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From the Ground Up
Volume 19 Issue 4 The Newsletter That Helps You Grow Winter 2014-15
Birders, Birders, Everywhere
THE FLOYD BENNETT GARDENS ASSOCIATION
Barbara Pearson
And what a bird to see! A rare Cassin’s kingbird
has been seen almost daily at FBGA since mid-
November. The kingbird at FBGA is far afield of its
natural range and this extended sighting of the
kingbird at FBGA is only the second time on record
that this species has been seen in New York State.
Habitat Committee Chair Frank Gentile alerted
me to the news on November 25th
after he saw the
bird, which was identified for him by birder Richard
Guthrie (whom I contacted and he generously gave
me permission to use his photo of the kingbird). Mr.
Guthrie wrote on his timesunion.com blog:
Happily, I can post some fun news about birding
in New York. A very rare bird and hard to identify
flycatcher was found in Brooklyn, New York City,
last week. Word got out late in the day, and nobody
could get over to Floyd Bennett Field before dark.
Next day, it had disappeared. Dozens of frustrated
birders searched a wide area without any sign of the
elusive wanderer.
The bird was a CASSIN’S KINGBIRD, a prairie
species which would normally [be] expected to be
somewhere in Mexico by this time of year.
Yesterday, the word went out – the kingbird had
been found again, near where it was first seen right
there in the community gardens of Floyd Bennett
Field. A few phone calls last evening and we had a
group of four up early and headed to the south shore
of Brooklyn.
When we arrived, there were about thirty
birders already set with binoculars, spotting scopes
and some of the longest camera lenses I’ve seen in a
while. Finding the bird was as easy as following the
converging vectors of eyes, lenses, and shutter clicks.
It was not more than thirty yards away from the
semi-circle of well behaved admirers.
Local birding websites and blogs (American
Birding Association, City Birder) have been
reporting consistent sightings of the kingbird since it
was first spotted. The kingbird is most often seen in
the picnic area and the Habitat. According to info
Mr. Guthrie gave on his blog, the kingbird is about
the size of a robin, has a sulfur-yellow underside, and
has distinctive white markings on its tail feathers.
On a trip to the garden in mid-December, I
talked with President Adriann Musson who saw me
looking at a group of 6 or 8 birders with tripods and
huge lenses who had gathered not far from the O&M
containers (why did I not have my camera with me
that day to get a photo of them?!). (cont’d on page 3)
Contents
Birders, Birders, Everywhere
Renewal Reminder
The Last of the Monarchs?
“Tree-icide”
Native Shrubs Wish List
Workshop Schedule
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FBGA Contacts
Adriann Musson – President 917-446-3764 [email protected] Bob Halligan – Vice President & Education
917-626-7460 [email protected] Judy Tropeano – Treasurer
718-444-7210 [email protected] Clara Villanueva – Corresponding Secretary
718-782-5694 [email protected] Lynn Halligan – Recording Secretary & Special Events
[email protected] Sylvia Tsingis – Champions of Courage Garden
718-646-5979 [email protected] Lynn Graham – Children’s Garden
[email protected] Roy Brummell – Conflict Resolution
718-342-3689 [email protected] Carl Arendt – Operations & Maintenance 917-681-3624 [email protected]
Gail Schneider – Fundraising 347-533-3787 [email protected]
Tom Ingram – Landscape Maintenance 917-209-6452 [email protected]
Karen Orlando – Elections [email protected]
Tom Marange – Help A Gardener 718-382-4216 [email protected]
Marie Artesi – Landscape Design 718-256-4480
Frank Gentile – Wildlife Habitat 917-701-8370 [email protected]
Barbara Pearson – Newsletter 718-869-6774 [email protected]
Joe Nerone – Pumpkin Patch 718-789-2713
Floyd Bennett Gardens Association Newsletter
Floyd Bennett Gardens Association Inc. is located in Floyd Bennett Field, a
unit of Gateway National Recreation Area.
Editor: Barbara Pearson
Contributors: Bob Halligan, Abe Perlstein, Barbara Pearson, Gay Snyder
Proofreader: Paul Moses
Photographs: Barbara Pearson (unless otherwise noted)
Website: fbga.net Contact Louis M.: [email protected]
Contact us: FBGA News • PO Box 340986 • Ryder Retail Station Brooklyn, NY 11234-9993 • e-mail [email protected]
Our Policy: All submissions to the newsletter may be edited for grammar, spelling and length. We reserve the right to reject entries.
