The Forest

This is the most overlooked section of the garden. This part of the garden is in the back, and many visitors don't venture this far in. Yet, there are some interesting things going on in our forest, and they are certainly worth a second look.

When the garden was established, there already were some trees growing all about the designated space, although scraggly and weedy in appearance. As we started to familiarize ourselves with the lot, we learned that these trees: black locust, mulberry, and cottonwood, were the kinds of trees that tend to grow in vacant lots. These types of trees are known to grow quickly in poor soils, and can endure long periods without any kind of water.

We have come to appreciate these humble trees. For example, we have become quite attached to one of our locust trees near the center of our garden. It was early on that Josh Nelson, director of the Forest Project Summer Collaborative Program at Wave Hill saw the value in this tree. During our garden's first summer, he and a forest project teen crew built a lovely bench around this tree. This spot, which remains shady and cool on our hottest days, and is one of the more popular gathering spots in our garden. This spot is especially magical in early June, when the trees flower, and emit a strong sweet smell. It is in spots like this that we have been able to construct some of our borders designed for shade loving plants like ferns, sweet woodruff, bleeding heart, and hosta lilies. Learn more about our educational visits to Wave Hill, where we compared their forest with ours. As both of us are trying to nurture forests in urban environments, we share many concerns.

These trees have also proven to be a nuisance as well. The roots of our black locust trees like to travel all over the place below the surface of the soil, and are constantly sending up new shoots. They have not only demonstrated their hardiness, but their aggressive nature. We are constantly pulling up locut tree saplings, and have to be careful not to cut our skin on it's thorns. Cottonwoods are also an aggressive tree, and tend to shed enormous amounts of white fluff over everything in the late spring. If there is ever any major storm, these trees tend to shed whole branches, as the wood is usually brittle and weak, and is not able to hold much weight.

While we generally appreciate what mother nature gave us with our vacant lot, we have done much to enhance and diversify our forest. We have made a real effort to add trees and shrubs to this environment that are native to the northeast. Starting in 1999, directors John Clasby and John Jordan of the Wave Hill Forest Project have been generous enough to donate all forms of native vegetation to our forest. Much as they have done in the woodlands at Wave Hill and Riverdale Park, this group has worked with our garden to make it more representative of a healthy woodland environment typically found in the lower Hudson valley.

Included now in our forest habitat are black and red oaks, pin oaks, red and sugar maples, cedars, black cherries, junipers, asters, witch hazel, sassafrass, yellow birch, all types of vibernum shrubs, raspberries, dogwoods, and asters to name just some of the plantings added to this part of the garden. We are grateful to Bronx GreenUp, Green Thumb, and Wave Hill for all sorts of plant donations.

phlox

bleeding heart

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