u/Equivalent-Mulberry8

A couple months ago I posted about the tiny traffic island we started planting at 24th and 10th in Chelsea. You all blew it up, and it genuinely changed what this garden became. So, an update and a question.

What's new in the bed: 170 bulbs are going in this month: alliums, snowdrops, camassia, narcissus. Hoping for a ridiculous amount of spring in about 50 square feet.

A storm in August flattened the Joe Pye; we staked what survived, and we're leaving seed heads up for the birds this winter. The sedum has gotten huge, the lavender thrived, and the Japanese anemone gave us its first flowers on September 2. Then one suddenly went crispy and droopy after a recent heavy rain. We're hoping the roots are still alive. Some successes, some mysteries.

The bamboo fence got rebuilt properly with tarred bank line and square knots after the twine kept slipping. The solar lights in the gazing ball got stolen, so that feature is now analog. We're also collecting seed from the bed—very small harvests, but satisfying to think some of this could end up growing somewhere else. We gave away 50 seed packs of nicotiana, Joe Pye, and purple coneflower at a street fair last week.

The grant: CitizensNYC gave us a Community Leaders grant. We're thrilled. We're also aware of how we got here. We've put about a lot our own money into this, we had the time, and we had the confidence to walk into a very fancy building and ask for water. Most of the people we've met through the garden look like us and live where we live. Chelsea is a lot more than that. Asking forgiveness instead of permission, and getting away with it, isn't something everyone in this city can do.

So we don't want to decide what happens with this money on our own. We want to ask more neighbors, and we'd love input from this community too. Many of you have done this with way less: no money, no permission, no friendly building super.

If you've had a small grant for this kind of work, what actually made a difference, and what got wasted?

How have you brought in neighbors outside your own circle without it turning into a photo op?
Would you spend it on this garden, or use some to help other people's projects?

One idea is to make the island available for little artist installations, with money to actually pay the artists. Another is to help someone who's already caring for a neglected patch and could use supplies or an extra pair of hands. Nothing decided yet.

If you're in NYC and know an artist, a neglected patch, or someone who wants to get their hands dirty, DM me. And if you've tried something like this and have advice—or a cautionary tale—I'd love to hear it.

He wasn’t allowed up here until I realized a few months in that such rules don’t apply.

Elvis spent a weekend with my sister’s doggo and apparently he is still not done trying to get chased by him

My partner and I look after a traffic-island garden in West Chelsea, NYC. We wanted an installation that captures the neighborhood. The passing pedestrians, those that pause for the garden, yellow cabs, the high line, and the sky. It hands the city back looking a little different. In daylight, iridescent film shifts between pinks, blues, and gold. At night, internal solar spotlights illuminate it.

We plan to leave it out there until the DOT removes it or the film finally has had enough. Posted a bit more about the garden itself on r/guerrillagardening should you wanna check it out.

There’s a small pedestrian median at West 24th Street and Tenth Avenue that, until this spring, was mostly packed dirt, weeds and cigarette butts.

My partner and I live nearby and started planting it in May. It’s about 50 square feet, but we wanted to see how much life a neglected patch of streetscape could support.

It now has Joe Pye weed, coneflower, yarrow, Russian sage, lamb’s ear, lavender and muhly grass. The planting is still in its first season, but it has already become a regular stop for bees and other pollinators.

Gardening in a traffic median comes with complications: compacted soil, reflected heat, downpours, passing dogs, damage and no nearby water source. Luli, the superintendent of the neighboring building, started watering while cleaning the sidewalk, and others on the block now keep an eye on it too.

One neighbor contributed toward fall bulbs. Another planted a lupine grown from seed connected to her family’s meadow in the Midwest. People we barely knew before now send photos or flag a drooping plant.

People all over New York tend tree beds, medians and overlooked public spaces. This is simply our 50-square-foot contribution.

Happy to answer questions about the plants, process or what has and hasn’t worked.

There's a pedestrian median at 24th & 10th in Manhattan that I walked past every day for years. Roughly 50 square feet of compacted dirt inside a concrete curb, mostly cigarette butts and one exhausted shrub. This May it finally felt impossible not to do something about it. Now we call it our Itty Island (Ittyisland.org & ig: ittyislandnyc)

No permit process we could find except a generous and enthusiastic head nod from a fabulous community group (Chelsea Garden Club), no budget, no irrigation line. Just two of us, a bag of compost, and the assumption that nobody would stop us. Nobody has.

What's in it now: yarrow, echinacea, monarda, Russian sage, Jerusalem sage, lavender, muhly grass, lamb's ear, Japanese anemone, Verbena bonariensis, nicotiana, lady’s mantle, Joe pye weed, autumn joy sedum, etc.

The water problem is the whole ballgame. Everything else is solvable. Ours got solved by luck: the super of the building across the street adopted the thing and waters it like it's his. If you're scoping a site, find your water source before you find your plants. Hauling jugs in August will end your project faster than any city agency will.

What surprised me: the community. Day one we met a neighbor whose window overlooks it. 2 weeks later she brought a lupine from her family's meadow in the Midwest. People stop and talk. People donate. People ask for help in their own spaces. It turns out a small planted thing on a sidewalk is a social object, not just a horticultural one.

Elvis has selected his perch and I have accepted my fate.

@elvis.le.mini.schnauzer pretending to struggle to get the ball that he intentionally throws there.