Disclaimer Required by the National Parks Service
The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and
should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the United States
Government. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute
their endorsement by the U.S. Government.
.
Spring Meeting
Sunday March 29th at 2pm
Hudson River Yacht Club
2101 Bergen Street
Attendance Required
Renewal Reminder All completed applications must be received by
January 31, 2015. After that there is a 2-week grace
period during which late applications are accepted,
however, they will incur a $20 late fee per plot. You
also must fill out the community service form on the
other side of the application. If you have a child you
would like to register for the Children’s Garden,
complete and include that application with your
renewal.
If there is an unavoidable delay in sending in your
renewal, contact Clara (corresponding secretary) or
Bob (vice president) and let them know the situation.
Any plot for which we do not have a completed
application by February 15th
will be reassigned.
If you want your garden tilled, fill out the Tilling
Request Form; the tilling fee is $20 per plot. Tilling is
done on a first come, first served basis starting in
April depending on the weather - we cannot till if the
ground is frozen or muddy - and your garden must
first be cleared of all wood, rocks, tall weeds, etc. We
will call you before we till your plot because you will
need to unlock your plot so we can get in.
All forms are available at www.fbga.net .
3
Birders, Birders, Everywhere (cont’d from page 1)
Adriann said to me, laughing, “We’ve been overrun
by birders.” “Beats being overrun by weeds,” I said.
Some FBGA gardeners can be counted among
the birders. I found a name I recognized – Phil Hore -
on one of the birding sites so I contacted him. He and
his wife Enid “were chatting with Bob Halligan a few
days back when I noticed a bird flying exactly like a
flycatcher would - perching on something and then
swooping out and down and then back again (going
after the bugs in the air). So, I grabbed the glasses
and followed. It ended up in the middle of rows E
and F - perching and then flying down to the ground
and up again. Lovely to see, and very cooperative to
view.” Shari Romar had only just learned of the
kingbird excitement a few days before I contacted
her. “What a wonderful treat to have this great bird
visiting our garden!” she said. “It shows that we are
providing habitat for many species, including such
rare ones. I wish I’d had luck in seeing this beauty,
but I’ll just have to live vicariously!”
New Year’s Day was a sunny, not-too-cold day
so I went to the garden to see if I could get some
photos of birders in pursuit of the kingbird. I caught
up with one woman and asked her if she was there
because she had not yet seen the kingbird. She said
she had seen it “but that was 2014!” I saw several
more birders who were back promptly on January 1st,
trying to get the kingbird on their 2015 lists because,
after all, who knows when it might be gone.
I was glad to know that birders were coming to
FBGA to enjoy an exciting visitor. I had no idea how
cooperative and high tech birding is (as in real-time
blog posts alerting fellow birders via smartphone to
important sightings). Like gardeners, they’re happy
to share their knowledge and love of what they do
with an interested stranger. I’m pleased that our
community has something we share with theirs.
One of the many visiting birders with tripods and huge lenses seen
at FBGA since mid-November.
Photo courtesy of Richard Guthrie
4
The Last of the Monarchs? Gay Snyder
When I first joined FBGA, I was amazed at the
variety and quantity of butterflies. Three years ago, a
friend visited from England; he loves butterflies. I
remember how happy he was when I took him around
our gardens. We observed at least a dozen different
species, many of which are not present in England.
Two years ago I was awed one day when I
passed two butterfly bushes, startling 20 to 30 bees
and butterflies. I was amazed as they scattered in
many directions like winged jewels. Unfortunately,
though, the monarchs are disappearing.
I first became aware of the issue when I read The
New York Times on November 22, 2013, which
featured the article “The Year the Monarch Didn’t
Appear.” The opening lines were very glum:
“The first of November, when Mexicans
celebrate a holiday called the Day of the Dead, some
also celebrate the millions of monarch butterflies
that, without fail, fly to the mountainous fir forests of
central Mexico on that day. They are believed to be
souls of the dead, returned.
