So we now had this nice cleared site, about 45 ft by 20, and the question was what else were we going to plant? The stated goal of the garden was to attract birds and butterflies, Someone had the brilliant idea that we could plant some trees. Enter John from Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, their resident botanist. We talked about our options for flowering trees to attract birds, and eventually settled on some Serviceberry trees. These have pretty flowers in the spring, and berries in the fall. The berries are good for birds. After some work with the “Google Box” we found a local nursery who supplied us with three nice specimens.
In middle October, Christina and John from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance (the new organization that supports the park, created from the merging together of Friends of Van Cortlandt Park and Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy) did further preparation of the ground using their rototiller machine – also battery powered.
It took just a couple of hours to prepare the ground, and before we knew it, our three trees were planted.
