jordan – tiny flowers

Morning Glories: What’s not to love?

I have always been fascinated by morning glories. But: did you realize there are over 1,650 different species of “morning glory” (family: Convolvulaceae)? And that they are the family that gave us sweet potatoes and water spinach? Not to mention making the first bouncy ballgames possible! What’s not to love?

You may be vaguely aware that at one of our “Fairy Gardens,” which are right along Hillside, there was a tall, dead stalk-like stump of a tree in one treebed, around which Ellen had the brilliant idea of planting morning glory seeds. And … just wow! Look at them now! They are truly colorful dynamos of the plant world (see below)! And they do in fact go to sleep in the evening, and wake up to follow the sun across the sky.

I have always been fascinated by morning glories, which were one of the first seeds (possibly THE first seed) I ever grew by myself, from scratch, in a little hanging planter in my bedroom window. They twined upwards so quickly, and grew such beautiful flowers with amazing colors! Later, I learned more about these climbing wonders, and I’m even more entranced: did you realize there are over 1,650 different species of “morning glory” (family: Convolvulaceae)?

Morning glories are native to central and south America, and have always been world travelers, as one would expect of this fast-growing powerhouse of a twining plant which gave us the gift of sweet potatoes. The largest genus within the family is Ipomoea, and this large genus has been selectively bred in Japan since the 8th century CE. As a consequence of this long history, folks from Asia have well developed culinary traditions around morning glories. Ipomoea aquatica, known as water spinach or water morning glory, is widely used as a green vegetable in East and Southeast Asian cuisines, and the genus Ipomoea also includes sweet potatoes, aka “tuberous morning glories,” another popular Asian veggie. And not only sweet potatoes: “at least 62 other species of morning glory also produce these underground organs, some of them as big as those of the sweet potato and many also edible.” (https://phys.org/news/2019-11-story-morning-glory-taxonomy-evolution.html)

Mesoamerican ball-player, statue of a standing player, holding ball in front of him; artifact from the Metropolitan Museum collection; https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-mesoamerican-ballgame

Of course, the earliest uses of morning glories were on its native continent. In ancient Mesoamerica, in addition to being used by Aztec priests as hallucinogens, their juice (!) was used to vulcanize rubber! (Vulcanize = hardening rubber by treating it with sulfur, which is what you need to do to make it into, for instance, a rubber ball–yes, early Mesoamerican cultures were the first to use rubber, and the first to create ballgames using bouncy balls!). Because of their fast growth and interesting color development, moreover, scientists have been studying this humble flowering growth dynamo for a long time, and using them as a kind of model genome–Japanese workers in the early 1930’s produced one of the first plant genetic maps using flower color variants of Ipomoea nil. Despite this, even scientists sometimes have not had the grace to acknowledge how fascinating they are (but that seems to be changing).

Morning glories, some of which are the field plants you might hear being called bindweed, are treated as pests, predictably, by some US gardeners and farmers. In my eyes, and maybe also in the eyes of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, this is just whining. Don’t get me wrong–sure, they grow fast, twine around stuff, and make it difficult to mechanically (ahem!) harvest more commercial crops like corn and such. Haters gonna hate: there’s actually a US national ban on “imported” water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) seeds, although not all states agree (thank you, Terry Johnson of Georgia, and Texas, at least till now–but maybe not for much longer, since there’s a bill in the Texas legislature proposing to ban morning glories and mountain laurel as “non-native” to Texas, oh brother where do I begin?).

Cooked water spinach; CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1821898 — cooked water spinach: yum!

But it’s worthwhile considering that morning glories may in fact be a family of genetically superior beings, showing us a pathway to a non-pesticide future. Some morning glories are resistant to glyphosate (weed-killer)–and those are, unexpectedly to researchers, the very ones that are most resistant to insect damage (https://news.umich.edu/whats-the-story-morning-glory/).

Compost trip to Crotona Park

So, I need to return to a previous July post and remind everyone that you (yes, you!) can sign up to get two 40-pound bags of compost for free from the city? This is the happy result of the ongoing (and now curbside) NYC Sanitation Compost Program (you have seen the big orange bins on the sidewalk waiting for your scraps, right? and tried using the NYC Compost app by Big Belly Solar to find a nearby one?). Well, turns out the other part of collecting and giving in your food scraps is that you get them back in the form of soil for your houseplants, and in our case for street tree beds.

