Spring in Windsor Terrace: My Little Garden Wakes Up
Windsor Terrace is a residential neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, just south of Prospect Park. We traded the luxurious space of a kitchen garden for windowbox salads, and the mosquitoes for the clear air and wide skies of a top floor.
Photography by Marie Viljoen .
The small terrace is poised above a row of backyard gardens. Because social media likes hashtags, I called our new little garden #thewindsorterrace.
A Windsor Terrace cherry tree in April. Spring on the sidewalks of the neighborhood is heralded by early cherry blossoms and Callery pears, which burst into bloom before trees have begun to think about turning green.
Labrador tea flowers with a background of black snakeroot’s purple leaves. But in the shaded part closest to the building, plants that prefer dappled light or semi-shade do best.
Black snakeroot, arugula, and foamflower share a pot with prickly ash. On the sunniest edge of the terrace is an improvised birch pole trellis, its rustic intention to interrupt the view of a wide expanse of barren rooftop below.
Allium schubertii has large, loose blooms.
Once most nights are reliably in the high 40’s or over 50’F, our flock of citrus trees moves outdoors. The Australian finger lime, or caviar lime (Citrus australasica) is a particularly rewarding small-space citrus tree because it is easy to keep trimmed-down to fit a windowsill-sized pot.
The luminous flowers of a Rhododendron are very effective through the lengthening spring evenings. One of the plants that made the move with us is a nameless Rhododendron, which I dug up and planted in a temporary and enormous black nursery pot.
The fieldstone-topped table where we sip sundowners, share dinner, or drink a morning cup of coffee.
As we sip a ritual drink together, mockingbirds visit (encouraged by a dish of blueberries), an American robin’s song sweetens the city’s soundscape, and a bright cardinal broadcasts from the top of a catalpa tree.