Hudson River Park continues to be one of the most vibrant spaces in New York City. I encourage you to visit the next time you're in the area - you will see why it is so special.
Hudson River Park is considered the largest open space project in Manhattan since Central Park. At four miles long, it is the longest waterfront park in the country and attracts millions of visitors each year. I am very proud to be on the Board of Hudson River Park Friends - an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the development, care, and enhancement of the space, and the designated fundraising partner of the Hudson River Park Trust. Earlier this week, hundreds of dedicated supporters gathered to celebrate the park’s continued growth at the 25th annual Hudson River Park Gala. The evening included cocktails followed by dinner, a live auction and a musical performance at Manhattan's Chelsea Piers overlooking the Hudson River. It was a beautiful evening and a successful event.
Enjoy these photos.
I am a very big supporter of the Hudson River Park – my family and I have spent lots of time enjoying its playgrounds and waterfront views. This is historic Pier 57. The public rooftop, with its incredible views of Little Island and New York Harbor, opened in 2022. (Photo courtesy of HudsonRiverPark.org)
Just south of Manhattan’s 14th Street is a new Hudson River Park pier known as Little Island. It is a free public Park pier within the larger Hudson River Park, which opened to the public in May 2021. (Photo courtesy of HudsonRiverPark.org)
Another beautiful place for visitors to sit, relax and enjoy the spectacular city views is Pier 76. Tanneries, meat-packing plants, and horse barns surrounded the area in the 1800s attracting laborers and dock workers seeking employment. In the years following, the waterfront became a major freight hub and transatlantic travel station. Today, Pier 76 is a public, open space with new pavement, railings, lighting, seating, decorative paint, plants and interpretive plaques focused on the pier’s history and ecology. (Photo courtesy of HudsonRiverPark.org)
This is the new Gansevoort Peninsula – the largest stand-alone recreational space in Hudson River Park. It features 5.5 acres with a sandy shoreline beach, ball field, pine grove, boardwalks, adult fitness equipment, and a salt marsh. (Photo courtesy of HudsonRiverPark.org)
And this is Chelsea Waterside, which shows the expansion of green, planted spaces. (Photo courtesy of HudsonRiverPark.org)
Interesting and beautiful specimens are all over Hudson River Park. This is a portion of the Greenwich Village Esplanade planted with Zelcova trees, a hardwood tree in the elm family.
Every year, I make it a point to attend the Hudson River Park Gala in New York City. It is a fun evening and an important fundraising event to support the Park’s operations and public programming, including its year-round educational, environmental, sustainability and cultural programs.
The host was comedian, writer, and actor, Ronny Chieng.
The event honored Susanna Aaron, television producer and HRPF Board Citizen Advocate Secretary, for her dedication to the park. This year, Turner Construction Company was also honored.
Chair of Hudson River Park Trust Board of Directors, Diana Taylor also addressed the audience.
George Pataki, the 53rd Governor of the State of New York was also in attendance.
The dinner’s menu included this tomato tarte tatin with goat cheese, caramelized onions, olives, arugula, shaved fennel salad.
Our entrée was a Chatham day boat cod with tri-fingerling potatoes, grilled corn, carrots, leeks, charred lemon, lovage, creamy Chardonnay soubise and on the side, poppadom crisp.
Our dessert was an assortment of sweets presented on a tray for each table.
Here I am with Ronny and his wife, Hannah Pham. All the guests were encouraged to wear “silver anniversary accents” to commemorate the nonprofit’s 25-years of dedication to improving the city’s Hudson River Park. Do you follow me on Instagram @MarthaStewart48? I showed photos of this beautiful silver dress designed and made by my friend, Andy Chia Yu.
Our table, #31, was quite full. Several colleagues and friends joined me including these three Ryans – Ryan Conway, Ryan Mesina, and Ryan McCallister.
Here’s Daisy Schwartzberg Toye, and Ben Luckadoo.
And here’ Patsy Pollack and Kevin Sharkey.
Everyone took photos to post on their personal social media pages. Here’s another fun snapshot – Ryan, Zaki Kamandy, Hosanna Houser, Ryan, and Ben.
It was a very lovely evening for all. I encourage you to visit New York City’s Hudson River Park. It is a spectacular space.
My living maze is getting more "a-mazing" with each row of plantings.