This year, for or the first time in memory, the
monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the
Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week
later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s
low of 60 million now seems great compared with the
fewer than three million that have shown up so far...”
On January 29, 2014, The Times published
another alarming article that stated:
“The migrating population has become so small
- perhaps 35 million - ...that the prospects of its
rebounding to levels seen even five years ago are
diminishing. At worst, scientists said, a migration
widely called one of the world’s great natural
spectacles is in danger of effectively vanishing.”
One major reason for the decline of the
monarchs is loss of habitat. Farmers in the Midwest
and elsewhere have expanded their fields. The butter
flies have lost Millions of acres of needed plants.
Further, farmers have been using potent herbicides to
destroy what they deem weeds. Native plants which
are helpful to monarchs, especially milkweed, have
essentially been wiped out. Farming is not the only
culprit. In many places, people have replaced diverse
natural habitat with roads, parking lots and lawns.
Monarchs, guided by an internal compass,
migrate between summertime havens in Canada and
the northern United States and a winter home in the
Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico, traveling as
much as 2500 miles. Monarchs breed and die along
the way so it is actually their descendants who
complete the trip. These butterflies lay their eggs
only on milkweed. As milkweed becomes harder to
find, monarchs must travel further and further to lay
their eggs. The disappearance of milkweed is
resulting in significantly less young.
Last summer, I spoke with Keith White,
Volunteer Coordinator at Gateway National
Recreation Area, and FBGA President Adriann
Musson. Keith and Adriann related how several
gardeners from FBGA built a large wooden planter,
10 feet long by 2 feet wide by 2 feet high. The City
of New York donated compost and various gardeners
planted milkweed plants in the hopes of attracting
monarchs. The planter was then located at Frank
Charles Park in Howard Beach. (When I last spoke
with Keith, he mentioned that he was looking for
volunteers to water and care for this new planter.)
Monarchs desperately need more milkweed.
Milkweed can be planted in private gardens and
public spaces (such as along roads). As gardeners and
nature lovers, we should consider setting aside a
portion of our plots for milkweed plants. There are
several varieties of milkweed that appeal to monarch
butterflies. Not only will this help a threatened
species, but hopefully we will be rewarded by visits
from these beautiful butterflies.
Common milkweed -
Asclepias syriaca -
grows wild in Floyd
Bennett Field. If we
gardeners cultivated
some in our gardens
we could positively
impact the amount of
habitat available to
the monarchs in this
area. The flowers are
absolutely stunning.
5
“Tree-icide” Abe Perlstein
I practice the art of the “tree-icide”. Oops! Sorry.
I forgot that you don’t know what tree-icide is.
Anything that ends in the letters “-icide” means to
kill. For example homicide means killing any person,
ursicide means killing bears and insecticide means
the killing of insects. When I say I practice the art of
tree-icide, I mean I practice the art of killing trees.
You may be wondering what kind of nut finds
killing trees an art. Let me be clear - I don't kill trees
intentionally. It just…happens. You are most likely
thinking that all tree killers say they don't mean to do
it. So I’ll do my best to provide an explanation.
Many years ago I came across pictures of very
beautiful small trees. They were no more than 4 feet
high, fully grown, mature trees, thick trunks, and full
branches with beautiful small leaves. At first I
thought that these were a special kind of dwarf trees.
Then I found out that they were really regular trees,
kept small through various techniques. This is an art
called Bonsai.
According to the website bonsaiempire.com,
bonsai is a Japanese term which means “planted in a
container”. This Japanese art form, which originated
in ancient China, has been around for well over a
thousand years. The website goes on to say that “The
ultimate goal of growing a Bonsai is to create a
miniaturized but realistic representation of nature in
the form of a tree.” There are different techniques to
achieve a bonsai effect, including: leaf pruning
and/or defoliation; pruning the trunk, branches, and
roots of the tree; wiring branches and trunks; grafting
buds, branches or roots.
Bonsai is a living art form. These trees are very
delicate and require a lot of attention and care, which
is why, in the process of trying to create my own
bonsai, I sometimes pruned my trees, or their roots,
too much. This resulted in more than one dead bonsai
tree. A tree that I may have been nurturing for a few
years would suddenly just leave me for the bonsai
garden in heaven.
