seeding the city

The plants are growing now!

I was lucky enough to spend part of the last week working with the fabulous staff and kids at Covenant House New York. We were on the roof of their building in midtown Manhattan on two gloroous afternoons mixing the growing medium and planting all of the grasses and sedum. It went beautifully!

We used a mixture of potting soil (3 bags), grorocks (10 bags), sand (4 bags) and pea gravel (10 bags) to plant 646 little plants in 100 trays. The kids mixed their own growing medium, picked out the plants they wanted to use and designed and planted their own modules. Some of them did four or more modules!

One of the participants expressed his gratitude and said that he had never done anyuthing like it before. I had to agree – neither have I! He also promptly signed up for as many watering times as he could fit in his schedule! (I would too if I were a resident – it’s going to be fun to watch them grow!)

My gratitude to those helping with the planting, Huong Ngo & Colin McMullen (who will oversee the growing throughout the summer), my assistant Meg Whiteford, the amazing Tricia Martin who stepped in at the last minute to provide consulting and who so carefully figured out the plant mix for me and then showed up to help with the planting. And my deepest gratitude to Athana Kontinos who contacted me from Covenant House with her interest in working together, the kids at covenant house who volunteered their time to work on the project and the other staff who came out to help, especially Bret who is working with Athana on a much larger scale project to green Covenant House.

It is thanks to fresh ideas, a willingness to experiment and the support of a great staff that good organizations become amazing organizations.

They even got to boast about it on the international website!

I am so excited to announce a new aspect of the project which will be launching in the next couple of weeks.

MEC's green roof by 416style on Flickr

Over the course of the summer, I will be working with Covenant House to put together and grow the green roof modules. In a couple of weeks we will build the modules and plant the plugs with the help of the kids in the long term program. Over the course of the summer the kids will be nurturing the plants through monitoring, watering and feeding. In the fall some of the kids may join us to install the modules.

Through this partnership I hope to inform the kids about urban environmental issues through and interesting process in which they take on the care and responsibility of the plants. We also hope to give them knowledge and experience that aids in their own continued growth and development. Through the partnership we hope to introduce the kids to alternative art forms and methods of building and empowering community. We are all looking forward to a great season of growing!

Your support of the project is needed to ensure its success.
Just $25 will cover the costs of building and caring for a green roof module over the course of the summer.
$50 covers the cost of building and growing as well as the installation with the flag & signage.
All donations are tax deductible.

Please donate today!

I am officially announcing a call for first round participants for the Seeding the City green roof module installation.

If you are a New York City resident and interested in hosting a 2′x4′ green roof module, here is how you can participate:

1. Contact me.
2. I will provide you with information on urban environmental issues and the benefits of green roofs and technical information about the installation.
3. I will set up a site visit to see your roof.
4. If you do not own your building, we can jointly speak to your landlord, or you can contact your landlord for approval. I highly recommend participation from renters or people who live in co-ops and condos.
5. If your roof is a selected site, you will find 2-3 other people in your neighborhood (preferably no more than about an 8-10 block radius), who are interested in the project.
6. You will pass the contact information for these other interested parties on to me.
7. I will schedule your installation! (They will begin in September).

Please note, Priority will be given to those in the following neighborhoods:

• Bed-Stuy/Clinton Hil/N. Crown Heights,
• Greenpoint/E. Williamsburg
• South Bronx
• Two Bridges/Lower East Side
• Gowanus

And voila! You have a fabulous green roof module installed on your roof!

*Thanks to Steve Lambert for the term “green pyramid scheme.”

So after much research and consideration, I have decided that I want to make my own modules for the project. This will probably save money, but there are other reasons for wanting to do this.

1. I can use expanded clay in the soil mixture or Gaia Soil in the trays as opposed to the not great for the planet or weight of the modules slate that is used in the commercial mixtures.
2. I can try a few different seedum mixtures as well as try mixing in some different plant types – like native flowers or herbs that don’t require a lot of depth.
3. I can share the “how-to” so that people can make their own!

“Green” Roof_5-29-08, originally uploaded by jimbrickett.

This is very exciting to me! I have to thank Hans Hesselein for getting me started on researching the DIY green roof options. I found a great resource of information on the Reclaimed Home blog.