The compost bags are distributed using the format of “Giveback Events,” which are days and times when you can pick up your finished compost bags in person, from a compost distributing supervisor, at a local park or other selected venue. When there are events (they’re sadly over for the season, now), you can find a list at https://www.nyc.gov/site/dsny/what-we-do/programs/compost-givebacks.page#giveback-events. There are other ways of getting compost if you are a non-profit or buying it from the city if you are a for-profit business.

Our first compost adventure (as you might remember from our July 8 post) was to Jackie Robinson Park, where we used our bikes to haul back two bags (one bag per bike), walking the bikes and using them as carts, basically. It was a fascinating excursion: I always loved visiting Jackie Robinson Park, but this was the first time I noticed that it was home to a whimsical sculpture by Eunkyung Lee of a skateboarding cat.

So, even if you are not in need of compost, I urge you to visit the Harlem Sculptural Gardens and pay respect to this very chill cat.

This time around, we pulled out the big guns, got friends to register as well, and traveled out, this time by the convenient Bx11 bus that runs from 181st St out to Crotona Park and beyond, to snag more soil treasure. The amazing Crotona Park was an old stamping ground of mine–yes, I was once, for a brief shining moment, an Urban Park Ranger, and based for the summer of 2006 in the lovely Crotona Park Nature Center, on the east side of Indian Lake, a human-created pond based on local springs that saw some happy days in the 1950s and 1960s when it was a popular canoeing and picnicking destination, and which still hosts Ecology Discovery hikes and other fun events — the park is still thronged in the summers with picnicking and relaxing families.

Jeri as UPR summer camp counselor 2010 with Inwood Hill Park kids

It’s such a beloved spot that every August, hundreds of “old-timers” (some coming back for this event from far-flung cities and other states) hold a Reunion Weekend in the park. Can you tell this trip was a little emotion-laden for me? I couldn’t find pictures from those days, but I did dig up this pic of me in 2010 as a camp counselor run by the Rangers in Inwood Hill Park–another great park and summer.

Our compost pickup at Crotona netted us 6 bags (would have been more, but ahem one of us forgot to register!), which we brought back by Lyft. Some of that beautiful soil is being put to use in the beds–we added two to our previous count, updated map forthcoming! Some is also being used to nurture next year’s babies in a windowbox over the winter.

we got mail!

Just a brief thank you to Hannah for the lovely letter left for us at the magical hanging postbox (!) at the Ginkgo Sunflower garden across from the P.O.! We left a note in return. Hannah has been shepherding the Nagle plots by the Citibike stand, and also dropping by to bring a little water to the sunflowers. It definitely takes a village, and one of the most gratifying things about this street tree bed project has been connecting with some of our neighbors! We love you, Hannah the Librarian!

hooray for ground bees!

In which we meet the ground bees living in the Bogardus plot, and rejoice!

While caring for the Bogardus tree bed, which is thriving with a growing hemp groundcover and lots of beautiful little coreopsis flowers, we noticed there were some large, somewhat scary-looking, hornet-like insects buzzing around us constantly. Passersby had various (incorrect!) info about these little guys: they were hornets; they were wasps… But turns out, they are ground bees, and we are so thrilled to have met them!

credit: Celeste’s Nature Photography, https://celestialmacros.tumblr.com

Did you know that 70% of all bees nest under ground? For some more information on these amazing pollinators, check out the Bee Conservancy page.

According to the Bee Conservancy, “70% of the world’s 20,000 bee species actually live largely solitary lives and lay eggs in underground nests.” Not even hives! These little ground bees do an amazing share of the pollination of flowering plants in the Americas, up to 80%–and what’s more, all ground-nesting bees are in danger of extinction. Their loss would affect habitat throughout the world, very much including the human food supply.

There are ways to help, including protecting the entrance to their underground caves, and avoiding mulching in some parts of the garden so they can dig down to nest. For other ways to nurture the bees, check out the Bee Conservancy’s excellent page.

sunflower babies, yucca, yucca moths, and other midsummer adventures

Heading into August–and hoping for a nice mix of rain and sun! The sunflower babies have been flourishing, and today Ellen was gratified to see two women posing and taking their pictures together at the ginkgo tree sunflower garden across from the post office! Nuestros jardines are living the dream!

Not only were these folks happy to spread the tree and sunflower love, but all our various gardens have been drunk on sunshine for weeks now, and most are looking pretty darn lush. For instance, the one we focused on today, on Broadway just below 193rd, near Reynaldo’s NC Mascy Flowers, Reynaldo, Aricela, Carlo and the gang have been protecting and adding herbs and plants, and it’s looking amazing! We began the garden, as you may recall, with two rue plants (now defunct) and two Mexican oregano plants (now thriving and strong beyond belief, and spreading out).

