Left to right: Anne Pope, Wilton Duckworth, and Joan Ewing.
I attended last night’s Sustainable Flatbush event at Vox Pop. The theme was Urban Permaculture.
I’ll come back and write up my review later. I’ve got to get out and do some gardening today! Meanwhile, you can view my photos from the event.
Adrian Kinloch, Brit in Brooklyn, came up with these great banners and flyers to promote the inaugural Brooklyn Blogade Roadshow.
To continue the networking which began at the Brooklyn Blogfest in May, Brooklyn bloggers are taking on the road to a different neighborhood each month. The first event is in June, the neighborhood is Flatbush, the location is Vox Pop on Cortelyou Road.
Please read the announcement post for full details, including how to RSVP for this event. That post will be kept up-to-date with any changes and additions as we learn about them.
Blog Widow John and I saw our first firefly of the year as we were coming home just after sunset this evening. Seemed to be only the one. I looked for others up and down the street and didn’t see any.
It’s summer.
Here’s a photo I took of the first one I saw last year. I found it on my hose reel. The date last year was June 17, so they’re right on time or a little ahead this year.
Yeah, it’s blurry and out-of-focus. I’ll get some better shots this year. I’m saving up for a good macro lens.
Lampyridae is a family in the beetle order Coleoptera, members of which are commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glow worms due to their conspicuous nocturnal (or, more accurately, crepuscular) use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey. The firefly is capable of producing a “cold light” containing no ultra violet rays, with a wavelength from 510 to 670 nanometers, pale yellowish or reddish green in color, with a lighting efficiency of 96%.
There are more than 2000 species of firefly, found in temperate and tropical environments around the world. Many species can be found in marshes or in wet, wooded areas where their larvae have more abundant sources of food.
– Firefly article on Wikipedia
I don’t know what species we have in our area. Let’s see what we can figure out. At first glance, my little guy (or gal) above looks similar to the photo of Photuris lucicrescens accompanying the Wikipedia article:
but there are also some noticeable differences:
It’s possible that there are more than one species here in Brooklyn. BugGuide has a photo of a firefly identified as Photinus pyralis that looks exactly like my guy. I’m gonna go with that, for now, at least until I can get some better photos of the fireflies in my yard.
In the New York Daily News today:
In the densely populated strip of land between Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, [Jennifer] Hopkins and fellow gardeners are creating oases of green for butterflies and birds.
The goal of the Greenway Project is to link two of Brooklyn’s largest habitats – at least for airborne species.
– Oases of green for butterflies and birds, New York Daily News, June 12
For the birds, Hopkins plants berry bushes, has a cherry tree and keeps her birdbath full. One neighbor has followed in her footsteps and put up a humming bird feeder. Another has a bush where a family of cardinals is nesting. The nearby Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church is also on board and is set to plant a garden this summer, she said.
The article never mentions the name of the neighborhood “between Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery.” It’s Windsor Terrace.
I know of a “Greenway Project” in Brooklyn, but the one mentioned in the article seems to be a different effort. Jennifer, if you read this, please let us know more.
Whatever the name, it’s important to educate and engage private landowners in maintaining and developing wildlife habitat by preserving and planting trees and other non-lawn plants on their properties.
I’ve shown this map on this blog before. It shows the landcover classification for central Brooklyn.
Windsor Terrace forms a corridor between two refuges: Greenwood Cemetery and Prospect Park. Victorian Flatbush forms a corridor extending south from Prospect Park, pointing toward the bays, beaches, and Atlantic Ocean. I recently saw an ovenbird in my backyard, “rare in the city” according to Hopkins as cited in the article.
Most of the tree canopy in Brooklyn is in private hands. It’s unprotected and vulnerable. If New York City is going to have a million more trees in the next ten years, we need to value and find ways to preserve and protect the ones we already have, including those on private property.