Now I have to find a garden apartment (or one with roof/terrace) to move into so that I can get to work on planting the modules – anyone?

Seeding the City continues to move forward, with some great advances and additions to the project team. In December I was contacted by Vert, a local green roofing company that was really interested in the project. We met and they are coming on strong as a valuable partner. They are going to help ensure safe installation through design help and installation management. I really look forward to working with them.

Pumice

I also just received notice that the project received a Department of Cultural Affairs grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council, which is great news!

Finally I met with the inspirational and endlessly fascinating Josh Klein, who is working on (among many other things), a project called Seed/Bed, whereby he will transform an airstream into a carbon negative machine which will eventually find a home on an NYC rooftop where it will plug into the systems to help reduce energy usage.

One of the things he was pushing me to do with the project is to rethink coming up with a new type of green roofing system (I had considered that in the early days and discarded it). We talked about different ideas, roll out turf, seeded felt, but our favorite was the potential of impregnated exploded clay. With all of its water absorption and drainage it offers similar positive affects on stormwater runoff. It is lightweight and increases the surface area, plus there might be some plants that could grow in it with little to no maintenance. I am doing some, research, will let you know…

In the meantime, if you are a designer interested in working on the project pro bono – potential for a lot of exposure though – let me know. We can start with fixing the logo below.

Any other ides – get in touch!

I’ve been playing with the logo, and have a rough draft. I’m sitting with it for a while. Let me know what you think…

StC Logo

*cross-posted from my general blog*
This idea was directly generated from Matthias Merkel Hess’ posting, “Getting Dirty at the Hammer.” In it he mentions that the panel discussion (featuring Steve Badgett/SimpArch, Amy Franceschini/Futurefarmers and Nance Klehm) discussed the role of the gallery for artists who work in communities on a project basis. Amy Franceschini stated something about (in Matthias’ words) “Franceschini said the gallery can be used as a testing ground and that failure is possible without hurting anyone.”

Last night I was trying to figure out how on earth I would store the 100+ plots for the “Seeding the City” project as they await installation. Then I realized that it would be a fabulous gallery show. I could keep all of the plots on the floor of the gallery, as they left the gallery to be planted, in their place would be inscribed the location to which they are taken (the address of the roof). Along the walls would be images of the plots in place. I can even create a little string based network of the plot spaces in the gallery. I LOVE THIS IDEA! So now I have to either find a gallery that would be up for this for the entire 3-5 month project timeline (at least it is summer!) or get a Swing Space from LMCC. If you have a gallery & are interested, be sure to contact me!

So lots of exciting news!

1. I think I have found a roof! A friend of mine who lives nearby has a roof I can use for the 6 test plots we are doing. It’s a super secret location and I need to get an architect to check it out for me, but it is all looking really good!
2. I spoke early this morning with my friend Jim, from Pride’s Corner, he is the local nursery for LiveRoof and will be planting the plugs and nurturing the modules for me. He will be starting my plots early next week. They get to live at the nursery for 3 months (ish) before coming to NYC.
3. We decided that we would do half the plots with pure native seedum, and the other half will be a mix of native & non-native. (While I prefer the pure native, I also want to ensure that the plants will survive AND thrive, so we are testing them this winter).
4. Jim is hosting some green roof installer training programs this month – I am going to attend one! (I think that is SUPER cool).

So all is going well and I am excited about the updates. I will see if I can get some pictures of the plots to post for all of us to see!

*I am doing 6 test plots because I will need to check the configuration for survivability. Usually the roofs are extensive enough that the plots will all provide a buffer for one another. I need to ensure that a single plot, or a grouping of two will do well.

I have a flat of gorgeous native woodland seedum. I will be planting them in containers and will sell them (with a small flag & project info on the side) to help raise money for the project. They are really beautiful with little white flowers. Wait, let me take a picture.

It will be a limited edition piece (less than 50), but these are great seedum to have at home. I am going to price them at $50 per. If you would like to pre-order one, let me know (eve at seedingthecity dot com).

Also, I have posted on ThePoint.com to see if I can get that tipping point to work, today they sent me a “widget” to post:

However, at this point I am most excited about a microfinancing idea: ArtPowered.com.