NYC Tree Pit Permaculture Brainstorming

Hey permies,

I've got this tree pit on a NYC sidewalk, zone 7b.

This used to be a patch of grass. Then the city planted a Japanese flowering cherry tree last year with a light layer of mulch.

There's now some bare soil. Some volunteer plants have arrived.  Dogs poop in here. Trash gets blown in and trapped. To your average urban passerby it's probably an ugly scene. I'd like to give it some love and design a long term system.

Conventional wisdom would probably say to clean the edges, maybe put a guard around the perimeter, pull all the weeds, and layer wood chips. But the soil line is so high that wood chips spill out of the pit onto the concrete. Maybe soil needs to be taken out then layer of chips, or a solid container wall put in.

Personally it'd be nice to see it grow wild with a diversity of plants that play nice with the cherry tree. But it seems at odds with how city people view ornamental urban design.

Does anyone have suggestions of a compromise here? Maintenance plan? Examples of this done well before? Or any thoughts at all?

Thanks,
Chris

If you plant something then the soil won't be bare and thus weeds won't be so plentiful.  What about some sort of groundcover native to the area?

I've heard that a role of spring bulbs in forests, is to support trees.  I would see if you can get bulbs that flower at different times, crocus is early, Fawn lily (different names in different parts of the country - Erythronium ) comes later, and I think daffodils later yet. These hopefully will come up year after year, if the squirrels don't take them. Then I'd look at any other flowers that easily self-seed.

Alternatively, I would try to make people smile! Make them love that little patch of dirt, by making it stand out. Heck, plant a circle of yellow flowers with the darkest flowers you can buy making up eyes and smile for a traditional "Happy Face" shape and see if *that* will get noticed?

Planting edibles that close to a road isn't the best option anyway with dogs peeing etc. That said... if the tree does manage to flourish, bud-grafting some edible cherry varieties could work. It's not like the city can't just cut those branches off if they create too much mess. I suspect the birds will get every cherry before mess can happen.

Riona Abhainn wrote:If you plant something then the soil won't be bare and thus weeds won't be so plentiful.  What about some sort of groundcover native to the area?

Hey Riona,

I love the native groundcover idea. I will try to get a blanket of that going a long with some other plants in between.

Jay Angler wrote:I've heard that a role of spring bulbs in forests, is to support trees.  I would see if you can get bulbs that flower at different times, crocus is early, Fawn lily (different names in different parts of the country - Erythronium ) comes later, and I think daffodils later yet. These hopefully will come up year after year, if the squirrels don't take them. Then I'd look at any other flowers that easily self-seed.

Alternatively, I would try to make people smile! Make them love that little patch of dirt, by making it stand out. Heck, plant a circle of yellow flowers with the darkest flowers you can buy making up eyes and smile for a traditional "Happy Face" shape and see if *that* will get noticed?

Planting edibles that close to a road isn't the best option anyway with dogs peeing etc. That said... if the tree does manage to flourish, bud-grafting some edible cherry varieties could work. It's not like the city can't just cut those branches off if they create too much mess. I suspect the birds will get every cherry before mess can happen.

Hey Jay,

I have not worked with bulbs yet, but I will look into them.

I love the goal of trying to make people smile.

Grafting edible cherries onto the tree is a fantastic idea! It's not too late for me to buy some scion for this growing season. Thank you so much I love that idea.