Citywide Plantings

Beginning last winter, The Battery Conservancy's horticulture team has been working in conjunction with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to create lists of plants that will be harvested from the Battery's gardens to create test perennial plantings elsewhere in the city. The first site was planted at Riverbank Park in May 2007. Another site was planted in October at Seward Park (East Broadway and Essex Street).

Perennial plants are a renewable resource that figures highly in NYCDPR's goal of upgrading citywide horticulture. The combined areas of the Gardens of Remembrance and Battery Bosque form the largest formal municipal perennial garden in the United States and is intrinsically an excellent test site of plants' durability and display value for open public sites with similar climates.

In May of 2007 a NYCDPR greenhouse crew harvested selected ornamental grasses from our gardens for propagation in addition to executinga perennial test planting organized by the Conservancy and NYCDPR's Robert McLean. In October, a crew from several District 3 parks harvested selected perennial forbs from the Bosque and divided them at the Battery with Conservancy supervision. It was the first time any of these NYCDPR employees had propagated perennials from parkland instead of purchasing commercially grown plants.

On October 24th the Conservancy's Horticulture staff assisted the Parks Department crew with layout of these 1,400 new plants in a shady planting area of Seward Park, selected for its park-average challenging growing conditions. At our request NYCDPR prepared this 1,400 sq. ft. site with the addition of 4" of soil, an atypical protocol without which the planting would fail due to tree root competition.

The Battery Conservancy's educational outreach in the creation of these pilot perennial plantings in partnership with NYCDPR can make us all proud.

Existing Soil Conditions at Seward Park
(East Broadway and Essex Street)

Battery Conservancy Horticulture Team and Parks Department District Manager Robert McLean begin test planting in Seward Park, October 24th, 2007