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Good News for Our Great Swamp

April 21, 2016 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

Oblong logoOblong Land Trust, Accredited

The Oblong Land Conservancy (OLC), the Putnam County Land Trust (PCLT) and Friends of the Great Swamp (FrOGS) are pleased to announce that they have formed a collaboration and jointly entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will lead to increased focus on conservation efforts in the Great Swamp Watershed.

The Great Swamp, one of the largest wetlands in New York State, covers some 6,678 acres and drains a watershed of approximately 62,343 upland acres. The 20-mile long Watershed lies in the Harlem Valley that extends from Brewster to Dover and occupies parts of Putnam and Dutchess Counties in New York and Fairfield County in Connecticut.

Conservation of this natural resource is vital for a number of reasons:

  • It provides the sole recharge facility for the aquifer that serves over 40,000 people in the Watershed
  • It forms the headwaters of the Croton Reservoir System that provides New York City with some of its drinking water, and
  • It provides critical habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna, some of which are endangered.

The MOU identifies two specific initiatives that will raise public awareness of the importance of the Watershed.  The first involves the creation and placement of signage at the points of entry on the principal roads to the Watershed so that everyone can become familiar with the Great Swamp’s existence and boundaries.  The second initiative involves the development of an educational program called Swamp Smart.  This will inform watershed residents about the importance of the Great Swamp and what each individual can do to protect its quality.

Financial support for this collaboration was provided by a grant from the New York State Conservation Partnership Program (NYSCPP) a unique program of the Land Trust Alliance and the New York State DEC .Funding for priority conservation projects and land trust initiatives around the State help communities protect water quality, wildlife habitat, community gardens, working forests and farmland.

OLC and PCLT jointly applied for a Catalyst Grant to initiate local and regional partnerships and community initiatives that will lead to greater engagement in, and increased public support for, the protection and stewardship of environmentally significant lands. Conservation Catalyst projects for land trusts should engage multiple partners and stakeholders, have clearly defined outcomes, and advance the land trusts’ missions, strategic goals, and programs. Funded projects typically involve collaboration with local municipalities, other land trusts, or other conservation partners and to that end FrOGS has joined the collaboration to build on the work they have undertaken in conserving large areas of the Great Swamp.

Tree logo of the Oblong Land Conservancy

OLC is an all-volunteer organization based in Pawling that undertakes conservation in the greater Harlem Valley.  It was founded in 1990 and now has approximately 1,100 acres under stewardship.

Putnam County Land Trust

PCLT is an all-volunteer organization based in eastern Putnam County.  Its mission is to preserve and maintain for the public, open spaces and the natural resources within, for the purpose of conservation, education and recreation.  PCLT’s fee properties total 1,058 acres and it holds easements on another 138 acres.

FrOGSBWx150

FrOGS is an all-volunteer conservation organization dedicated to promoting stewardship of New York’s Great Swamp. FrOGS pursues this mission through Education, Scientific Research, and direct Conservation Action.  They provide science based information for local issues and focus on protecting habitat and species of conservation concern through collaborative coalitions with other organizations.

For further information please contact:

OLC at (845) 855 7014 – www.oblongland.org
PCLT at (845) 278 2808 – www.pclt.net
FrOGS at (845) 878 0081 – http://frogs.ny.org

Filed Under: Dutchess, East Coast, Environment, Frogs, Hudson Valley Attractions, Land Conservancies, Nature, Water

Botanic Gardens and Human Survival?

March 31, 2015 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

Duncan and I recently attended the New England Wild Flower Society’s gala Founder’s Dinner, honoring Dr. Paul Smith, Secretary General, Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

Dr. Paul Smith

Dr. Smith was awarded their 2015 Founder’s Medal for his exceptional achievements as Head of the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His compelling talk was about plant diversity and human survival. Dr. Smith highlighted the role botanical gardens play internationally in preserving seed for the future.

NEWFS logo 2015

Filed Under: Arboretums, Brine Garden, Climate Change, endangered species, Environment, GARDEN LARGE, Gardens, Nature, NEWFS, Plants, Private Gardens, Public Gardens, Public Lands, Speakers, World Tagged With: BCGI, Botanical Garden Conservation International, Dr. Paul Smith, human survival, New England Wild Flower Society, NEWFS, plant diversity

“Plenty Good Room” for Obama Library

February 19, 2015 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

“Plenty Good Room” for Obama Library

By Mary Pattillo
Published February 3, 2015

In the coming weeks, the Chicago City Council and the Chicago Park District will vote on using roughly 20 acres of South Side parkland for the proposed Obama presidential library. There is no good reason to use parkland. There are plenty of reasons not to. And, as the Negro spiritual says, there is “plenty good room” in which to accommodate everybody.