My three-acre living maze is located in a pasture just outside my Winter House. I started planting it a little over a year ago with a variety of different hedges, espaliers, trees, and shrubs. All of the specimens will grow tall enough to prevent walkers from seeing the paths ahead. We've been planting a section per week while the ground is still soft. Most recently, we planted a row of hedge maples, Acer campestre, and a row of American hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana. Both are deciduous tree types and turn beautiful colors in fall.
Enjoy these photos.
This view looks down the pasture to the London planetrees, which is the center focal point of the maze. We still have a long way to go, but we’re making progress every week and all the plantings are doing excellently.
Planting any row of specimens always starts with a carefully measured line. The maze is drawn out on a map, so the area is marked according to the map’s specifications.
The next step is to remove the sod from the designated area. This is done with our Classen Pro HSC18 sod cutter. This sod cutter is so easy to maneuver and so sharp, Chhiring finishes one row in just minutes.
It cuts the sod in two strips, which are then cut and rolled into sections, so they can be removed. Sod is quite heavy. The sod will be used in another section of the farm, so nothing is wasted.
This is what the cleared area looks like once all the sod is pulled up.
Then, all the potted trees are placed right where they should be planted. Everyone works in an efficient production line process. All the trees are positioned first before any planting begins. This is a row of hedge maples.
The leaves of a hedge maple are two to four inches wide, with opposite arrangement and three to five lobes each. Here, one can see the green foliage and the bright yellow color that follows in autumn.
And here is a row of American hornbeam. Songbirds are attracted to its forked branches, dense crown and tasty seeds. These will mature nicely in the maze.
The American hornbeam has leaves that are oval with pointed tips and finely toothed edges. They become golden yellow to orange in autumn.
Each tree hole is dug with enough room for the plant’s root ball. The rule of thumb when planting trees is to dig the hole two times as wide as the rootball and no deeper than the bottom of the rootball to the trunk flare. The flare of the tree should be at or slightly above the soil grade. More simply, the tree should be planted similar to how it is in its pot.
Byron places the potted tree in the hole to make sure it is the right size. When planting, always check that the plant is positioned with the best side facing out, or in this case, facing the path.
Here is the hole – perfectly sized for this tree.
Then, a good handful of fertilizer is dropped into the hole. We use all-natural fertilizers enhanced with beneficial bacteria that works naturally within the soil to help plants establish fast, withstand environmental stress, promote deeper roots, better blooms, and improve soil structure.
Before planting, Byron removes the tree from its pot and scarifies the rootball. Scarifying stimulates root growth. Essentially, he teases small portions of the root ball to loosen the roots a bit and create some beneficial injuries. This helps the plant become established more quickly in its new environment.
Then Byron places it into the hole and backfills with soil. It’s that easy to plant a tree!
Once it is planted, the surrounding soil is tamped down to ensure good contact between the plant and the soil.
After a group is in the ground, Byron looks down the line to make sure they are all planted straight up and down and in line with each other.
Hedge maples will grow to be about 35 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of about 30 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of four feet from the ground. These trees are expected to live for 80 years or more.
The American hornbeam is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree that grows slowly, about a foot per year, reaching an average height and spread of 20 to 30 feet over a life span of 50 to 150 years. The last step is a good, deep drink. Remember, if you drink and eat, so should your plants and trees.
Recently, we also planted this row of holly. Many varieties of holly, Ilex, have compact habits and glistening, bright green foliage, that’s excellent for hedges, borders, and yes, mazes.
In August, we planted this row of yews. Yews are known for being slow-growing, but in the right conditions, yew hedge trees can grow about 30-centimeters per year. These yews are spaced closely, so they become a closed hedge in time.
We also planted these privets. Ligustrum ovalifolium, also known as Korean privet, California privet, garden privet, and oval-leaved privet, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family native to Japan and Korea. It is a dense, fast-growing, deciduous evergreen shrub or small tree.
And this is a Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Slender Silhouette’, American sweetgum. As this tree mature, it will maintain its erect, columnar form, growing up to 50 feet tall and only about four-feet wide.
My overall plan is to plant as many interesting trees, hedges, espaliers, and shrubs as possible in this space and to create a fun and challenging living maze. Follow along and see it develop with me!
Autumn is a busy time for gardeners in cold weather regions - it's a race to get all the tropical plants stored indoors and safe in their greenhouses.
