With April coming to a close, this weekend is a good time to sneak in some last minute plants and flowers. Greensboro’s permaculture expert and Downtown Greenway consultant Charlie Headington offers a few ideas to feed the "thieves" and other beneficial insects needed to maintain a healthy organic garden.
"Some for the thieves, some for the birds, and some for us," Charlie says. "Beneficial insects manage the not-so-beneficial insects, or insects that we don't want. In an organic garden, you let insects manage other insects."
Butterfly Garden
Butterfly Bush - attracts the yellow swallowtail butterfly
Butterfly Weed - a bright orange flower, which attracts monarch butterflies
Pawpaw Tree - produces edible fruit, which attracts the zebra swallowtail butterfly
Ground cover plants that attract beneficial insects
Ajuga
Stonecrop
Strawberry
Pennyroyal
White clover (attracts honeybees for clover honey)
Hide a fence or garden wall
Trumpet honeysuckle (for the hummingbirds)
[caption id="attachment_1816" align="alignright" width="300"] Charlie Headington's plans for the West Smith and Prescott Streets' cornerstone orchard.[/caption]
These plants and flowers will be included in the proposed orchard and garden design that Charlie created for the West Smith and Prescott Street area near the Greenway. Read the Greensboro News & Record article on the garden’s planned design and for more information about the planned sculptures and seating area designed by Boston, MA, architects Mags Harries and Lajos Héder.
Learn more about Permaculture Gardening with Charlie Headington. Charlie is hosting a Permaculture Gardening Workshop on Saturday, April 27. To register, email charlie.headington@gmail.com.
My name is Bri Simpson, and I’m originally from Seattle, Washington, actually a little bit south of Seattle, in Tacoma. When I moved here, I was looking specifically for an apartment building of some kind. I really wanted some of the amenities, so not just the location was important to me. I also wanted to make it really feel like home, and be in a place that I could live in for not just a year or a couple of years, so I could really establish a home here. This location has all sorts of things: the pool, the stadium, workout facilities. In addition, it’s a little bit out of downtown so I still get to go downtown and have the downtown vibe. I like the Fisher Park neighborhood. It offers a little bit more nature than being right downtown.
Throughout my 11 years with REI, I’ve pretty much tried everything that we have to offer—being out west with people who take part in mountaineering and a lot of the snow sports. Then moving out here, I got into biking in Asheville. Asheville is a huge bike community, so when I moved to Greensboro there were some things that I really looked at. The trails are close by. It has a lot to offer as far as mountain biking and hiking trails. And the Greenway was something that I really appreciated—being able to go out my back door and jump on the Greenway for a ride or to commute to work.
One of the things that drew me to this location was being literally right on the Downtown Greenway. It’s also very, very close to the green that went to REI. So essentially, I can ride my bike or run to Friendly Center and be right at work in a really easy amount of time. It makes the commute a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable than my commute in Nashville.
My name is Scott Neely, and I live in downtown Greensboro in the south side district. Aside from being a youth and arts director, I’m finishing my post-graduate certificate in Sustainable Community Planning and Design from Boston Architectural College. One of the things that caught my eye with the Downtown Greenway project was the Greenway at Fisher Park being developed along Smith Street. I noticed the curbs and the sunken area...and I thought that looked a little different than what we normally see. Putting two and two together with what I’ve been studying, I immediately thought that it had to be a sustainable rain garden—and I was really excited about that!
In truth, we are really good at paving things. We actually need to have a little bit of a concrete diet in our lifestyle. The importance of this rain garden is that it catches the water without it running off into the storm drains, especially when we experience a heavy storm. Storm drains can overflow in major rains, so when it overflows it can create flooding and water pollution. Also when water hits an impervious surface, it can run for miles and collect a bunch of pollutants along the way. Sustainability is not just a trend. It’s here to stay, and it’s what we all need to start thinking about as we move forward.
The City of Greensboro is testing stormwater tree wells on the newly constructed section of the Downtown Greenway on West Smith Street at the Greenway at Fisher Park Apartments. The tree wells will improve water quality by filtering and cleaning rainwater runoff through specially constructed soil in the tree well. For more information on this 'green' stormwater treatment system, click here to view the recent article in the Greensboro News & Record.
According to Time Magazine, "The future of garbage is greener, cleaner, smarter and cheaper to pick up." Learn more about how the Downtown Greenway is staying on the forefront of this trend with our BigBelly solar panel trash cans. Read the full Time Magazine article here, and see a BigBelly in action at the Downtown Greenway Morehead Park Trailhead Parking!
