Caring for new street trees

The Parks Department seems to have made a recent visit to some blocks in Lefferts and planted us some new street trees. Hooray! Thanks to everyone who has requested trees, and for those of you who haven't been successful yet, let's keep prodding the city to get with the program. Here is a link to the NYC street tree request form. Be warned, there is a long wait time on getting street trees.

If you have a recently planted street tree in front of your house or building, maintenance is a key factor in ensuring that it continues to be healthy. The first year after planting is a critical time. Now that the danger of frost is dissipating, young trees need a lot of water. Watering should be done slowly, allowing the moisture to permeate the soil deeply. This allows the tree to develop a deep root system rather than depending on shallow roots. A soaker hose or water-filled garbage can with holes poked in it could work. Make sure that the tree is adequately mulched so that moisture is maintained.

Want to know more? There is a decent BBG website on the care and maintenance of street trees and pits.

Want to do more? Take the Trees New York course and become a NYC certified Citizen Pruner! Classes at BBG start April 28th. Yes, YOU TOO can "become an informed steward of NYC's urban forest..."

RELATED POSTS:
Want more trees on your block?
Help the city put more trees in PLG

"Greening Flatbush" event on Sun. February 24

Our neighbors to the south have been some enviable projects in the works, including a day of short lectures, demonstrations, and workshops called "Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are."

Details:

Sunday, February 24, from 1:30 to 4:30pm
Brooklyn Public Library (Flatbush Branch): 22 Linden Boulevard.
The event is free, but space is limited. To register, email greeningflatbush@gmail.com.

Help the city put more trees in PLG

An earlier post discussed what homeowners can do to get street trees in front of their houses. But what about getting trees in places that aren't yours—like large apartment buildings, schools, or commercial strips?

In the past, nothing short of personally lobbying the property owner would make it happen. But thanks to Flatbush Gardener, we just found out that Million Trees NYC is asking residents to recommend new sites for street trees throughout the City.

So what about it, people? Where does PLG need street trees? ...wait, don't tell me, tell the NYC Parks and New York Restoration Project: click here for the form.

The Parkside Q station (pictured) tops my wishlist. The plaza in front of Parkside is decidedly un-parklike: an unwelcoming concrete slab with no greenery of any kind. Half of Parkside Ave. (gmap) here is treeless, which is especially unfortunate because so many people pass through here. 

Getting more trees on your block

When people in New York describe a block as "nice," what they often mean is that it has more street trees than speeding cars (whether they are conscious of the fact or not). Aside from the benefits Brooklynites usually associate with trees, trees have a decided traffic calming effect: drives travel slower on blocks that have them.

Since our block—and areas south and east of us—could use more trees, I passed info out to my neighbors on how to request a free tree in front of their houses. I made about 70 copies of the documents below and folded them into a flyer, which I placed in mailboxes of homes without trees on Fenimore, Hawthorne, Winthrop, and Parkside blocks from Flatbush to Nostrand Avenues. If anyone else would like to try this, here are the documents I made (along with the city form). Feel free to alter them anyway you see fit, but if you're outside of PLG, you may need to make sure to change the community board on the Letter to your own.

Letter to neighbors (doc)
Outside page (pdf)
Request_a_street_tree_form (pdf)
Community Board 9 address (cut-and-paste onto envelopes - for PLG and Crown Heights only)
Fold all of the above in half, and include an long envelope with your community board's address.

Though in the past it has taken well over a year for the city to plant requested trees, someone at the Parks Dept. told me that they're getting a big bag of money for more street trees as part of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC.