It looks like someone’s attention was grabbed by Carole Osterink’s post taking the City to task for suffocating the bases of trees with mulch or dirt. Mounding up material above a tree’s roots can indeed result in both rot and disease. Yesterday, en route route to grab a beer aboard the Spirit of Hudson, a friend and I noticed that someone had made “moats” around all the treetrunks in the Waterfront park.
While the effect looks a bit like some children were playing with mashed potatoes with their index fingers—and is still somewhat problematic, since water can now pool in the “moat” rather than running off—this at least proves that someone pays attention to local blogs... Whether it’s the DPW or a vigilante gardener is anybody’s guess. Meanwhile, it was also nice to see that several sycamores have been planted in the park; though these can grow enormously, they make excellent urban trees. Check back in about 15-20 years to see just how magnificent these trees (two of which I planted in front of Curtiss House back in the early part of the last decade) can be.
The Spirit of Hudson, by the way, is now serving from 5-10 pm most nights when they’re docked in Hudson, making it the first time in the 14 years I’ve lived here that the public can order a drink at the Waterfront. They are also having a soft launch this weekend of a pontoon boat ferry back and forth across the river, leaving Hudson on the hour and Athens on the half-hour from 5 to 10:30 pm. Check their full schedule, here, for details.
A visit to the Crossroads brewery and dinner at the waterfront café in Athens (now being run by Diane Rodriguez, who is familiar to many Hudsonians from her time at Nolitas) seems in order.
