Saturday, August 12, join me at Wave Hill in the Bronx. I’ll be leading two Native Pollinator Walks, part of their Bees, Butterflies, and Blooms weekend of events. My walks will step off at 11am and 1pm from the Perkins Visitor Center, where the gift shop is located.
I’ll be staffing their Pollination Station information table between walks.
For a list of all that weekend’s events, Saturday and Sunday, August 12th & 13th, see:
https://www.wavehill.org/calendar/bees-butterflies-blooms-weekend
Saturday, June 3rd, at 2pm, join me the East 4th Street Community Garden in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn for a Pollinator Safari with iNaturalist.
Public events coming up over the next two months which I am hosting, leading, or otherwise involved.
Continue readingCity Nature Challenge (CNC) 2023 is happening at the end of this month, from Friday, April 28, through Monday, May 1. Since 2019, I’ve been a Brooklyn “Borough Captain” for New York City’s participation.
This year, there are events happening all over Brooklyn on both Saturday and Sunday of CNC. All events listed here are free and open to the public. Some may offer, or recommend, registration.
You can find a complete list of all New York City CNC 2023 events on the official iNaturalist Project.
Continue readingThe Xerces Society, in collaboration with the IUCN SSC Firefly Specialist Group and New Mexico BioPark Society, has launched the Firefly Atlas project:
Continue readingThe Firefly Atlas is a collaborative effort to better understand and conserve the diversity of fireflies in North America. Launched in 2022, the project aims to advance our collective understanding of firefly species’ distributions, phenology, and habitat associations, as well as to identify threats to their populations.
Although the Atlas tracks all species described from the US and Canada, we are currently prioritizing efforts for a subset of 13 threatened and data deficient species found in three focal regions of the US: the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Southwest. These priority regions were chosen based upon having a high number of threatened species and/or a high number of data deficient species. – What is the Firefly Atlas?
The annual New York Restoration Project Tree Giveaway starts in a month. This year, they’re offering the largest variety of native tree, and some shrub, species I’ve seen yet.
Consider the mature size of each species. The larger trees will grow too large for most urban yards. I highlighted shrubs and smaller tree species that max out at no more than around 50′ high and wide, without considering existing vegetation, outdoor structures, etc. Your conditions will vary!
Advance registration is mandatory. You select your preferred species when you register. Note that each location will only have 6-8 species. Some locations, especially smaller sites, are already “sold out” of some species.
Here are this year’s Brooklyn sites and pick-up dates.
2008-10-14: Tree Giveaway this Saturday in Sunset Park
2010-04-08: Put Down Roots: Million Trees NYC Tree Giveaway
Originally published as a Guest Rant on Garden Rant, November 4, 2009. Recovered from the Internet Archive. I replaced the photo snapshot with a link to the high-res photo on Flickr. I’ve replaced archive links with current, active links where possible. Those that have since link-rotted are noted.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been making the news rounds for a few years now. It’s old, if still current, news. Dire outcomes from the loss of honeybees have been proffered. For example, PBS recently introduced an online “ask the expert” feature with this:
Since the winter of 2006, millions of bees have vanished, leaving behind empty hives and a damaged ecosystem. [1]
Really? The ECOSYSTEM?! Did they not notice that honeybees aren’t part of the ecosystem?
Honeybees are livestock. They are animals which we manage for our uses. We provide them with housing and maintenance. We even move them from field to field, just as we let cows into different pastures for grazing.
Perhaps, if CCD can neither be prevented nor cured, disaster would come to pass. However, the underlying cause would not be the loss of the honeybees but our dependence on them as a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices.
The old ways of farming include hedgerows, uncultivated areas between fields. The biodiversity of these patches provide substantial habitat for native pollinators, as well as other beneficial insects. When even these rough “unproductive” patches of land are cleared, we set the stage for the patterns that have come to dominate agriculture: more herbicides, more pesticides, more machinery. All of these also damage the soil food webs that support both soil fertility and agricultural ecosystems. Although manufactured inputs provide temporary relief, they reduce the ecological functions of the land, requiring more and greater inputs to achieve the same effect. This is the definition of addiction, and it’s a clear sign that this way of doing business is unsustainable.
Why do we need to ship and truck pollinators around? There are plenty of native pollinators to do the job, where we haven’t decimated their habitats. There are 4,000 species of bees alone in North America. 226 species are known in New York City. Many of them visit my gardens in Flatbush, Brooklyn; some have even taken up residence [2]. Many native bees are ground-dwellers which need only some open ground in which to dig their nests. When every patch of ground is cultivated, plowed under or paved over, native pollinators disappear. Suddenly, we “need” honeybees for pollination.
I care about the honeybees. I like my honey and beeswax candles. I support efforts to legalize beekeeping in New York City. But not at the expense of the biodiversity that is all around us, even in the city, if only we care enough to look for it, value it, and nurture it.
The Great Pollinator Project [original link defunct]
North American Pollinator Protection Campaign
Saving [Honey] Bees: What We Know Now [About CCD], NY Times, 2009-09-02
[1] Ask “Silence of the Bees” Expert Dr. Diana Cox-Foster, PBS Blog [original link defunct]
[2] “Cellophane Bees Return”, 2009-05-02 [sic, correct date below]
End of original guest rant.
Cellophane Bees Return, 2009-05-09 [cited in the Notes above]
Bee Watchers Needed in NYC (and a rant), 2009-06-09 [This was the original blog post which led to the Guest Rant]
All my Bees posts
Maybe I am more like Demeter, weeping for the hold darkness has over others, while reaching and hoping for a time when we can bring everyone back into the light.
– Standing Still 2021: Demeter Waiting
I write again for the solstice. The sun “stands still”, as do I.
I continue to grieve for the many lost to darkness, their own and others’. Though amplified over the past several years, it’s not new in my lifetime. From civil rights in the 60s to trans rights in the 20s, resistance and liberation are always met with hatred and violence.
Out of that grief, I am resolute.
I resist.
I will not quench joy.
I will not subdue celebration.
I will not hide our light from darkness.
All my past Winter Solstice posts:
Wikipedia:
As in past years, I’m limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:
In 2020, this paper:
Vascular plant extinction in the continental United States and Canada
caused me to expand my list from 6 to 59 species, including 7 extinct in the wild. The summary is terse, and grim:
Given the paucity of plant surveys in many areas, particularly prior to European settlement, the actual extinction rate of vascular plants is undoubtedly much higher than indicated here.
These are some of the Eastern North American species suitable for groundcover, most of which I have grown in my gardens over the decades. Some of these prefer shade, some prefer sun. Most of these will spread by runners, stolons, and the like, as “true” groundcovers. Others are effective as groundcovers because of their habit and crown expansion over time.
2009-05-11: Wildflowers in a Flatbush Backyard
2007-08-06: Growing a Native Plant Garden in a Flatbush BackyardWildflowers in a Flatbush Backyard
This list replaces the one I wrote 6 years ago.
