Late Happy Earth Day NYC!

Soooo,  been quite busy over the last month and just getting back now.  Most exciting was the Tribeca Film Festival - which I have written about before. I love Tribeca because I feel they bring in movies that are accessible and fun to watch. Not all of them are, of course, but I see many films available either in theaters, on video on demand, or even on cable channels such as HBO and MTV, later in the years.

 This year was very exciting for me because after 5 years working in screenings, I was given the opportunity to work as a jury liaison. Tribeca has several juries that see movies during the festival and award prizes. The prizes, often a cash prize and other services, such as post production services, which are very valuable to an independent film maker who is scraping together a movie budget. While technology has made film making very accessible in terms of equipment, it is still very expensive. So, these juries can make a big difference to a film maker.

My jury judged the best new narrative director competition and I think they did a great job. They were all very nice people and very professional. All were well known in the industry. It was a pleasure to meet them and work with them. It was very exciting, and a lot of hard work! I feel like a quarterback after football season is over. I need a rest, but I bet I'll want to do it again when next year rolls around.

April was actually an interesting month as far as the overall economy and housing markets. It seems that housing is making a comeback around the country, but really it's still finding its way after such a long time far under water.

In New York, the story is that unemployment has hit a multi-year low of 8.4%, (previously stuck at 8.9%), and it seems rents are starting to head up again as well. Sales prices have not moved too much, just a tick higher, but the story there is that the number of units on the market has pretty much dried up. Finally, properties that were taking 6-8 months to sell have mostly sold, and fewer apartments are coming on the market. Fewer "affordable" apartments (under $1 million), anyway.  The market for very high end properties is pretty lively.

My favorite news stories from the past month are actually some that will help New Yorkers enjoy a higher quality of life.

First up, we have the happy news that wifi coverage has become active on many more subway platforms in Manhattan. Previously, only 14th Street at 6th and 8th Aves, and 23rd street on 8th Ave stations had service. Very helpful! Really looking forward to expanding to those of us in Brooklyn. MTA, you have seen the coverage that rents in parts of Brooklyn are higher than in Manhattan, right? We're not all peons out here.

Next up, a couple late Earth Day bits of news. First is an exciting new program that is being piloted by New York City with a  large doorman building to have people separate food scraps for garbage collection by the city. This is the first time NYC has experimented with separating out food scraps. Right now, there are places you can drop your food scraps where NYC and/or nonprofits like the Lower East Side Ecology Center will take them off your hands for composting. But that's kind of inconvenient. I personally separate my food scraps because it keeps me from having to empty the garbage as often, thereby letting me fill my trash can instead of having to empty it before it's full (and contributing more plastic to landfills). My coop has a few compost bins that we use in our common garden, but alas more food scraps are produced than can be composted. The result? My food scraps often join the building garbage and end up in the landfill.

If NYC starts collecting food scraps, not only will we be able to reduce the amount of garbage we send to a landfill, but we can return organic materials to farms, gardens and other places where they are needed. And if it saves us a few million in tax dollars by cutting out on shipping to landfills, that's great too!

I was also excited to read about an effort in my Brooklyn community to bring solar energy to the neighborhood. Solarize Brooklyn is a joint effort by Solar One and two Brooklyn sustainable living groups to help members of the communities of Windsor Terrace, Ditmas Park and Kensington to get their buildings retrofitted with solar energy.  These neighborhoods have many 1-4 family houses that the majority of the solar energy industry are prepared to work with. Creating both one intensive point of education and a collective purchasing program to help save on installation costs and claim tax benefits is a great idea here. I live in a co-op building, and from the research I've done, the 1930s-1950s buildings are hard to retrofit. However they are welcome to the program and I hope mine will participate. Certainly if for no other reason, it would be nice to have a back-up electric system should there be another grid-wide failure (a la Hurricane Sandy). Also more solar systems contribute to a scale that makes sense for even wider adoption of solar technology. And while at the moment it's not feasible to be 100% solar, it is certainly feasible that solar should contribute a sizeable percentage of NYC's electricity, especially in the peak summer cooling months when the grid could use a little help.

So, here's hoping that these two new programs will take root and make New York a cleaner, greener city. I hope all are enjoying the beautiful (if slightly tardy) spring weather.

Oh, the Weather Outside is Perfect...!

Today and yesterday have been pitch-perfect in their temperature - near 70 - perfect weather for chinos and a top and no need for those extra linings. I am planning to spend a little time on the High Line appreciating the weather.

What really makes me happy is the delightful new renderings for the 3rd part of the High Line - the part that goes above 30th street and over to the West. The amphitheater is ingenious and I love that part of the stretch will be left - temporarily at least - au naturel with the life that seeded itself there when the High Line was abandoned.

I've been so grateful the winter was so mild but I'm a little fearful the summer will blaze in compensation. So I'm going to head out and enjoy this weather while I've got it!

Anything but Hydrangea!

Last weekend my boyfriend and I got out the rakes and trowels and joined the rest of our co-op community in the annual garden cleanup.

