The verb “to schlep” seems peculiarly suited to New York City, and a walk from the Garment District through Hell’s Kitchen towards the Hudson River is quite a schlep.
Photography by Valery Rizzo for Gardenista.
There have been some proper pockets of greening on Manhattan’s west side over the last decade and a half (including the addition of Little Island, a garden pier by 14th Street), but the sights and sounds around this part of town still mainly consist of shiny new skyscrapers and relentless drilling.
Between Hell’s Kitchen and the Hudson, a food forest thrives in three feet of soil, on the roof of North Javits. The roof gardens at North Javits were implemented at the same time as the new building’s construction, and they have benefitted from forward planning.
Looking towards the Empire State Building on 34th Street, the Farm at the Javits Center is on 11th Avenue. The Farm at the Javits Center is the definition of “state of the art” with a pavilion shaped like an airline hangar that can seat several thousand people.
With purpose-built beds of 12-18″ in depth, the farm at Javits North is an “intensive green roof.”
The biodiversity of the food forest, part of the 38-tree orchard, creates a more complex and resilient space in which to grow food for people and other species—all of whom desperately need green infrastructure in any built environment.
At the northwest edge of the food forest, asparagus, grasses, and evergreens form a middle story, with fruit trees above and ground-covering strawberries at the herbaceous layer, along with volunteer leafy greens.
Dozens of apple and pear trees, long grown in the New England region, were originally planted as an orchard of 10,000 square feet.
Deep containers filled with native perennials line the Pavilion to the left, with a pollinator meadow and habitat running alongside.
The plantings include Joe Pye weed, purple coneflower, snakeroot, false indigo, columbine, black-eyed Susan, mountain mint, and plants in the sunflower family (Helianthus).
Harvesting elderberry, earlier in the season. Many are native to the New York region, such as elderberry, pawpaw, beach plum, American licorice, serviceberry, yaupon (with caffeine in its leaves), Montauk daisy, and false indigo.
Elder is a famous wildlife attractant and also provides two seasons of harvest. The installation of the intensive green roof (the farm) has attracted more birds, with the greatest increase in diversity noted in the forest garden.
Harvesting native Concord grapes from the forest garden for the first time this year.
In the foreground to the left, evergreen inkberry (Ilex glabra), with big bluestem grass (Andropogon gerardii) behind, are native plants used as windbreaks for strong winds off the Hudson River.
Woody perennials, like wind-hardy Russian sage, false indigo, euonymus, stay in the ground over winter, and crops are left in place later than in a conventional farm.
It doesn’t take much imagination to understand the heat island effect in Manhattan.