The subject of June’s Sustainable Flatbush event is “Permaculture and its Applications in an Urban Environment”:
Featured speakers Joan Ewing and Wilton Duckworth are former Flatbush residents now living in upstate New York, where they host permaculture workshops, including a recent design intensive with Geoff Lawton of Permaculture Research Institute of Australia and Ethan Roland of Appleseed Permaculture.
After screening Lawton’s film “Greening the Desert“, which documents the transformation of a salty, arid expanse of sand into an abundant food forest, Wilton and Joan will discuss how permaculture concepts can be applied to NYC’s unique challenges and possibilities.
Before and after the talk we will enjoy music from resident DJ Drummerman, visuals by Keka, Vox Pop’s lovely assortment of food and drinks, and scintillating conversation with smart, charming people.
Event Details
Sustainable Flatbush Event #3
Friday, June 15th, 8pm until midnight
at Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore
1022 Cortelyou Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn
Q train to Cortelyou Road, walk 5 blocks west to Stratford
Note: Vox Pop is also the location for the first Brooklyn Blogade Roadshow meetup on June 24.
317 Rugby Road, Beverley Square West
This was the third year in a row I’ve gone on the house tour. This year was actually one of the best overall. There was variety in the houses shown, largely because nearly every neighborhood of Victorian Flatbush was represented on the tour. I was surprised, pleased and proud to see that three of my neighbors in Beverley Square West were showing their houses this year.
This year I felt bold enough to ask at each stop whether or not interior photos were permitted. At most of the houses this was allowed. In many cases the volunteers directed me to ask the owners themselves, and so I got to meet more of my neighbors than I would have otherwise.
So I have many more photos than if I had only been allowed to shoot exteriors. Still, there are only 182 photos from this trip. The battery on my camera gave out about 2/3 of the way through. There would have been 100 more. This is not the first time my battery has died in the middle of a shoot. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to buy a backup battery, and an AA battery adapter so I can use regular NiMH rechargables.
In the interest of time and timeliness, I’m just including highlights in this post. You can see all 182 photos in the Flickr set from my trip. Not all the photos are of houses on the tour. Many are of other houses, gardens and other sights along the way.
Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace, both of which had a house on the tour this year, are calendared to be landmarked as a single area by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Even with that, only five of the 11 neighborhoods of Victorian Flatbush will have been landmarked. 7 of the 12 houses on this year’s tour are in neighborhoods with no protection: Beverley Square West, Beverley Square East, Ditmas Park West, and South Midwood. Two of the four neighborhoods which did not show houses this year are also unprotected: Caton Park and West Midwood. Many of the houses in Victorian Flatbush are also at risk from inappropriate zoning: blocks with detached, single-family Victorian homes Zoned R6 for dense, townhouse development.
Stop #2: 1306 Albemarle Road, Prospect Park South
Stop #3: 85 Westminster Road, Prospect Park South
Stop #4: 209 Westminster Road, Beverley Square West
Stop #5: 317 Rugby Road, Beverley Square West
Stop #6: 352 Marlborough Road, Beverley Square West
Stop #8: 498 Rugby Road, Ditmas Park West
I have no interior shots of 498 Rugby. The owner wanted to show everyone through the house. This made it impossible to get any photographs of the interior, since it was always crowded with people. I could have gotten some shots if I had lagged behind the tour crowd, but I hate crowds so I was feeling a bit cranky.
Stop #9: 500 Marlborough Road, Ditmas Park West
Stop #10: 654 East 17th Street, Midwood Park
Interior photography was not allowed in this house.
The tour book incorrectly places 654 East 17th in Fiske Terrace. It’s in Midwood Park.
Calm before the storm in the Cranford Rose Garden
Wednesday evening, blog widow John and I went to the members’ wine and cheese reception in the Cranford Rose Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. During the summer, BBG stays open until 8pm on Wednesday evenings for members only, one of their benefits to members.
John overheard another visitor say “Well, the roses are beautiful, even if the people aren’t.” Free cheese and crackers seemed to stir visitors into a feeding frenzy. Maybe it was the free wine, of which John and I don’t partake. Away from the food, things were more pleasant, though still crowded in the rose garden. Away from the rose garden, the gardens were lovely.