The garden consists of a sideyard about 15 feet wide and the entire east-west width of the building, as well as a space some 25 feet wide that serves as the air shaft for many of the units. The two parts form a skewed T shape (with the topbar being very long, and the bottom of the T being very wide).

Every year plots are alloted to interested shareholders. Part of the sideyard is very sunny all day long, with relatively unobstructed eastern and southern exposures. That part is reserved for growing vegetables. The rest is for flowers.  My plot is right on the corner of the vegetable and flower part. I have lovingly cultivated it for about 8 years now, unfortunately with little success by my standards.

I'm not a "brown thumb", as it were. I successfully maintain several plants inside my apartment, a feat given that only one window really gets direct sunlight at all.  And my outdoor plot is actually one of the sunniest of the flower plots, with about half of it getting 4 hours or more of sun in the summer. The other half gets much less light, however.  And I don't really like shade plants that don't flower. Every year so far, we have trooped out, planted, watered, weeded (at least for a month or two), and stood back dismayed as very little of our plan ever comes to fruition.

What's wrong with it? I'd like to think it's not us. We're not prize growers but we are attentive to our plot. We  suffer the same as everyone else when it comes to squirrels. They eat rosebuds and dig up bulbs. I did get crocuses to grow one year, but construction in the building killed off everything in my plot as the construction workers apparently thought it was a pathway or something. (and unfortunately we may end up with that again, but I'm trying to avoid thinking about that).

Part of the plot is very sandy and easy to dig. But the other half (which coincides with the half that doesn't get much sun) has a large amount of red clay in it!  I am constantly digging up shards of glass, ceramics and/or metal (at least 2-3 eating utensils). It's like an archeological dig.  Over the years I have added topsoil and mixed in compost from the garden compost pile. But not much has been willing to grow in there.

I haven't sprung to have the soil tested (though apparently parts of the garden have high levels of lead in the soil - yikes!). But I have gotten a small number of plants to grow over the years. Not necessarily to thrive, but to live. Here they are:

- Common Jasmine: I love this flower because it is so fragrant. The plant is vinelike but it can grow like a shrub if trained. I planted two jasmines the first year I had the plot and they grew. Unfortunately they died when the winter came.  Apparently we have too harsh a winter climate for them to survive. Though I wonder if they could if I wrapped them like a fig tree?

- blue ageratum.  These little flowers actually do grow and thrive, at least they did most years - there were a couple where they didn't make it.

- Impatiens. I have to point out that I didn't actually plant these in my garden!  The woman with the neighboring plot planted them in hers, and they reseeded themselves into  my plot. Every year I still get them.  Oy. I don't really like impatiens, though I can get distracted by popping their seedbugs in the fall.

- Shasta Daisy.  A friend of mine from Michigan sent me several packets of seeds, but the only one that grew was the package of Shasta Daisies. They seem to like part sun the most but grew all over the garden. I had so many I had to get rid of some.  These guys reseed themselves. It's probably been 5 years since I planted any  but they still pop up around the garden. Not in my plot though. They grew fine the first year but I've never had any actually in my plot since. I think I spotted a few growing in the border between my plot and my neighbors. Sheesh.

- Heath. Ok, heaths (cousin to heather, the hardy moor plant known to be found on the English prairie) don't really like my plot. They just kind of survive there. They don't actually grow.  I have one heath left that's been there about 4 years. The rest have slowly died. I got ones that like acidic soil. Perhaps I don't have acidic soil?

- Hydrangea.  This is the super heavyweight champion of my plot!  I bought the first hydrangea as an 8" indoor plant from Whole Foods. I've always loved them since they were in my next door neighbor's yard as a kid.  I planted it in my plot thinking it would be a nice divider between my plot and my next door neighbors. Well, it just took off from there. First, I had to keep cutting it back. Then I moved it (a 3 hour process with a VERY BIG ROOT BALL) after 3 years to the other side where there was more neutral territory. There it has been since. I cut it back every season to keep the walk way clear.

It grows dark blue flowers dappled with pink. I know that means there is aluminum in the soil. I can't remember my chemistry. Is aluminum acid or alkaline?  Anyway, the flowers on one side are pinker than the flowers on the other. Very odd.

Last spring I discovered that a low hanging branch had rooted itself into the soil. So now I had two hydrangeas. I figured nothing else would grow so I moved it a bit to give it some space. It shot up quite a bit last year and is now quite established.

But wait, that's not all!  This year I discovered the mother and daughter hydrangea had each rooted a baby. Now we are totally overrun with hydrangeas. We offered some to other gardeners but no one wanted to take us up on it. So we have two mothers and two babies. I have clipped the lower branches on the more mature plants to try and keep it to four. I guess there could be worse things than having a beautiful lush leafy plant with gorgeous fragrant flowers overrunning my plot. But I wanted to seem like a real gardener who can coax a small plot into a coherent oasis worthy of extreme contemplation.

So, I'm throwing it out to everyone. Please send suggestions of plants that might work in my plot. Just not hydrangea!