Photo of Washington ParkWashington Park, photo © Lucas Blair

I run in Washington Park. There’s a bridle path where Chicago’s “black cowboys” ride their horses, and where it’s very soft on my knees. I also run in Jackson Park in the Woodlawn community on a beautiful track across the street from Hyde Park Academy High School.

On my runs in Washington Park, I pass the older lady who always yells out “How ya doin’, baaaby!” and the group of older men whose debates about politics and popular culture are almost as vigorous as their walking pace. In the summer, there are softball leagues, South Asians and West Indians playing cricket, and hundreds of barbecues. And, I swear, half the people have on Obama T-shirts!

In Jackson Park, I loop around the Latino men playing soccer, with their families cheering them on, or high school football teams that practice there.

We love that President Barack Obama still calls Chicago his hometown . Obama’s presidential library should be on the South Side — where it would add vitality to blocks and blocks of empty lots. But, instead, the University of Chicago’s proposal to use parkland for the Obama library threatens to take away all of the local, unscripted, everyday life and activity I just described. It will curtail the use of the park through what I call the three Ps: perception, permitting and policing.

My research on urban development in Chicago illustrates that how people perceive things in a community matters for how they use them, or not. In the North Kenwood neighborhood, a community health center has struggled to attract clients with private insurance — who think the facility is only for low-income families. And in the same neighborhood, low-income residents thought the now-shuttered Hyde Park Co-op grocery store was for the more wealthy newcomers. South Siders of all types will surely embrace the Obama library and claim it as their own, but its fancy architecture and perfectly landscaped lawns will create perceptions for some people that they shouldn’t be hanging out nearby, shouldn’t play loud music at the family reunion, shouldn’t wear cutoff shorts, or generally shouldn’t be there doing what people often do in a park.

Photo of Cricket PlayersCricket Players in Washington Park, photo © Lucas Blair

The next step is permitting. A presidential library will add a level of scrutiny regarding the kinds of uses that are granted permits to be in the park. Will the members of the African-American fraternity Omega Psi Phi be able to blast “Atomic Dog,” hop, and bark alongside the Obama library at their fraternity picnic? Will UniverSoul Circus get a permit to set up in the park? It draws thousands of families every autumn, bringing with it smells of cotton candy, popcorn, pyrotechnics and horse manure.

And, the final P — policing. The Obama library will surely have tight security. Will littering, loitering, street vending and disturbing the peace escalate into arrests? Washington Park is already among the Top 10 and Woodlawn among the Top 15 communities in Chicago with the highest imprisonment rates. Zero-tolerance policing in either of these parks will add to the unjust burden black communities already bear for our lock-’em-up policies.

And, finally, it’s just not necessary. According to the City’s Web site, there are over 3.4 million square feet (almost 79 acres) of vacant city-owned land in the Washington Park community area, and over 2.7 million square feet (roughly 63 acres) in Woodlawn, where Jackson Park is located. Of course, all of these lots are not contiguous but anybody who drives through these neighborhoods will know that there is ample space to build a library, and then some. Indeed, the University of Chicago owns an 11-acre vacant lot directly across the street from the Washington Park land it wants to seize. Why take land that is being actively used by parkgoers, instead of building on land not being used for anything?

The Obama presidential library belongs on Chicago’s South Side. And so do the black cowboys, the Latino soccer players, the high school football teams, the woman who calls me “Baaaaby,” and whoever wants to just hang out with a makeshift cooler and a rickety lawn chair.

Luckily, with the abundance of available non-parkland, there is plenty of good room for all of it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Pattillo is a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of two books about Chicago’s South Side: Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class, and Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City.

A version of this post appeared in the Chicago Tribune’s Opinion and Commentary section on Jan 30, 2015.

Filed Under: Architecture, Cultural Landscape Foundation, Cultural properties, Design philosophy, Garden Blogs, GARDEN LARGE, Midwest, Museums, Public Gardens Tagged With: Cultural Landscape Foundation, Public Gardens, Public land, Public Parks

The Brine Garden in Forbes — 10 Hidden Gardens Of The Rich Open To You

September 10, 2013 by Duncan Brine Leave a Comment

Forbes has the Brine Garden listed as one of 10 “Gardens of the Rich”… Who’s been doing their research?

Okay, plant rich, we are.

