Urban Assault Forestry: BIPT Project #7

(We’re also interested in genetically engineering microbes that eat asphalt, but that will come later.)

We Are Not Alone

Night falls on Grange Park on a cool Sunday in late spring and a small band of urban guerrillas embarks on its first operation of the summer. Their mission: to sow the seeds of a green revolution. Their arsenal: trowels and gardening claws, 10 kilograms of compost, wildflower seeds and a tiger lily. Just after 9pm, the group heads east to the patch of stones outside Above Ground Art Supplies on the corner of McCaul and Grange. Like many plots of land between buildings and curbs, the space outside the art store is barren. A few clumps of grass grow randomly among the rocks.

Henry Martinuk wears a navy blue bandana, tied pirate-style. He crouches in the shadows and pushes some stones aside with his hands. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he plunges his trowel into the soil and drops a columbine plant in the shallow hole.

This summer, Martinuk and other guerrilla gardeners will continue to liberate drab spaces, vandalizing the city with nature.

---from this here article here

1. Create the Arsenal

Plants for a Future, an all-around interesting site, has an outstanding article on Urban Gardening.  In comparison to most of the articles I read doing this post, the author here clearly knows his shit and is not trying to sell anything.  Their ”List of 100 Useful Plants” is highly thought-provoking, to say the least.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is another five-star resource.

Another source of inspiration is BIPT favorite Paul Laffoley, who has taken this several steps further --- he’s been working on living architecture for decades, laying out plans and researching the design of homes which would grow from seeds.  In his writing on Das Urpflanze Haus (the archetypal/primordial plant house), Laffoley describes his quest for an organism that could bind all the other vegetation together, and he came upon Ginko Bilboa. 

The secret to grafting and growing Das Urpflanze Haus to a mature and seeded state is the Ginko Bilboa or Maidenhair Tree. Native to China it tolerates all climates and soils. It was saved from extinction in the 19th century by certain Chinese Monasteries. The tree dates from the Mesozoic Era (144 million years ago) making it the oldest flowering plant alive at the time of the dinosaurs. Shoots of the tree can connect deciduous to conifer trees, fruits to vegetables, grasses to vines.

2. Identify the Weak Spots

New York City, most famous for its skyscrapers and worldly population, is also home to an estimated 5.2 million trees {Nowak, 2002}. New York City’s vegetation is comprised of a patchwork of remnant forests, inherited estates, neighborhood parks and playgrounds, green streetscapes, parkways and private backyards and roof gardens. New York City Parks & Recreation has jurisdiction for over half of the estimated 5 million total trees in the city. In 1996, Parks & Recreation mobilized over 700 volunteers to conduct a comprehensive census of all the street trees in New York City. The census counted over 498,000 street trees in New York City, comprising of approximately 70 different varieties. The vast majority of trees, however, comprise a small number of species; over 40% of the street tree population consists of just two species. New York City’s street trees are relatively small, with almost 60% measuring less than 12 inches diameter at breast height {Watt, 1998}.

Are you familiar with the United States Geological Survey?  You should be, they’re an outstanding source of maps.....really the best there is.  They definitely have maps of your area.  The power of visualization is not only exponentially greater than it has ever been in the history of our species, it’s also democratized --- to a headfuck extent.  I’m sure anyone who’s messed around with Google Earth has wondered the same thing: ”They let us have this?” Also check out TerraServer for maps of your area.

WELCOME TO THE IGNORANCE ZONE

There is a lot we don’t know about this topic, it’s very much a budding artform.  Do you have experience, suggestions, or theories?  We would love to hear them.  Feel free to leave comments or contact me (thirtyseven) at wombaticusrex@gmail.com

More ninja planet-saving to come, stay tooned.