u/Equivalent-Mulberry8

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.