Entrance to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Duck Family
Lily Pool Terace
Lily Pool Terrace
Water Lilies
Busy Bees on Milk Thistle, Silybum marianum "Adriana"
Water Lily
Mixed Perennial Border
Lily Pool Terrace Fountain
ID REQUEST: What is this plant?
Cranford Rose Garden
Cranford Rose Garden
Also Pink
Rose Garden from the Overlook
Rose Garden from the Overlook
View Through
Palm House Reflected
Working it, Brooklyn Pride 2006
I still have my Marshal’s T-Shirt from the very first Brooklyn Pride March on 5th Avenue in Park Slope. I don’t know if I’ll be able to enjoy any of the festivities this year. I’ll be busy cleaning up the garden following the completion of the roof job, just in time for Sunday’s Victorian Flatbush House Tour. If I do make it, there will be lots of photos!
All events take place in or kick off from Prospect Park near the Bartel-Pritchard entrance at the corner of Prospect Park West and 15th Street/Prospect Park SouthWest.
5K Run (9:30 AM Registration)
Multicultural Festival (11:00 AM – 6:00 PM)
Kids Space (12:00 PM – 4:00 PM)
Night Pride Parade (8:30 PM Kick Off)
Parade Route
15th Street to 7th Avenue
Right on 7th Avenue down to Lincoln Place
Prospect Park West will also be closed for assembly of the marchers prior to kickoff.
Contingent from the Hetrick-Martin Institute in the 2006 Brooklyn Pride March
To continue the networking which began at the Brooklyn Blogfest in May, Brooklyn bloggers are taking on the road to a different neighborhood each month. The first event is in June, the neighborhood is Flatbush, the location is Vox Pop on Cortelyou Road.
Please read the announcement post for full details, including how to RSVP for this event. That post will be kept up-to-date with any changes and additions as we learn about them.
Update, 2007.06.07: All the Prospect Heights photos are up as of this morning. Clinton Hill photos are up as of Tuesday night.
I made it to all 16 stops on the Brownstone Garden Walk today. I think I should get some kind of prize.
I took about 350 photos today. I’ll be uploading them as I can. Here are the placeholders for the photos from each neighborhood, in the order I visited them.
I had no time to visit any of the community gardens. It was all I could do to visit each garden on the walk. I was going to bail out after Clinton Hill, but I started getting requests from some of the organizers for photos, since they had no one “official” taking photos and had no time themselves to do so.
Some general observations.
There was a lot of imagination demonstrated in the approaches taken and solutions to the challenges of each site. Making the best use of limited space is a common challenge, but so is shade, competition from tree roots, where to store your garden necessities, and so on. Yet even with these common challenges, the solutions were different. Lots of ideas for techniques to apply in similar situations.
I also gained an insight into why a garden-only tour would be preferable to a mixed house and garden tour. On a house tour, though I might get some ideas about what to do with my house, what if I don’t own a house? The gap between what I’m seeing and what i could imagine doing myself is more likely to be insurmountable with a house tour than a garden tour.
Even if it’s a single plant in a pot, everyone can garden, even those who don’t own any land. And the gardeners I met today were talkative. Everyone had some insight to share, some experience, some history. It just had a warmer feeling than I get when I’m on a house tour. Maybe it’s just how gardeners are. Maybe it’s just that I like gardens, and gardeners, more than “house people.”
Overall the event was well-organized. They had ample volunteers covering each stop. Most of them also seemed to be avid gardeners, and I had several enjoyable conversations with them, as well as owners and gardeners at several gardens. I gave out all my remaining Flickr cards. I need to order another set for the upcoming Brooklyn Blogade meetup in three weeks on June 24.
Some things I hope they improve upon next year:
.But those are my only complaints. The event was otherwise well-organized, the gardens varied and all worthwhile. I got lots of ideas for my own gardens, and how we might be able to organize a garden-only tour for our area.