Brine Garden berries and gate

© Steve Gross and Susan Daley

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mjh45jfmi/the-garden-of-duncan-julie-brine/

“The Brines invite you to walk through their six-acre garden and arboretum in Pawling, N.Y. on Oct. 12.

Get tips on deer-resistant plantings from Duncan, an instructor at New York Botanical Garden and the New England Wildflower Society.”

Filed Under: Arboretums, Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, East Coast, Fall, Forbes, Garden Conservancy, GARDEN LARGE, Gardens, Hudson Valley Attractions, Images, Landscape Designers, Native Plants, Naturalistic, NEWFS, Pawling NY, Private Gardens, Wildlife Tagged With: Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, Julia Brine, Landscape design, Pawling NY, Wildlife

Join us in the Hamptons this weekend?

March 16, 2012 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

Hudson Valley’s Duncan Brine, aka Garden Large,
Speaks in the Hamptons on Sunday, March 18 at 1pm

The Peconic Land Trust announces its third annual lecture series at Bridge Gardens, in Bridgehampton, NY. On March 18 at 1:00pm, Duncan Brine, principal of Garden Large, presents his naturalistic landscape design process, expanding on his recent article in “American Gardener” magazine.

“A naturalistic garden combines a gardener’s needs and desires with nature’s dictates; its design cannot be premeditated because its inherent beauty is inextricably linked to the landscape on which it is created.”

Mr. Brine is an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the New England Wild Flower Society. Garden Large specializes in native plants and whole property gardens. Visit www.gardenlarge.com, for more about Garden Large, Duncan Brine, and the Brine Garden.

Long Bridge at the Brine Garden, Pawling, NY© gardenlarge.com
The Long Bridge at the Brine Garden, Pawling, NY 

Scott Medbury, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Vincent Simeone, director of Planting Fields Arboretum, and others, are also featured in the speaker series. Reservations are required and the fee is $15 per person. Refreshments will be served following each program.

For reservations and additional dates and details on the speaker series, go to Bridge Gardens on www.PeconicLandTrust.org.

The Peconic Land Trust

The Peconic Land Trust was established in 1983 to conserve Long Island’s working farms and natural lands.  The nonprofit Trust has worked in concert with landowners, local government, partner organizations, and communities to conserve over 10,000 acres in NY, on Long Island. The Trust’s professional staff carries out the necessary research and planning to identify and implement alternatives to development. While working to conserve the productive farms, watersheds, woodlands, and beach front of Long Island, the Trust is also protecting the unique rural heritage and natural resources of the region. The Trust has Stewardship Centers in Southold, Cutchogue, Bridgehampton and Amagansett and its Main Office is in Southampton, NY. The public is invited to enjoy a wide variety of fun and educational activities through the Trust’s “Connections” programs which strive to connect people to the natural lands of Long Island’s East End.

Bridge Gardens

Bridge Gardens was established in 1988 by Harry Neyens and Jim Kilpatric, who designed and installed the gardens over the ensuing 10 years. In 1997, Bridge Gardens Trust was created as a charitable corporation to maintain and preserve the gardens. In 2008, Neyens and Kilpatric donated Bridge Gardens to the Peconic Land Trust. Rick Bogusch, a landscape architect with a long career at Cornell Plantations in Ithaca, NY,  is the garden manager.

Bridge Gardens covers over five acres and consists of an Inner Garden and an Outer Garden. Developed first, the Inner Garden features a large, meticulously-trimmed knot garden surrounded by beds of 180 different culinary, medicinal, ornamental, and textile and dyeing herbs. Overlooking these plantings, the garden house is the manager’s residence/education center. In the Outer Garden, the favorite attraction is a collection of antique and modern roses. Bridge Gardens also contains animal topiaries, a lavender parterre, perennial beds and borders, a water garden, woodland paths, a hidden bamboo room, double hedgerows of privet with viewing ports, and specimen shrubs and trees.

Filed Under: Classes/Tours, Design philosophy, Duncan Brine, East Coast, GARDEN LARGE, Gardens, Hamptons, Images, Landscape Designer, Landscape Designers, Landscape Inspiration, Native Plants, Naturalistic, Nature, Not-for-Profits, Plants, Private Gardens, Public Gardens, Public Lands, Speakers, Structured Naturalism, Sustainability, US Tagged With: Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, Environment, Hudson Valley, Julia Brine, Landscape design, landscape photography, Native Plants, naturalistic landscape design, Nature, Pawling NY, Principles, Public Gardens, Public land, speaker, Sustainabilty, talks, The American Gardener

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