Here at my Bedford, New York farm, I currently have four hoop houses designated specifically for warm weather specimens. The hoop houses are constructed from steel frames and Polyethylene panels. While they are extremely durable and long lasting, it was time to replace the existing cover and curtains on the structure located between my Equipment Barn and my vegetable greenhouse. My crew took on this task while the weather was still mild.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This is one of three large hoop houses where I keep many of my tropical and citrus plants during the cold season. The plants that are displayed at Skylands, my home in Maine, are brought back to Bedford every fall for proper storage and care. The Polyethylene “skin” or cover on this structure was several years old and needed replacing.
Last year, this house was used to store all my potted citrus plants. This year, this house will store other tropical specimens. I decide where the plants are placed at the end of the season based on the number of specimens and how much they’ve grown.
The first step is to remove the old “skin.” It is removed from the hoop house and neatly rolled. What is salvageable is stored and what is not is discarded.
Here is the hoop house without its skin. The skin covers a frame built using heavy gauge American made, triple-galvanized steel tubing. I chose this gothic style because of its high peak to accommodate my taller plants.
The new skin comes in two rolls – one is a heavy-duty, woven polyethylene that features an anti-condensate additive to reduce moisture buildup and dripping. The other side contains UV additives that allow the fabric to maintain its strength through the seasons.
Using our trusted Hi-Lo, Doug, Cesar, Pasang, and Phurba hoist the rolls spooled on steel pipes on top of the frame and start to unroll them. Both fabric pieces must be perfectly in line to cover the structure properly and fully.
This process takes about 45-minutes. The greenhouse fabric is very heavy, but my crew is very strong. The greenhouse is about 60-feet by 40-feet so there is a lot of space to cover.
Next, the crew unfolds the fabric over the sides – they do this slowly, so the fabric pieces remain together and straight.
Next, Pete secures spring wires in the metal channels that support the plastic and keep it taut.
These three and four foot long spring wires compress and elongate when installed within the metal channels. They are installed all around the structure.
Pete secures the wire at the top of the hoop house and along all the edges.
Here, Pete and Doug re-install the inflation blower. This centrifugal blower maintains the air in the space between the poly film layers to provide insulation.
Once it is turned on, the space between the two layers of plastic fills with air to keep the hoop house warm and insulated. The air layer prevents heat loss at half the rate of single-paned glass.
Outside, Pete moves onto the curtains. These manual roll-up curtains attached to a steel pipe that runs along the length of the hoop house will raise and lower the bottom section of the Polyethylene fabric for ventilation when needed.
Strong polyester curtain cords are looped through these screw eyes to hold the curtains in place.
The cords are also spread along the curtain in a zigzag pattern for best hold and even lifting and lowering.
Doug trims any excess plastic around the structure. On the front and back of the hoop house are polycarbonate clear wall sheets. Significantly lighter than glass, these sheets are easy to install and will help insulate the structure from both the front and back.
Look what Doug saw on a nearby plant – a praying mantis watching all the activity around the hoop house. Mantids are warm-region insects. The Chinese mantis, Tenodera aridifolia sinensis, and the common European mantis, Mantis religiosa, were both introduced to the Northeast for insect control. All are known by the common name praying mantis. Although 1,800 species exist worldwide, only 11 are found in North America. They are two to four inches long when fully grown. Ranging from green to brown in color, they blend in well among grasses and shrubs. It is the only insect that can rotate its head 180-degrees. They also have very good eyesight and may see possible prey from 60-feet away.
Here is the new skin – notice how full the top of the structure is after it is fully inflated. This Polyethylene fabric is designed to stand up to just about any climate. It also resists rips and tears, so it could last up to 10-years depending on the weather.
Here is Pete checking that all the edges are tight and secure around the structure, trimming wherever is needed.
The steep roof slope of this structure will also prevent snow accumulation during the winter months. It fits so well in this location. I am very fortunate to have the space here at the farm to accommodate these hoop houses for my plants.
The finished hoop house is now ready for storing my tropical plants. This greenhouse works by heating and circulating air to create an artificial tropical environment. It includes three fans and a propane fueled heater inside. It is an excellent way to ensure my warm weather specimens survive the cold winters of the Northeast. Wait until you see how many plants we can fit in here – you’ll be amazed.
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