During Climate Week 2020 (September 19 - 26), Hunters Point Parks Conservancy partnered with Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA) and many dedicated volunteers to create a pollinator garden on the medians on 48th Ave. in Long Island City. Additional partners on the project include Hunter’s Point Community Middle School, PS/IS 78, and the New York City Department of Transportation.
HPPC and NCA worked with many volunteers over the course of four days -starting with removing weeds and trash from the long-neglected medians on Saturday, 9/19. We then planted over 600 native grasses and wildflowers in the Western median on Wednesday, 9/23 and another 500+ on the Eastern median on Friday, 9/25. The project was completed on Saturday, 9/26 by spreading mulch around the plants on both medians. In total, over 1,100 plants were planted on the medians and over 75 volunteers helped on the project.
We were also fortunate enough to have the support of U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who stopped by twice to lend a hand and commend our work.
In future school years, the garden will be used by students at both Hunter’s Point Community Middle School and PS/IS 78 as a teaching tool when they navigate the Newtown Creek Urban Ecology Curriculum that NCA & HPPC co-produced and introduced into their classrooms.
The benefits of this type of garden are many, most notably as habitat for ecological valuable pollinators, like butterflies, moths, and bees and small birds. They also provide important ecosystem services including infiltration and filtration of stormwater, carbon storage, and nutrient recycling. Wildflower meadows are ecologically-friendly landscape components that, once established, have minimal maintenance requirements (University of New Hampshire Extension, 2019).
Ongoing maintenance work on the medians will be carried out by Newtown Creek Alliance and Hunters Point Parks Conservancy.
The 48th Median planting project is generously supported through the NYC Environmental Fund administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and NY State Department of Environmental Conservation. Additional funding for the project has been generously provided by Arc’Teryx. All median work is in tandem with and approved by the Queens Department of Transportation.