lip ring

Sorry for the shitty reflecty photo but yes those are lips and you wear them on your finger(s) and I'm totally in love with them. I forgot to write the name of this place down but it's on Madison around 68th street.

I'm no hippy

Composting from the 20th floor: In one of the gardens I work on we recycle every little bit of leaf, twig, flower, bug (yes even cockroaches), paper we throw into these round bins along with some water. After they are closed shut we give them a spin and let them sit in the hot sun. We do this once a week for one year. We emptied out the years worth of fresh hot compost last week and it was incredibly satisfying giving back this enormous 2 level terrace, what it had given up over the past year. Giving it back nutrients and healthy bacteria that stressed out - high up - container gardens really need. Every garden should have some area where a gardener can chuck the quick degrading refuse, on the ground it's easier to create a little vented box, up on the roof it's more difficult with drain issues. These suckers are cheap so if you're high up, go for it. Oh and check out the pic with the little drain cap, that's the base that drains out the liquid from the compost, creating a delicious compost tea.

Viburnum

I snuck this picture at a garden I'm not aloud to tell anyone about. It is a VVVVVIP client but I had to share the berries on this viburnum. The woman who takes care of this space is there every day and it's 2 levels of multi-themed terrace. There's a rose garden, a wild flower garden, various herbs and vegetables for the housekeep to use in cooking, a Japanese garden and a very old and shady english garden. You have to be rich to have an outdoor space this elaborate over looking central park and have someone tend to it on a daily basis BUT this viburnum only needs a part-shade backyard and some fertilizer to get these beautiful otherworldly berries. It grows soft, fragrant white flowers in the spring and it's also semi-evergreen so it will retain most of it's leaves during the winter months. One of my favorites.

the cutest terrace of nyc

...at least from street view and is a good example of why metal/iron work shouldn't just be for fencing on ground level. I LOVE this place.

small business idea: small vehicle/scooter drop off services

My co-workers and I walked by this sweet scooter for a dry cleaning service on Park Ave in the 80's. If only something this nice looking would exist in my neighborhood then I could have something to look forward to and actually take care of the years of dry cleaning accumulating in my closet. There are a lot of unemployed people in BK who I'm hoping have been spending their time thinking about filling these gaps in scooter drop off services: dry cleaning/laundry, knife sharpening, seltzer water bottle exchange, pet grooming......i could go on

Limelight Hydrangeas

Big Fat Limelight Hydrangeas on West End:

Brugmansia time

These beauties are permanent residents at Otto Keil nursery in Long Island:

lights

My favorite light fixtures: Williamsburg Bridge

Best nursery in NY

ok, so it's not the most impressive website but the Suburban Water Garden in Dix Hills, NY is the most incredible garden nursery I've ever been to. I was on the hunt for a Sacred Lotus and came to a hole in the woods place that has an amazing selection of aquatic plants and also fish. I didn't take any greenhouse pics but it's a nursery of a hobbyist, all of the plants have been nursed and maintained like a botanical garden and the tanks and ponds are pristine. It's expensive, but if you own a backyard you need to build a pond and go to this place.

The Highline

The new Highline park is pretty amazing, I mean amazing by aesthetically amazing, but I don't think that NY is really quite ready for such a thing. It definitely looks and feels really good but the problem is, is that although it is a public space, it's not going to be a space for everyone. You cannot play ball in this park. I don't think you can even smoke in this park.
It doesn't work for several reasons; for one, it's in the meatpacking district and the luxury apartments that have been built to have access and a special view of the highline make the public park feel kind of private and two, only a fraction of NYC will even see this park...this park is for tourists.
I don't know that anyone will fully appreciate the native plants like the wild and weedy Ailanthus, because how can you really appreciate a wild landscape when it's been planted in a really beautiful, geometric and very expensive precast piece of concrete tiling. I like contrast but this just seems offensively expensive. I think when our public school system makes sense then this park will make sense. Until then, if you look into the Standard Hotel you WILL see naked people.