Blogs for February, 2014

Raise of hands (click of the mouse in the comment section): Who is a fan of Amy Poehler’s character Leslie Knope in Parks & Rec?  I have to admit to only watching sporadically, but I love the idea of a woman so devoted to her community that she is personally picking slugs off a complaining neighbor’s sidewalk.

Living in the sprawl of Los Angeles, it’s easy to forget that there are people out there who foresee a greener, cleaner, pedestrian and park-friendly city.  Known as a concrete jungle, L.A. is slowly growing greener – through the creation of parklets, former parking spots transformed into café seating for reading, eating, or meeting friends, or equipped with workout gear and places to play foosball or chess, as well as the 50 Parks Initiative, that aims to green the city after the destruction of the recession, reclaiming abandoned and foreclosed places as green spaces.

Surrounding yourself with beauty can actually make us healthier.  In Krista Tippet’s “On Being” interview with Esther Sternberg, she explores how “architects are working with scientists to imbue the spaces we move through — the sights, sounds, and smells of them — with active healing properties.”

Ms. Sternberg, whose books include Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well Being and The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health & Emotions, references a well-controlled study by environmental psychologist Robert Ulrich, of hospitalized patients, that “even with all these controls where the single variable that differed between patients was the view out the window, what he found was that the patients with a view of a grove of trees left hospital on average a day sooner, needed less pain medication, and had fewer negative nurse’s notes than patients who had a view of a brick wall.”

Knowing that, how can we stop staring at brick walls, and make our city a healthier and happier place to live?  According to the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks, “The keys to the successful implementation of this initiative are; (1) the establishment of local partnerships; (2) the use of a community driven design process; and, (3) the strict use of low maintenance design standards. Each new park created through this initiative will be developed through an incremental process as resources, and funding are identified and secured.”

Want to add more green, community, and life to your part of the city? Contact your councilperson, and ask what you can do.  A city is alive, showing the soul of the people who live there. We may not be willing to de-slug our neighbor’s sidewalk, but I have faith there’s a little Lesley Knope in all of us.

Do you have a favorite park or parklet in your community? Share photos or stories with us on Twitter @TheCityFarm & @RebeccaSnavely.

(Photo: Los Angeles Parklets, The Architect’s Newspaper Blog)

They both hit the glass window at the same time, and fell with a soft thud, two little hummingbird bodies stilled mid-flirtatious-flight.  Horrified that their mating ritual had resulted in coma conditions, I watched as my mother opened the sliding door and knelt over the tiny birds. They’re alive, she proclaimed, and created a sugar water mix to nurse them back to flight, when they woke from their love-stupor.

It was the first time I’d seen the teeny birds up close, and I was enraptured. As a child, I’d believed the old wives tale that hummingbirds never stopped whirring about. (I wasn’t one to lean towards the logical.) As an adult, I’ve carefully cleaned and filled with sugar-water the feeders at a friend’s house, sitting and enjoying the bitty-birds as they perch on the plastic ledge, dipping their beaks into the fake-flowers.

I love the image of the birds so much, I stock up and give away greeting cards that baffle my friends (but, they reply, I’m not technically getting married / having a baby / honoring a dead pet) from Papyrus, simply for their logo, the round sticker with the image of the bird, and the reminder they include: “Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration.”

Papyrus’s site continues to explain that, “Hummingbirds open our eyes to the wonder of the world and inspire us to open our hearts to loved ones and friends. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and to savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everyday. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.”

Want to bring more awareness, presence and hummingbirds to your backyard, sans sugar water?  Plant bright flowers that will draw them in. Hummingbirds do not have a great sense of smell, and beeline for color.  The Old Farmer’s Almanac suggests you choose reds and oranges, and create a habitat that will give them shade, shelter, food, and security. Their list includes petunia, foxglove, lily, and something called soapwort, which I HAD to look up.

According to Wikipedia, soapwort, or Saponaria, is a genus of flowering plants in the pink family, Caryophyllaceae. They are native to Europe and Asia, and are commonly known as soapworts.  They are herbaceous perennials and annuals, some with woody bases. The flowers are abundant, five-petalled and usually in shades of pink or white. (You’ll want to choose the deep pink, for your olfactory-challenged hummingbird friends.)

Gardening Know How shares that “the plant makes a good addition to empty beds, woodland edges, or rock gardens. Soapwort seeds can be started indoors in late winter with young transplants set out in the garden after the last frost in spring. Otherwise, they can be sown directly in the garden in spring. Germination takes about three weeks, give or take.”

With spring just around the corner, will you plan to plant soapwort in your garden? It also grows well in containers, for those of us concrete-bound city dwellers.  And a bonus: it was named “soapwort” as it works as a detergent!  Checkout The Herb Gardener for tips on how to use your Saponaria inside, from a gentle cleanser for your quilts, to a facial cleanser or shampoo!

(Photos: Hummingbird – amsdaily.net; Soapwort – LifeSeedCompany.com)