By Emma Marris
In October of 2013, I toured three miles of disused railroad line in Philadelphia. The entire line was covered with spontaneous vegetation alive with butterflies and ladybugs. Here nature was showing us her resilience and her wild beauty and offering to meet us where most of us live now, in the city. What is tricky about urban wildness is what I call the High Line Problem.
Hosted by Marie Chieppo
Avery Park, a busy commuter rail station park becomes a native plant oasis for people and pollinators alike. Follow Needham based landscape designer Marie Chieppo’s journey through a barren weed-infested plot to a popular garden gathering spot that is doing double duty during the COVID pandemic as a great place to socialize while staying six feet apart.
by Miho Connolly
The Challenges of Restoring Urban Native Habitat, presented by Dr. Steven Handel at the 25th Annual ELA Conference, centered around a modern reality: with population growth and the spread of urban areas, cities have become a new and important habitat type. While many might consider cities to be ecologically sterile sources of environmental problems, Handel sees environmental opportunity.
by Dr. Susannah Lerman
Trees and shrubs provide ecosystem services and societal benefits in urban and suburban environments. They also provide vital habitat for birds, pollinators, and other wildlife. A new tool correlates habitat requirements for songbirds, evaluates the bird habitat potential at ecoregion scales, and can guide habitat improvement plans.
by Julie Snell and Michele Adams
Albert Greenfield Elementary School in Philadelphia was the first school in the district to implement a “green schoolyard.” This project was an early example of how public landscapes in the city can offer significant connections to the natural world, benefiting students and the community.
A Pathway to Meeting Forest Sustainability Goals and a Vehicle To Get You There by Laurence Wiseman A few weeks ago, government officials from nearly 100 nations met to discuss progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It’s fair to assume that most who attended the meeting were both committed, and professionally competent. Ordinarily, you’d…
by David Seiter The following excerpt from Spontaneous Urban Plants: Weeds in NYC is reprinted with permission of the author. Whenever travelling to a new city, I always want to understand its layout, its sequence of spaces, its edges and boundaries and the relations between urban landscapes and landmarks. While reading a map helps to…
by Darrah Cole The Greenway horticulture staff is excited to have new, innovative planting designs installed along the length of The Greenway in downtown Boston, MA. Two narrow parcels along Surface Road near South Station and two others in the North End Park along Cross Street have been planted to create the end points of…
Public and private gardens are a source of beauty and inspiration any time of year, but especially in the full bloom of summer. That’s also the time many of us travel to unfamiliar locales for graduation parties, weddings, and family reunions. During your travels, consider scheduling an excursion to a local garden.
by Amy Nyman Cities are places of condensed layers of people, vehicles, and building materials. Plants are also found there, but too often, intentionally designed landscapes and interesting plant materials are lacking.
by Carol Spitzer What makes designing for small urban properties equally challenging and fun? Sometimes the challenges seem endless: very small spaces to work in, shade in all forms, tree roots galore, too much asphalt, the desire for privacy in a non-private setting, intruding bulkheads, and almost always: cars, and where to park them. Often…
by Nick Shannon The 2,000 Gallon Project envisions a healthier Gowanus community through a conventional dumpster planted with native trees and perennials. Each dumpster provides a visual representation of the amount of stormwater a bio-swale can handle during a storm event and brings attention to the issue of Combined Sewage Overflows (CSO) emptying into the…
