Filed under: Gardening, Flowers, Garden Tours
Vanderveer Place, Brooklyn. Photo: Marie Viljoen
The Greenest Block in Brooklyn Competition is underway in the middle of a sticky New York heatwave. Sponsored by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's GreenBridge, the competition fosters the greening of the most populous borough's heat-radiating streets. In some neighborhoods flowers and leaves are outnumbered by cars and concrete; turn a corner and suddenly, Pow! - there are opportunistic and fiercely competitive flower baskets hanging from the street signs and sprouting from the wide sidewalks.
This garden caught my eye because it seemed the definition of exuberance. There is no holding back: more is more. Chain-link might be considered an eyesore in most situations, but in the face of this floral explosion, it reads as the voice of reason, an orderly construct containing an uninhibited riot of flowers that would never be acquainted in nature. Sun-loving bright yellow Rudbeckia and Helianthus, and pink and white Echinacea--North American natives and their derivitives--jostle beside mauve mophead Hydrangeas, which are usually prescribed for sedate, dappled shade. Tall orange turkscap lilies look down on their lipstick-pink Asiatic cousins. An unusual blue clematis with nodding flowers (perhaps Clematis "Betty Corning") whispers of Albany and climbs a lamp pole.
This is Brooklyn. Welcome to the party!
See previous Green Spotlights:
Red Hook's Pier 44
Flowers Along a Red Brick Wall
Sidewalk Garden
A Lily Garden