Rather than you coming over to look at all my
dead bonsai (called jin – deadwood - in Japanese,
which is another art form, one that I speculate may
have developed as a result of the tree-icide practice),
you should go to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It has
an amazing collection of bonsai trees. Some of them
are 40, 50 and more years old. There you will see the
true art of bonsai and not my new art of tree-icide.
Flowering quince, over 71 years old in 2011
Mugo pine, 76 years old
Mugo pine and Japanese black pine of unspecified age. Note that
Brooklyn Botanic Garden has specimens over 200 years old.
6
Photo © Jeff McMillan, courtesy of Almost Eden (almostedenplants.com),
United States, LA. Hosted by USDA-NRCS Plants Database .
American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)
There are those who would take
exception to my calling American
beautyberry native here at FBGA. Its
native range reaches as far north as
Maryland according to the USDA Plants
Database (plants.usda.gov). My feeling
is that if there’s no ocean or significant
mountain range between where it’s
native and where I am then I can call it
native. But then, I’d probably bend over
backwards to call this shrub that bears
countless bunches of gorgeous purple
fruit native. Beautyberries are believed
to bear more fruit if several are planted
together. The fruit is long lasting, unless
of course the many birds that love it
discover it in the garden.
Native Shrubs on My Wish List for FBGA Barbara Pearson
Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia ‘Ruby Spice’)
Let’s see: beautiful, fragrant
flowers in summer, nice looking
seed pods, easy to grow and
undeniably native. Ruby Spice
summersweet is a nearly perfect
cultivar with deep pink flowers
rather than the white that is
naturally occurring. What keeps
it from being perfect is that, like
its parent, it is known to produce
suckers, although nothing I’ve read about it from gardeners
who have it makes it seem all that difficult to control. If this
is a concern, it is hardy to zone 4, which in my experience
means that it can be grown in a pot and survive our winters.
According to the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Plant Finder
website (mobot.org/plantfinder), summersweet is unique in
that it is a late-summer-flowering plant that can actually
bloom even if grown in heavy shade.
All Ruby Spice photos courtesy of John, The Obsessive
Neurotic Gardener, www.obsessiveneuroticgardener.com
7
Saturday, February 21 2 PM Ryan Center
Planning Your Garden
Presenter - Adriann Musson
Have a small space? Want to grow more than you
think you can? A garden plan will help you to
achieve your goals. Join us and learn how to get
the most out of your garden, large or small. We
will discuss square foot gardens, vertical
growing, and succession planting as well as cold
protection techniques.
Saturday, February 28 2 PM Ryan Center
Starting from Seed
Presenter - Adriann Musson
Learn how to grow your plants from seed. Find
out when to start different vegetables, flowers or
herbs, and the best growing mediums to use.
Learn how to make flower pots out of newspaper.
This is a hands on workshop - you can start your
own seeds. Registration required in advance.
Workshop is limited to 20 people, email
Sunday, March 8 2 PM Ryan Center
Starting Your Spring Garden
Presenter - Bob Halligan
Make the most of your garden this year. There
are so many things to grow long before you plant
your tomatoes! Growing tips for growing lettuce,
greens, onions, potatoes, cole crops, and so much
more.
Sunday, March 15 2PM Ryan Center
Made for the Shade
Presenter - Bob Halligan
You can have a beautiful garden regardless of
how much sun you receive. Learn about the
many annual and perennial varieties that will
shine for you where the sun doesn’t.
Sunday, March 22 2 PM Ryan Center
Tips for a More Productive Garden
Presenter - Bob Halligan
Make the most of your limited space. Ideas to
help you improve yields, and extend your
season, by intercropping, succession planting,
wide rows, cold frames, raised beds and more
Saturday, March 28 2 PM Ryan Center
Sizzling Summer Crops
Presenter - Tom Ingram
Learn how to grow summer’s favorite
vegetables from our award winning gardener:
tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans and much
more.
*** This schedule is subject to change.
Please confirm date, time and location by
calling the National Park Service at 718-
338-3799 or checking the FBGA website
( fbga.net ) or the bulletin board at FBGA
Pre-season Workshop Schedule (through March) Bob Halligan