We eventually added a bit of basil (seeds), and mint (plants), and just hoped for the best. Meanwhile, the florist contingent has been adding nutrient-filled soil to the pit, along with Mexican marigolds and Chia plants–and it looks like maybe also a Bonnet pepper or two! The entire rectangle, which used to attract tons of dog poop, is now beautiful and full of green edibles. Today, we replaced the old poles and added some of our quickly-becoming-trademark, Home Depot-supplied white picket fencing.

At Reynaldo’s advice, we also planted a small but sturdy Yucca plant: these amazing native north American plants thrive from Canada to Panama, and a bit beyond. They tend to like dry soil, so we’ll be curious to see how this one does in this relatively wet bed. There are 50 different species of yucca (aka Adam’s Needle, or Spanish Bayonet), and the genus is related to asparagus and agave. They range from small shrubby plants to tree-ish giants like the Joshua Tree. This tree-like plant (they can grow 20+ feet tall!) that is called yucca is not the same as manioc or cassava (which is also known, confusingly, as yuca), which is a shrubby plant with those wonderful edible potato-like roots (for more about manioc/cassava/yuca, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava).

Yuccas generally have rosettes of leaves and creamy white flowers that show themselves off in bunches. Ours from Mascy is the type of Yucca called Yucca gigantea (literally “Giant Yucca”), which is native to Central America, in particular Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the eastern part of México: Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas, Veracruz, eastern Puebla, and southern Tamaulipas–and it’s migrated to Puerto Rico, the Leeward Islands, and Ecuador as well. Yucca plants up north here are often brought indoors as house plants–but they can also thrive outdoors within that large range.

Yuccas are pollinated by specially co-evolved yucca moths (in fact, yuccas and their moths are a famous example of mutualism in nature). I am so excited to grow this plant, and see if its companion moths appear next!

The flowers are part of Guatemalan and Central American cuisine – petals are blanched for 5 minutes, then cooked with tomato, onion, chile pepper, or made into egg-battered patties with green or red sauce. In Guatemala, boil and eat with lemon juice! Other uses for the yucca have included using its fibers to make cords, baskets, mats, and sandals.

A humorous aside: We had been talking for quite a while about creating coziness and inviting folks to hang out at the flower beds. So, a few weeks ago, Ellen tried placing a comfy abandoned chair, snagged from around the local A train station, next to our little sunflowers: one of the dreams would be to have each of the little gardens become their own hangout spot for locals enjoying a snack in some shade. When we met up the next day, however, the chair was gone… or, er, at least it had been moved a half block up Nagle, and, to our amazement, was actually in the process, right that moment, of being refashioned with a large lockcutter by a neighbor who shall remain nameless (because we literally don’t know their name!), who, as we watched!!, took off the top bar of the chair in this way, then leaned back, lounging in the chair as though it were a hammock–at least they enjoyed their new chair! Sigh. We’ll be on the lookout for replacement furniture; stay tuned!

las equináceas sanadoras

The coneflowers have arrived, and Bogardus is in for a surprise! These amazing flowering plants belong to the genus Echinacea, and are in the family of daisies (Asteraceae). The 10 species of Echinacea are known as “coneflowers,” and are native to eastern and central North America; Rudbeckia, the genus of black-eyed susans, is closely related. Probably the best-known of the species is Echinacea purpura, purple echinacea. The growing range for some of the species extends deep into Mexico, although a lot of US maps weirdly show a boundary in Texas.

Field of purple coneflowers in the sunset

Echinacea has a long history of use in traditional medicine for treating infections, pain, and wounds; Traditional use included external application (insect bites, burns, wounds), chewing of roots (throat and tooth infections) and internal use (cough, pain, snake bites, stomach cramps). Some Plains tribes use Echinacea for cold symptoms; the Kiowa and Cheyenne use it for sore throats, and many nations used it as a pain medication. It’s not clear it helps with colds, but an overview of testing (meta-analysis) done in 2025 indicates that Echinacea purpura may in fact be good for respiratory diseases and ear inflammation–so it may be one of the many anti-inflammatory plants needing further research. My mom and I swear by echinacea tea for warding off colds, anyway!

The Latin name of the genus, Echinacea, comes from the Greek word echinos (ἐχῖνος), “hedgehog.” This is because of the central capitulum of the flower, which looks sort of like that spiny little animal. In reality,

the ‘flower’ of the Echinacea is actually a cluster of dozens of flowers, or disc florets, arranged in a whirl on a cone shaped flower receptacle. These individual flowers together make up what is known as a capitulum. Echinacea, like all members of the Asteraceae family, have a capitulum surrounded by a whirl of several infertile ray florets. The ray florets are commonly thought of as ‘petals’, surrounding the central ‘head’ of the Echinacea ‘flower’.

