plants which seed themselves, mixed border, the “rough” garden
• Back: the native garden and wildlife sanctuary

In the back, I want to put a trellis w/porch swing beneath the maple, angled to face back toward the house, and situated for sun in the winter, leafy shade in the summer. The bench will be 6′, long enough to stretch out on for a nap. The trellis will be 8′, long enough to put the roots of the vines away from the maple’s trunk. Beneath the swing, moss and flagstones. Around the maple, moss, ferns and wildflowers. Mature shrubs will block the views out of the garden from this spot, and onto this spot from outside. A sheltered destination. A sanctuary.

A sketch of the proposed placement of the trellis-swing in the backyard. The back of the house faces East; South is to the right in this sketch. The swing will go beneath, in front of, the maple in the northeast corner of the backyard. In summer, when the sun is high, it’s shaded by the maple, the cherry tree, and our neighbor’s apple tree (not shown in the sketch).
This spot is visible from the driveway on the south of the house, and from the street along the north side of the house. Placing two large shrubs will block these lines of sight, providing privacy from without, and enclosing the views from within. The new lines of sight from/to the swing, constrained by the mature shrubs, are shown on the sketch.

[Partially transcribed from diary for garden references. The rest of it need not concern you!]

[Written while waiting for and riding subway into the city.]
…
I planted seeds today. Actually, the planting was the smallest part of what I did today, but it was the excuse for all I did. Last weekend I cleared all the ivy from the side porch. Today I sifted all the leaf mold and broke up the soil in the narrow strip between the porch foundation and the driveway. Finally, eventually, I planted the sweet pea seeds I started soaking last night before I went to bed. I moved the leaf mold and dirt from the tarp I’d set up on the driveway to the backyard.

I was exhausted. I moved a log to contain one of the new beds I’d just created, reset the adirondack chairs, the ones I’d built … from kits at the apartment [Garden #3 in Park Slope], and collapsed into one of them.

I was too tired to move. For this I was rewarded. Not only did the bird feeder, just 10′ from me, continue [ended abruptly for subway transfer.]

My partner and I drove from our new home in Brooklyn to the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival, held each year at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, New York. It was a looong drive there and back, but the festival was interesting, and great fun. I hope the photos below convey this.

[Transcribed from notebook. Specific date was not recorded.]

We moved into our new house about six weeks ago, the last Thursday in May. This will be my fourth garden in New York City since I moved here 26 years ago, in the Winter of 1979.

House and garden have both been neglected. Both are in need of maintenance, repair, and loving back to their full flower. Both will need work, time, patience, investment. I can envision the trajectories and futures of both.

Particularly, I can imagine bringing the house and garden(s) back together. Each want the other, each need the other. In time, the house will become part of the gardens, grwing out of them, sheltering them, providing the largest bones in the architecture of the garden.

And the house will change to fit and frame the gardens. The siding will be returned to its original design of clapboard and shingle, though how many years and $10K it will take I shudder to comprehend. In longer time, the back will be returned, I believe, to an open porch, the kitchen expanded and opened up to blur the boundary between indoor and outdoor space, between house and garden, between the manufactured and the spontaneous.

Vines will climb up the sides of the screened porches, screening and sheltering them further, filling the porches with fragrance, filtered light, luminous color. Mature shrubs will shade the south side of the house in summer, and draw birds to their berries and hold the snow in winter. Flowers and foliage will spill from window boxes and containers ankling the paths, forcing one to stop to inspect, to smell, to feel, to slow down.

I can see all this as it will be, as it’s coming to be.

[Text transcribed and sketch scanned from notebook.]

Sketch from notebook showing proposed design for backyard garden with renovation of the back of the house. The back of the house faces East. South is to the right, and North to the left, in this sketch. Changes to the house envisioned in this sketch include restoring the pocket doors between the dining room and living room, converting the two back bedrooms and half the current kitchen to a porch opening onto the back, and re-orienting and expanding the kitchen along the porch.

Four Gardens:

• Front: Heirloom/Cottage
• North: Shade/Path
• South: Shrub Border, Wild Garden
• Back: Sanctuary, Native, Habitat