Cold Moon Newsletter

Hi Plant People,

Happy almost-winter solstice! There is a lot to report on this month: The Brooklyn Bridge Park “Hort Lead Team” did a panel for the Ecological Plant Conference on ethical management strategies in horticulture. You can watch it here.

Oh? You don’t think management is interesting or, dare I say, glamorous? Management is something that does not get a lot of conscious thought in the horticultural realm but truly defines so much of our lives. Historically, horticulture has been fairly exploitative towards workers and a new report on nature-based jobs in NYC shows that, even with new landscapes proliferating, BIPOC are all too often stuck in entry level jobs with few paths towards a living wage. We can do better.

At BBP, we are not perfect, but we are consciously trying to create an ethical work environment with opportunities for growth. Interestingly, we discovered that our approach towards managing people closely echoes our approach to managing landscapes: we see ourselves as facilitators, trying to enable passionate and independent gardeners to grow as they’re inclined. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and look forward to having these conversations more often.

GARDEN NOTES

• It may well be that we’re in for yet another winter of little-snow. This can be bad for plants, especially newly planted plants, who do not have the root systems to hold themselves in the ground. When soils freeze, they expand, and that can push poorly-rooted plants upwards to “heave.” In areas without snow insulation, or in the sun where the freeze-thaw cycle can pop plugs all the way out, it’s important to leave leaves or mulch heavily to hold plants in the ground. BBP Gardeners have even taken to using sod-staples on warm season grasses who don’t grow much in the cold. As the climate changes, we need to develop strategies to adapt our garden practices to new seasonal dynamics and share them with others.

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

• The Ohio State University has posted their marvelous webinar series on Pollinators in the City. Their upcoming (and free!) series on gardening for biodiversity looks equally wonderful.

• Do you work in a park? The Xerces Society just put out a new guide on supporting native pollinators in our parks and other public spaces.

• For the last 50 years, researchers in Europe have been excavating and mapping the root systems of trees and shrubs. 180 new plants have just been uploaded to the collection. The results are wildly beautiful and incredibly helpful when working with these species or considering their North American relatives.

IN THE NEWS

• A study out of Ottowa found that plant diversity encourages bee diversity in urban settings. Plant diversity was even more important than tree cover and % impervious surface. It echoes findings I emailed about last month in Germany. And it’s thrilling! Because plant diversity is relatively EASY for us to improve!

• A new study shows that urban back yards increase neighborhood and city bird diversity when they are managed for wildlife. Bird diversity was also improved by tree canopy cover and a lack of impervious surface.

• A solid profile of the Bradford Pear in the NYT and why it’s such a disaster. One thing to remember: people thought this cultivar was sterile. We were many years and many hundreds of thousands of trees planted by the time we discovered it was invasive. It’s past time to turn off the “new plant” industry that imports and markets plants from all over the world for the sole purpose of profit.

• A lovely piece in the WSJ about the sounds of fallen leaves and how they make the rustling we love. The takeaway for me was that leaves are like percussion instruments, and rustle when our feet rub them against each other. Larger leaves make deeper notes which I will now pay attention to.

• The largest organism on earth is an Armillaria fungi covering 3.5 square miles of the Pacific Northwest. A new cool projects is seeking to map underground fungal networks all over the world so that we can better understand and protect the soil ecosystems that sustain life on earth.

UPCOMING EVENTS

• Heather Holm on Attracting Beneficial Insects with Native Plants

  January 5, 2022

  6:00PM - 7:30PM

  Free, virtual, and open to the public.

  How can you pass up an opportunity to hear Heather speak for free? She’s going to cover many fascinating and “beneficial” insects as well as bees, and how to support them using native plants.

• Rebecca speaking at the Toronto Master Gardeners Technical Update

  January 8, 2022

  9:00AM - 2:30PM

  Virtual

  I’ll be speaking on Brooklyn Bridge Park and built ecology, alongside some fabulous speakers on hummingbirds and grassroots advocacy in pollinator conservation.. I’m especially excited for “A five-minute consideration of phototropism.”

• New Directions in the American Landscape

  January 20-21 & 27-28, 2022

  1:00PM - 4:30PM

  Virtual

  Arguably the best conference for ecological horticulture professionals, NDAL this year will host: Sara Zewde, Gena Wirth, Robin Veder, W. Gary Smith, Raymond Jungles.

• Plant-o-Rama

  January 24 - 25, 2022

  24th: 6:00PM - 8:00PM virtual

  25th: 9:00AM - 4:00PM in person

  NYC’s best hort party is back! P-o-R this year will have 2 virtual keynote speakers, Abra Lee and and Jimi Blake, followed the next day by the Trade Show, the Jobs Fair and a dazzling assortment of breakout session speakers: Uli Lorimer, Wambui Ippolito, Tom Christopher, Adam Dooling, Gwen Schantz, Will Axelrod, and Bob Hyland.

• Rebecca speaking at Lexington's Living Landscapes

  January 26, 2022

  7:00 PM - 8:30 PM

  Free, virtual, and open to the public.

  This lecture will be on pollination ecology! Lexington’s Living Landscapes is a collaboration of groups who organized “to promote, encourage, and support sustainable landscaping on private and public lands in Lexington.” I will speak on The Language of Flowers. An Introduction to Pollination Ecology.

www.rebeccamcmackin.com