See the amazing Outdoor Learning Lab page, https://www.gcc.mass.edu/oll/plants/purple-cone-flower/ , for a lot more of the real science behind this composite flower, which is a characteristic of the daisy (asteraceae) family. The Dr. Robert L. Pura Outdoor Learning Laboratory is based at Greenfield Community College, in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

In other news, the two sister beds on Nagle are looking amazing–Ellen reports that they are twinning. Possible? You decide:

compost giveback tuesday!

Yesterday we completed an epic bike journey to pick up and bring back two 40-lb. bags of free compost from a give-back pop-up event at Jackie Robinson Park. The Department of Sanitation makes these free for all due to the now more-than-fledgling NYC composting program. For more info, see https://www.nyc.gov/site/dsny/what-we-do/programs/compost-givebacks.page. You can register and see the full list of give-back events at the different sites across the city at https://www.nyc.gov/site/dsny/what-we-do/programs/compost-givebacks.page#giveback-events. The soil in the bags is amazingly rich. We got a fun surprise when, on the way to spreading it around in the beds, we met up with Michael, who is taking care of a tree bed on Nagle, also spreading his own compost haul, which he brought back from Jackie Robinson. New York is literally a small town.

Thanks, Mary of Hillside, for taking this nice photo of us!

Shout out to Mary of Hillside, Michael on Nagle, and the neighborhood friends hanging out in front of Nascy Flowers on Broadway below 193rd, who were enjoying the new plants, especially the little mandarin bush (tree?), the juniper, and the basil and mint. One neighbor was commenting very knowledgeably on rue and its medicinal and tea uses; I hope the rue plants survive to be used in those wonderful ways!

Up next: beautiful purple coneflowers are on the way, as well as possibly bee balm, which Martha Stewart among others recommends as a tonic for poor soils.

new discovery: beautiful functional hemp

Crotalaria juncea. Photo credit: A16898 – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17225363

So, did you know that hemp is a good ground cover? Ellen’s been planting seeds… Indian hemp (aka brown hemp, Madras hemp, or Sunn hemp), Crotalaria juncea, so-called because it’s native to South Asia including India, grows during the summer and spreads itself out well. It can get as tall as 6 feet within two months, tolerates heat and drought well, and is a nitrogen-fixer– so good for the soil. It even has nice yellow flowers, if you live in the right region for it. Look out for something a little later in the summer in some of the beds that looks like this picture; I hope the flowers happen!

the (dormant) milkweed is here!

The milkweed is here! But shipped dormant–and may not pop up till next spring. What?

Milkweed (Asclepias is the name of the genus, named by Linnaeus in 1753 after the Greek god of healing, Asclepius, son of Apollo) is an amazing supermarket of nutrition for insects and animals, except for humans (for whom many parts of it are mildly toxic). It’s pollinated largely by wasps and bees, but also other insects. And, most famously, it is one of the favorite foods for monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) in their larval form. The parent butterflies lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves, to ensure their babies when hatched have plenty of food. In fact, milkweed even uses its magic medicine to ward off danger from the caterpillars: cardenolides, the very substance produced by many milkweed plants which is toxic to humans, in some studies appear to protect the baby monarchs from a dangerous parasite that can damage their wings.

Asclepias is aptly named: milkweeds have a long history of medicinal use for humans despite not being edible without careful cooking. The Omaha people from Nebraska, the Menominee from Wisconsin and upper Michigan, the Dakota from Minnesota, and the Ponca from Nebraska all traditionally used common milkweed (A. syriaca) for medicinal purposes. The bast fibers of some species can even be used for rope.

Now, the dormant thing: turns out, milkweed plants actually need to experience winter-like cold in order to stimulate spring growth. This means the best time to plant milkweed seeds is in the fall, so the cold temperatures and moisture that come with winter stimulate germination. You can plant milkweed in the spring if you chill it first–this is called “artificial stratification”; you are tricking the plant into thinking it has experienced the cold season already. So, with these new milkweed plants that just arrived in the mail in July, we’re going to simply have to put them into the soil and wait for winter (we decided not to jumpstart them in a refrigerator!).

They don’t look too promising at the moment, but we’re just going to have to wait for them to get comfortable. Ellen planted them today in one of the wildflower beds and in one of the Bogardus plots, along with some hemp.